The sound maxim that often you must take the good with the bad is proven no better than by the Internet. It bursts with useful knowledge and good clean fun.
It also is the habitat of porn merchants and pedophiles. You can look it up, any kid can. The old days are gone when porn was relegated to cheesy shops and clubs, and to backrooms where children were effectively excluded.
The information sources today are widespread. The streams of data are diffuse. Joe computer owner can transmit vile images or movies pretty much anywhere in the world.
A law to protect children was declared unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1997. Then Congress tried again with the Online Child Pornography Act, which never has been enforced because of an injunction that today remains in place.
This week, the Supreme Court punted the statute back to an appeals court for more proceedings in one of the most muddled rulings seen in years.
One problem is that the 'community standards' test of whether something is obscene is problematic because the 'community' is the entire nation.
Another is that, in practical terms, no one has figured out how to insulate children from material that, as a whole, is harmful to children without infringing on the rights of adults.
As Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote: 'It is essential to answer the vexing question of what it means to evaluate Internet material 'as a whole' when everything on the Web is connected to everything else.'
That's the Internet for you.
