Government Intervention On The Internet Essay -- essays research paper

Government Intervention on the meshwork     During the last decade, our society has become based on the sole abilityto move large amounts of information across salient distances quickly.Computerization has influenced everyones life in numerous ways. The naturalevolution of computer engineering and this need for ultra-fast communications hascause a global network of interconnected computers to develop. This globalnetwork allows a person to send E-mail across the world in mere fractions of asecond, and allows a common person to access wealths of information worldwide.This newfound global network, originally called Arconet, was developed andfunded solely by and for the U.S. government. It was to be used in the event ofa nuclear attack in order to keep communications lines open across the countryby rerouting information with different servers across the country. Doesthis mean that the government owns the Internet, or is it no longer a toollimited by the powers tha t govern. Generalities such as these have sparkedgreat debates within our nations government. This paper will attempt to focuson two high profile ethical aspects concerning the Internet and its usage.These subjects are Internet privacy and Internet censorship.     At the moment, the Internet is epitome of our first amendment, freespeech. It is a place where a person can speak their mind without beingreprimanded for what they say or how they choose to say it. But also containedon the Internet, are a huge collection of obscene graphics, Anarchistscookbooks, and countless other things that offend many people. at that place are over30 million Internet surfers in the U.S. alone, and much is to be said about whatoffends whom and how.     As with many new technologies, todays laws dont apply rise when itcomes to the Internet. Is the Internet like a bookstore, where servers can notbe expected to review every title? Is it like a phone company who mol diness ignorewhat it carries because of privacy or is it like a broadcast medium, where thegovernment monitors what is broadcast? The problem we are facing today is thatthe Internet can be all or none of the above depending on how it is used.     Internet censorship, what does it mean? Is it possible to censora... ...m for ourminds thoughts will fade away. We must regulate ourselves as not to force thegovernment to regulate us. If encryption is allowed to catch on, there will nolonger be a need for the government to intervene on the Internet, and thebiggest problem may work itself out. As a whole, we all need to rethink ourapproach to censorship and encryption and allow the Internet to continue to recrudesceand mature.Works CitedCompiled Texts. University of Miami. Miami, Florida.http//www.law.miami.edu/c6.html.Lehrer, Dan. "The Secret Shares Clipper Chips and Cyberpunks." The Nation.     Oct. 10, 1994, 376-379.Messmer, Ellen. "F ighting for Justice on the New Frontier." Network World.     CD-ROM database. Jan. 11, 1993.Messmer, Ellen "Policing Cyberspace." U.S. News & World Report.     Jan. 23, 1995, 55-60.Webcrawler Search Results. Webcrawler. Query Internet, censorship, andethics. expose 12, 1997.Zimmerman, Phil. Pretty Good Privacy v2.62, Online. Ftp//net-dist.mit.edu     Directory /pub/pgp/dist/pgp262dc.zip.