DOPA is a DOPEY Idea

I've been reading about this bill. Will Richardson gives the short version of why it's a bad idea. Here's his opening graph. Click the link to read the rest.

As Congress reconvened this week, the Senate will shortly be taking up discussion of HR 5319, otherwise known as the Deleting Online Predators Act (DOPA). In a nutshell, the bill proposes to block schools and libraries from accessing any site that allows for the creation of public Web pages or profiles or risk losing their federal funding. While the obvious intent of the law is to restrict access by minors to sites like MySpace and other social networking arenas, the actual language in the bill is so expansive so as to potentially block literally millions of appropriate, educational and legal sites, meaning sites such as Amazon, Yahoo and others may also be caught in the net.