Even so, recent national laws and proposed blocking systems insidiously encroach on their role as free-flowing channels, or what in the United States would be called common carriers. Under this comforting notion, certain activities would be universally recognized as illegal by all nations. But a look around the world reveals jus cogens to be a Eurocentric intellectual conceit. But there are places in this world where poor families sell their children into prostitution. Even more widespread than sexual abuse is the use of children to work 12 or 16 hours a day making consumer goods.
Analysis suggests that child pornography stands in a position by itself.
Yet the job of law enforcement agencies is to find and prosecute those creating the content. Failure to do so should not be an excuse for imposing controls on the free flow of information and turning access providers into police agents. Questions can also be raised about whether skinhead violence can be traced to right-wing position papers, or rape to pornography. Before the international community is finished, Singapore will tell the U.S. which political positions are allowed on Web sites. In addition to violating the rights of all people to information, jurisdictional content restrictions could force a complete technical reorganization of the Internet so that servers can recognize where users are coming from.