That language has been dropped, but very dangerous language remains. Once we give the government the right to decide what consenting adults are allowed say to one another, then we are on a slippery slope. Here at the top of the slope, almost everyone will agree that certain kinds of words and images are, indeed, indecent. Today it's pornography. Tomorrow, it might be teaching evolution, or sex education, or criticising the government.
Free speech is often unpleasant, but the alternative is controlled speech, the hallmark of tyranny.
Our other liberties rest upon the foundation of free speech. We don't need a new law that fails to protect citizens from shocking material, but does give the State more power to regulate how we communicate. S 314 will not stop pornography online because today's technology makes it possible to encode pornographic images inside the data used to transmit innocent looking images. And it is unenforceable unless we want to send decency troops to a dozen different countries. The proposed law will make you liable if someone doesn't like the language you used in an e- mail argument.