by Dawn Hawkins

Created on: March 22, 2009   Last Updated: February 15, 2012

The internet airwaves are burning up everyday as people search for, well, nearly everything you can think of. You can find out how to cook or get information for you book report at school. The information on the internet can have its drawbacks though. There is misinformation given by people posting whatever they feel like without regards to any truth or reality. There is also the issue of online gambling and pornography. You can probably even learn how to make a bomb or kill someone without being caught.

This would lead you to wonder where the line should be drawn. Should governments censor what we look at? If so, where do they start and where do they end? Is it the government's right to be that involved in what we do in the privacy of our homes? Here is a closer look at what thoughts may occur to those that live in the United States regarding this issue: Is It Illegal?

There are certainly a number of illegal activities flying around the internet. These types of activities are more easily caught than others because the information is more often than not stored somewhere. If you are performing an illegal operation from your computer, you certainly should be held accountable for that.

If you can go to jail for it in real life, there is no reason that you shouldn't go to jail for it for doing it on the internet. Selling drugs, child pornography and theft are all illegal and should hold the same penalties of the state in which those crimes are committed.

Punishing the rest of the country by censoring what we are allowed to do and say on the internet would ruin the entire experience for everyone. There are so many things that have been made easier because of the brilliant invention of the internet it is unlikely that we would want that to end. Censoring the internet because there are bad people there is like coming into each and every persons home and censoring their personal activities.

Where Do You Start? Where Do You End?

Just as a crack house is shut down when the police find out about it and do a "drug bust", an internet site could be shut down in much the same way. Again, if it is illegal, punish the offender, not the rest of the world. Where would we start to figure out what should be censored? Child pornography sounds like a great place to start. It is doubtful that would be enough to soothe some peoples ruffled feathers.

There is no way to censor part of the internet without censoring the entire thing. What some consider completely offensive seems perfectly sound and normal to another. Whose choice is it to decide what can stay and what can go? We could have an internet policing system in place, but someone has to pay for that. If the government can't afford the police that we have available now, it would be a little extreme to think they could pay for an entirely new system set up just for internet policing.

There are things that could change about the internet. Censoring the internet is probably the worst way to go about it though. There is no accounting for some people's tastes. That doesn't stop with the internet though. There are people that should probably be arrested for the way they dress sometimes. The fact of the matter is, we just can't do that.

There are just as many ways to block certain websites from being accessed from home and business computers. It should be left up to the individuals where they go to on the information super highway. The government doesn't need to see into every part of our lives. Criminals exist in our everyday lives, not just on the internet. We are smart people, we have it covered.

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