Sometimes when someone tries to do something good they get confused and screw up something else. This is often referred to as the law of unintended consequences. Case in point would be Senator John McCain's new bill to crack down on child pornography on the Internet. No one wants child pornography on the Internet but the problem is that this bill is so broadly written it could be used to shut down a website with an innocent picture like this.

It is an important cause and something must be done but this bill is so poorly written it could be used to harm people that have nothing to do with child pornography. If this sounds a little like the War on Drugs or the War on Terror there may be a reason. Could it be Congress Critters? Senator McCain is not alone in not understanding the Internet.

From CNET News:

Millions of commercial Web sites and personal blogs would be required to report illegal images or videos posted by their users or pay fines of up to $300,000, if a new proposal in the U.S. Senate came into law.

The legislation, drafted by Sen. John McCain and obtained by CNET News.com, would also require Web sites that offer user profiles to delete pages posted by sex offenders.

After child pornography or some forms of "obscenity" are found and reported, the Web site must retain any "information relating to the facts or circumstances" of the incident for at least six months. Webmasters would be immune from civil and criminal liability if they followed the specified procedures exactly.

McCain's proposal, called the "Stop the Online Exploitation of Our Children Act" (click for PDF), requires that reports be submitted to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, which in turn will forward them to the relevant police agency. (The organization received $32.6 million in tax dollars in 2005, according to its financial disclosure documents.)

Internet service providers already must follow those reporting requirements. But McCain's proposal is liable to be controversial because it levies the same regulatory scheme--and even stiffer penalties--on even individual bloggers who offer discussion areas on their Web sites.

More after the jump...

Important UPDATE see comments

"I am concerned that there is a slippery slope here," said Kevin Bankston, an attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation in San Francisco. "Once you start creating categories of industries that must report suspicious or criminal behavior, when does that stop?"

McCain's proposal comes as concern about protecting children online has reached nearly a fever pitch in Washington. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales gave two speeches recently on the topic, including one on Friday in which he said "we must do all that we can to protect our children from these cowardly villains who hide in the shadows of the Internet."

But the reporting rules could prove problematic for individuals and smaller Web sites because the definitions of child pornography have become relatively broad.

According to the proposed legislation, these types of individuals or businesses would be required to file reports: any Web site with a message board; any chat room; any social-networking site; any e-mail service; any instant-messaging service; any Internet content hosting service; any domain name registration service; any Internet search service; any electronic communication service; and any image or video-sharing service.

McCain scored 31 of 100 points on a News.com 2006 election guide scoring technology-related votes.

And in July, for instance, Congress overwhelmingly approved a bill that made it a federal felony for Webmasters to use innocent words like "Barbie" or "Furby" to trick minors into visiting their sites and viewing sexually explicit material.

Next year, Gonzales and the FBI are expected to resume their push for mandatory data retention, which will force Internet service providers to keep records on what their customers are doing online. An aide to Rep. Diana DeGette, a Colorado Democrat, said Friday that she's planning to introduce such legislation when the new Congress convenes.

Cathy Milhoan, an FBI spokeswoman, said on Friday that the FBI "continues to support data retention. We see it as crucial in advancing our cyber investigations to include online sexual exploitation of children."

In addition, Sen. Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, and McCain said that they'll introduce similar legislation dealing with sex offenders and social-networking sites in January.