Let's go to the videotape

Townhall Staff | October 27, 2009 1:45 PM

Carly Fiorina hasn't announced her candidacy for Barbara Boxer's Senate seat yet but the battle between her and Chuck DeVore for the hearts and minds of California Republicans certainly has.

This morning, the DeVore campaign released an edited twenty-three second YouTube video accusing Fiorina of supporting the over-regulation of the web and the infringement of free speech on the Internet during a recent interview.

The supposed gotcha moment is cut from a forty-minute conversation at the 12:00 mark where she is asked about how she thought the Internet should be regulated.

Sounds reasonable and conservative to recognize that the Web is becoming more and more integrated in our lives and commerce, to be against moving the onerous offline tax system online, and to be against making it easier to exploit women, children and families on the web than it is offline.

A lot of Internet purists believe there shouldn't be any standards or rules on the Internet but more and more, the creeps of the world are targeting our children while they're are surfing the web for a class project or emailing a friend about a birthday party.

Update: Protecting children from being exploited on the web is reasonable enough that Chuck DeVore co-sponsored legislation in 2005 to extend offline laws - prohibiting the luring of children - to the online world.

And according to the Bill's author:

"The proliferation of the Internet has caused child predators to move from the playground to the World Wide Web in search of unsuspecting children. Children now encounter ever-increasing dangers and parents, in turn, face a growing challenge to protect their young.

"Unfortunately, due to greater access to the Internet and a stronger sense of independence, teenagers are the most frequently targeted population for predatory luring. This bill, therefore, would increase the age of children protected by state law from age 12 to age 14. Furthermore, this bill would enhance the penalty for child luring in order to further discourage the crime and provide a more appropriate punishment. The bill also includes provisions that upon conviction would make the defendant's computer subject to forfeiture. Removing a known predator's access to innocent victims is a common-sense approach to preventing further victimization."

Sounds reasonable.