Legislators in Illinois, Georgia, and North Carolina have drafted bills that would restrict access by children and teens to such websites as MySpace and Facebook, while the U.S. Senate is again considering a law that jeopardizes e-rate funding for libraries that do not limit minors’ use of social networking sites.

Please read the full AL report for information about the proposed laws' similarities and differences. All have in common a narrow understanding of the range and uses of social networking Websites. All focus on the exceptions (i.e., predatory child molesters), not the norm for how these networks are used in practice. All offer concerned parents and others false assurance that they will protect their children.

School teachers and librarians do not support child molestation. We do support access to information for adults and children. We also support parents' prerogatives to decide which television shows, music, Web sites, books, etc., they think their children should experience and which they should not experience. I am very conservative on this issue. I believe parents, not ham-handed laws that throw the baby out with the bath, should make these decisions for their children and for their children only. That is how my wife and I raised our children.

But, but! some will say–what about the times that a parent can't be looking over their child's shoulder to make sure that they aren't viewing a verboten Web site? Surveillance works when it is possible to sustain it, but it misses an opportunity every parent ought to embrace. That is the opportunity to educate their children about the risk that some they meet in chat rooms or other interactive Web venues will be spoofing their age and interests and that, because these individuals could hurt them, their children should avoid them. They also need to be taught what personal information they can share and what information they should bever share. Such education will serve their children well as they explore the electronic realm independently. Parents have a responsibility here that they should not abdicate by outsourcing that responsibility to bad legislation that will deprive their children of legitimate online learning and entertainment opportunities. For some years now we have heard how important it is to free enterprise and a strong economy to keep government out of business. Yet some laissez-faire advocates are willing to force government to intrude on the parent-child relationship.

It is unfortunate that as long as politicians think they can make political hay by painting one-sided views of the Internet, they will probably keep introducing legislation that in the name of safety throttles families' options and usurps their responsibilities. Children get hurt on playgrounds. They get hurt in competitive sports. We can keep them safe by closing all playgrounds and suspending all athletic competitions. But they would lose so much in their lives. No politician would propose these extreme measures to keep children safe. Nor should they be proposing the extreme measures in these proposed laws.