In recent years, pornography has emerged as perhaps the most controversial topic arising from the use of the Internet. The easy availability of this type of sexually explicit material has caused panic among government officials, family groups, religious groups, and law enforcement, and this panic has been perpetuated in the media. One of the unique challenges to regulating or addressing it in an appropriately regulatory manner is that there is no concrete definition of pornography. While law enforcement agencies, such as police, prosecutors, and judges, are accustomed to dealing with matters unique to the United States, the Internet is a worldwide community with servers and members from hundreds of countries. Defining "pornographic content" globally has not been easy due to different moral and legal variations. In the United States one type of act may be called "hardcore porn", however, another country may consider this act much less offensive. So while the United States might try to regulate one level of pornography, a person might find it on a website launched by another country. This is one of the problems that are recognized when trying to find a way to deal with Internet pornography. There are two real issues at play when examining this controversial topic. The first problem is finding a way to protect our children from potentially harmful material. There are advocates for internet censorship and removal of this type of material because it will help protect our children from this type of content. On the other hand, free speech advocates believe it is the right of individual citizens to have access to this kind of... half the paper... and to civil liberties groups, no one seems to be making much progress in determining where it should be The line has been drawn when it comes to pornography. The good thing is that child pornography is recognized as a real problem, but law enforcement still has a lot of difficulty combating it. The United States is taking steps toward implementing a multi-tiered approach to governance, which will allow adults their freedom and protect children at the same time, but for now we are far from a solution. Sources www.netparents.org Teaches parents must be safe with their childrenwww.wam.umd.edu List of filtering deviceswww.aclu.org ACLU homepagewww.pedowatch.com Updated information in an effort to eliminate child pornographywww. thecpac.com/stop-it.html Provides a list of wanted pedophiles on the Internet