Slashdot Mirror

I've never spammed Slashdot, or sent "hundreds of letters", or similar.

The way you know who is telling the truth is simple logic. If he had anything, anything, serious on me, he'd be making maximum use of it. When you break it down, the only thing he has, is much calling me names, and that other people have called me names.

The reason for the lie is that he has learned as a journalist, there is no cost to fabrication. Since he can throw mud with no downside, he does so. Whatever sticks to me is to his benefit. If he can shift the debate away from What Happened To The Censorware Project (censorware.org), to my sanity (i.e., lack thereof), he wins. Because that makes the topic about accusation and denial, and truth-is-in-the-middle, rather than his ongoing destruction and malicious actions.

Michael Sims pulled this latest stunt just before the CIPA trial started. My mind boggles. He's GOATSE'D censorware.org! If someone tries to get to a censorware.org report from an old link, instead, they get his rant. It's amazing.

This is ON-TOPIC. He derailed my planned anticensorware work to coincide with the CIPA trial, by his actions. He's goatse'ing people looking for material from censorware.org, motivated by the CIPA trial. It's absolutely shameful.

Although the technology does put on some new spins, this is the same old fight that librarians have been engaged in for decades, if not centuries. Frankly it would be surprising if libraries and librarians were not supporting this challenge. Opposition of censorship is at the heart of the profession. ALA Library Bill of Rights. Every one of the policies addresses some facet of censorship. That's not to say that all librarians are in agreement on this issue, and some like to duck the issue entirely, but on the whole, the profession has a long history of fighting censorship around the world.

Posted by Michael Fraase, 3/23/02 at 9:54:46 PM.

When elephants dance, its best to get out of the way. Thats exactly whats happening now as the entertainment industrythe recording, publishing, and motion picture industries, mainlyattempts a worldwide intellectual property power grab with two distinct targets. Think of it: a coup and a lock on all published content in the same year, amazing isnt it?

Target number 1 is the average customer: anyone who purchases software, an audio CD, an electronic book, or a movie on DVD. The entertainment industry sees customers as pirates, plain and simple. In their collective minds eye, we all have a wooden leg, eye patch, and a filthy talking parrot on our shoulder. While the Constitution grants customers certain rights with regard to copyrighted material, the entertainment industry very much wants to separate us from those rights.

Target number 2 in the sights of the entertainment industry are technology behemoths like Microsoft, Intel, IBM, and Apple. These companies, in the perverse worldview of the entertainment industry, make the toolscomputers mostlythat allow customers to practice their piracy.

Let me point out that I am a copyright owner, as is everyone else who has ever created a work in tangible form. Thats all authors, for short. Authors are almost never members of the entertainment industry club. The entertainment industry hates authors almost as much as they hate customers. Sometimes, especially when authors get uppity, the entertainment industry hates authors much more than customers. Until recently, authors have always been seen to be at least a marginal threat while customers were seen as merely necessary annoyances.

To complicate matters by at least an order of magnitude, the consumer electronics manufacturersthe companies that make stereos, VCRs, and DVD playershave aligned with the entertainment industry. At least some of them, and at least to some extent.

Unfortunately for usboth authors and customerswere likely to get squished as these elephants dance. The intent of the entertainment industry, believe it or not, is to outlaw personal computers. As security and cryptography expert Bruce Schneier explains it to Mike Godwin: If you think about it, the entertainment industry does not want people to have computers; theyre too powerful, too flexible, and too extensible. They want people to have Internet Entertainment Platforms: televisions, VCRs, game consoles, etc.

Copy-protected CDs

The recording industry is selling shiny plastic discs that contain music that cant be copied to or even played on some customers equipment. Philips, the owner of the CD format says these discs cannot be called CDs because they do not meet the standard of what a CD is. Sony, one of those weird hybrid companies that, as a member in good standing of both the technology and entertainment industries, finds itself on both sides of this issue says it cant guarantee the audio quality of these discs. The technology used to protect these discs sometimes prevents the discs from playing on computer CD-ROM drives, DVD players, and other devices specifically designed to play standard audio CDs.

Sales of recorded music are down 10% in the United States over the last year. The recording industry blames this downturn not on the economic recession, not on the crappy music that theyve released in the past few years, but on Internet piracy.

And its only going to get worse. Hilary B. Rosen, president of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) told Congress on 28 February 2001 that the practice of copy-protecting audio CDs would expand in the United States. If technology can be used to pirate copyrighted content, Rosen wrote in her response to a Congressional query, shouldnt technology likewise be used to protect copyrighted content? Surely, no one can expect copyright owners to ignore what is happening in the marketplace and fail to protect their creative works because some people engage in copying just for their personal use. Her pal, Michael Eisner, head of Disney, said he was tired of being finessed by the technology industry, whatever that means.

Unfortunately for Eisner, Rosen, Disney, and the RIAA, personal useand more importantly the rights associated with that use of copyrighted materialis exactly why copying of copyrighted material is not just allowed, but mandated by the Constitution. That some individuals illegally sell copied CDs or distribute copies of the music on the Internet is immaterial. In fact, fairly casual observation indicates that if customers are treated like criminals they will indeed begin to behave like criminals.

It has become common practice for music-loving computer owners to legally transfer audio CDs they purchase to .mp3 format files on their computers. The copy protection technology employed by the recording industry prevents such transfers by adding distortions to the music of the recordings. The industry insists that these distortions are inaudible when the disc is played on a standard CD player but result in pops when the music is transferred to a computer. In any case, its usually impossible to tell whether or not a disc includes the copy protection technology; in general, the copy-protected discs are not labeled.

Ironically, or probably not, .mp3 player manufacturers could easily defeat the copy protection technology, but they fear doing so would risk prosecution under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) which prohibits the bypassing of copy protection systems. In 1999, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that .mp3 players did not violate copyright law because customers have the right to space shift music they have purchased.

Moral rights

Interestingly, the act of using the copy protection technology is much more prevalent in Europe. Most European countries, unlike the United States, recognize an artists moral rights in the work they create.

Moral rights are a package of intellectual property rights granted to the original creator of a work, and include:

• The right of integrity;
• The right of attribution;
• The right of disclosure;
• The right to withdraw or retract; and
• The right to reply to criticism.

These moral rights are separate from the economic copyright that these days generally transfers from an author to a publisher and they can survive the author. The idea originated with the French, who believe that any creative work, by definition, includes the personality and character of the author. Where copyright is a property right that can be transferred, moral rights are part of the authors personality and character and non-transferable.

The first two moral rightsthe right of integrity and the right of attributionare especially important because they are codified as international law in the Berne Convention. The United States claims its intellectual property law complies with the Berne Convention, but this is just two instances where it doesnt.

The most important of these rights is the first, the right of integrity. Basically it prohibits an authors work from being distorted in any way that would harm the authors reputation and dates to the 1957 French law of droit au respect de l'oeuvre. Its a safe bet that a cross-reference over which the author had no control would be seen as a distortion of the work.

Seemingly, in Europe at least, an artist could make an argument against the production of a copy-protected version of her work on the sole basis of moral rights. Especially in the case of an audio CD to which distortion is intentionally added by the publisher.

In the United States, Representative Rick Boucher (D-Virginia) appears to be taking the point position in questioning the behavior of the entertainment industry. He believes that instead of using copyright to obtain fair compensation for the works theyve licensed, the copyright owner industryincluding the recording industryis attempting to exercise complete dominance and total control of the copyrighted work.

And just how much money does an artist receive in the form of royalties? Use Moses Avalons royalty calculator to figure it out.

A DMCA rewrite?

Representative Rick Boucher (D-Virginia) plans to introduce legislation that would regulateand maybe outright bancopy-protected compact discs. Boucher reportedly has concerns about customers buying copy-protected discs without knowing it and the compatibility problems inherent with the copy protection mechanism. In an interview with Wired News, Boucher said, The big problem initially is that consumers have no information that is complete and reliable about the disabilities which attend copy-protected CDs. These CDs will not play in DVD players, not play on personal computers (and) not even play on all CD players.

Boucher isnt talking about what kind of legislation he might introduce to accomplish his goal of protecting audio CD customers, and the possibilities are intriguing. At the simplest level, legislation may require copy-protected CDs to carry a warning label. At a more interesting level, Boucher may try to rewrite the DMCA. In fact, Boucher announced that he would introduce such legislation last July and reiterated his commitment to that approach in early March of this year.

Internet radio

Under the U.S. Copyright Offices interpretation of the DMCA, Internet radio may be a thing of the past. KFJC, KPIG, and RadioParadise may all be goners. Why is this tragic? Because any of these stations are orders of magnitude better than the sorry excuse for radio available on the traditional dial.

Internet radio is routing around an obsolete and unaccountable industrys safely padded environs and making a difference. Corporate radio sounds exactly the same from coast to coast because it is exactly the same. Sit and watch that website for a few minutes; if it doesnt nauseate you, itll damn sure hypnotize you.

Adding to the arsenal of tools deployed by big media is the Copyright Arbitration and Royalty Panel (CARP). CARP met secretly for the past several months and issued the CARP Report in late February. The keystone of this report is steep licensing fees for webcast music. Lets be clear: compulsory licensing is a good idea, consistent with the intent of copyright law. Usury licensing fees for small webcasters is not.

KPIG responded almost immediately with a plea to save the Pig from the digital slaughterhouse:

Independent webcasters such as KPIG are facing a grave threat to our existence. It may be an evil conspiracy on the part of the big record companies and corporate webcasters, ormore likelyits just a dumb mistake. In either case, KPIG could soon be liable for huge music usage fees ($5,000 - $10,000 per month) that would make it impossible for us to stay online. For background on the issue, see The Death of Web Radio? below and the SaveInternetRadio.org website.

Doc Searls, in his article Bizarre vs. Bazaar, eloquently sums up the combination of DMCA and CARP as the destruction of the Net as a commons and its replacement with a plumbing system for the distribution of content (a word hardly used in a shipping context before Big Media got all drooly over The Promise of The Net).

A brief history of copyright

Copyright, until this recent entertainment industry power-grab, has always been a delicatemaybe even precariousbalance between the rights of the author to benefit from his or her work for a short period of time and the rights of the rest of us to innovate and benefit from those works when they fall into the public domain.

The Constitution granted Congress the power to promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries. Originally, the Copyright Act of 1790 established the limited times of copyright protection of 14 years with an option for the author to renew the copyright for an additional 14 years if he or she were still alive. That copyright term was good enough for the first 100 years of intellectual property in the United States. During the next 100 years, Congress extended the copyright term 11 times.

Certain uses of a protected work that would ordinarily be seen as infringing are specifically allowed for education, criticism, etc. These uses are allowed under the fair use provision. The core concept of fair use is that, in general, any use that does not exploit the commercial value of the original is permissible.

The fair use statute recognizes four criteria by which a use can be determined to be fair or unfair:

1. The purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
2. The nature of the copyrighted work;
3. The amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted wok as a whole; and
4. The effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.

William S. Strong, in The Copyright Book: A Practical Guide , provides an interpretation for working writers:

As a general rule a critic or reporter should not quote at any one point more than two or three paragraphs of a book or journal article, a stanza of a poem, or a solitary chart or graph from a technical treatise.

The Net allows ordinary citizens to exercise their fair use rights in ways never imagined by the entertainment industry. Subsequently, the reaction is to pressure innovation by extending the copyright term for any given work. In October, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear a case that will likely determine the legitimacy of the most recent copyright term extension, the Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998. This law extends the copyright term to the life of the author plus 70 years. In the case of works made for hire in which a corporation owns the copyright, the copyright term is now 95 years.

While one side of the entertainment industry was pushing, an activity that eventually became the Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998, the other side was pulling. That activity eventually resulted in the DMCA. Designed specifically to control the uses that can be made of published works, the DMCA makes it illegal to circumvent copyright-protection technology. The result: the entertainment industry controls not only what you see and hear but the methods and devices with which you see and hear it. Even if the copy-protection is circumvented to enable the fair use of a published work, it is prohibited and deemed to be a criminal act.

Digital TV

According to Mike Godwin, digital television is the tipping point in the war between the entertainment and technology industries. Never mind that every time the entertainment industry shoots itself in the foot, the technology industry comes to its rescue. Remember in the 1970s when the movie industry was in a deep funk and that vampire Jack Valenti said that VCRs would kill it for good? As it turns out, the VCR revived the film industry. The film industry was failing not because of customer VCR usage but because they were putting out epically craptacular films. Just like the recording industry todaywhen in doubt blame those dang customers.

Anyway, Godwin says digital television is the flashpoint because its quality (technical, not artistic) is way too good and unlike DVDs, its unencrypted and has to stay unencrypted to be useful. Oh, and the pesky FCC regulations say that broadcast television signals must be sent unencrypted.

The purveyors of digital television think they have the answer: digital watermarks. They think thats the answer for the online distribution of music, and any other digital content as well. Unfortunately for them, in order for a watermark to be used to restrict copying of digital content, consumer devices used to play the content will have to have technology included thats capable of receiving those watermarks. That would require the cooperation of the technology industry, and that cooperation has not been forthcoming.

Godwin cites the theory of Edward Felten, a computer scientist at Princeton, holding that any sort of tagging system that is undetectable by the user will likely be easy to remove.

Digital rights management

Perhaps the weirdest part of all of this is that the technology industry is just as enamored of protecting intellectual property. Theyre just going about it in a minimally different way. Digital rights management (DRM) is the battle cry of the techheads. And where they differ from their entertainment industry brethren is the question of government mandates. The technology industry wants to lock up published content just as badly as the entertainment industry; they just dont want the government (or anyone else) telling them that they have to. Remember that the entertainment and technology industries both lobbied heavily in favor of the DMCA.

And then there are the schizoids, the companieslike AOL Time Warner and Sonythat are so large that they find themselves on both sides of the fence depending which way the wind blows.

SSSCA > CBDTPA

The Security Systems Standards and Certification Act (SSSCA), kept on a leash but regularly trotted out by Senator Fritz Hollings (D-South Carolina), chair of the Senate Commerce Committee, can best be thought of as a sort of appendix to the DCMA. It is clearly designed to further extend legal protections for digital content owned or licensed by enormous media conglomerates.

According to the draft language of the bill, it would be illegal to create or distribute any interactive digital device that does not include and utilize certified security technologies approved by the Commerce Department. Even though MIT professor and RSA Data Security co-founder Ron Rivest has referred to the proposed legislation as the Digital Rectal Thermometer Security Act its really just mandatory corporate welfare for media conglomerates subsidized by the actual creators and consumers of intellectual property.

Felony penalties for distributing copyrighted material without the certified security technologies fully enabled or using a computer that circumvents those technologies are up to five years in prison and fines up to US$500,000.

Even worse, the proposed legislation calls for manufacturers of digital devices and the media conglomerates to collaboratively develop a copy protection system. If, after two years, they cant come up with a mechanism both industries can live with, the federal government will specify a standard. Hollings bill fails to include the actual creators or users of content in any of the machinations.

Should we be surprised that four of Hollings top campaign donors are media conglomerates?

Predictably, the politicians split along party lines over the SSSCA. Or, more accurately, the split is along the lines of entertainment industry campaign contributions. Democrats, who received US$24.2 million in contributions from the entertainment industry tend to support the idea of legislating the protection of copyrighted material in digital form. Republicans, who received a relatively paltry US$13.3 million in entertainment industry contributions usually oppose the SSSCA, claiming it is too interventionist.

In mid-March 2002, the other shoe dropped. Senator Hollings, better known as the Senator from Disney, transformed the SSSCA into the Consumer Broadband and Digital Television Promotion Act (CBDTPA) and ceased his tip-toeing around. The CBDTPA is real legislation, and enjoys the support of five other co-authors: Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii), John Breaux (D-Louisiana), Bill Nelson (D-Florida) and Dianne Feinstein (D-California). Just think, one more author and they could have been the seven dwarves. The CBDTPA would require all digital deviceseverything from fax machines to MP3 players and computers (as well as the software that runs on them)to be equipped with embedded copy protection schemes, approved by the federal government.

Whats most disturbing about this is relatively paltry sum it took to buy this legislation. During the 2002 election cycle, only two of the dirty half-dozen were in the top 20 recipients of soft money from the entertainment industry. So far in the 2002 election cycle, Hollings has received only US$19,000 and Stevens has taken only US$39,621. To get the real story, we have to look back several election cycles:

Senator

2002

2000

1998

1996

Total

Fritz Hollings (D-South Carolina)

$19,000

$32,750

$215,284

$43,300

$310,334

Ted Stevens (R-Alaska)

$39,621

$69,900

$109,521

Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii)

$49,852

$49,852

John Breaux (D-Louisiana)

$120,920

$120,920

Bill Nelson (D-Florida)

$47,550

N/A

N/A

$47,550

Dianne Feinstein (D-California)

$211,638

$211,638

$849,815

Theres no question why Fritz Hollings carried the water for this puppy, is there? But check those senatorial links in the table carefully because they tell the even bigger story of who the top contributing industries were for each politician. In every case, the entertainment industry scored big in the top 20 contributors for every Senator. And remember the 2002 campaign cycle isnt over yet. Not hardly.

So, how much does it cost to get your bill through the Senate? Looks to me like itll come in right around US$1 million.

Enter DigitalConsumer.org

The technology industry was quick to respond to the CBDTPA threat by launching DigitalConsumer.org and its attendant Consumer Technology Bill of Rights. Launched by two of the co-founders of Excite, DigitalConsumer.org is basically trying to protect the fair use rights of customers in digital media. The groups principles, outlined in the Bill of Rights are deceptively simple:

1. Users have the right to time-shift content that they have legally acquired.
2. Users have the right to space-shift content that they have legally acquired.
3. Users have the right to make backup copies of their content.
4. Users have the right to use legally acquired content on the platform of their choice.
5. Users have the right to translate legally acquired content into comparable formats.
6. Users have the right to use technology in order to achieve the rights previously mentioned.

The depth and breadth of support this lobbying group will receive remains to be seen. Some of the precepts are in direct conflict with the interests of some of the largest technology industry members. Microsoft, for example, almost certainly wants to be the digital rights management company of record and is none too keen on, say, items 2, 3, 4, and 5.

A solution

The solution is actually quite simple and requires only three steps:

1. Revert the term of copyright to 14 years, immediately and retroactive to all existing works.
2. Recognize moral rights in the works authors create, like every other civilized country on the planet. Make it immediate and retroactive to all existing works.
3. Prohibit any corporation from owning a copyright. Corporations create nothing; theyre consensual hallucinations and exist at our pleasure. I dont know about you, but Im not much pleased any more.

The basis of the problem is found in a single court ruling: Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad. In this 1886 dispute, the U.S. Supreme Court found that a private corporation was a natural person under the Constitution and enjoyed the same protections as a citizen under the Bill of Rights. Corporations from that point forward were granted all of the rights and freedoms of a private citizen, yet none of the responsibilities. We made a mistake; hey, shit happens. Its not too late to fix it.

The confidentiality of library records (like what books you've checked out) is one of the most staunchly defended rights in the recent history of librarianship (anther being freedom to access library materials, such as the Satanic-inducing Harry Potter or Internet sans censorware).

It goes back to the MaCarthy era inquisitions of practices such as FBI requests of who had "dangerous" materials checked out. Thankfully we now have 48 states with laws prohibiting the disclosure of library records.

In most cases, nobody - not your parents, police, or spouse - can access your circulation record without a specific court order. Remember that Florida librarian who phoned the police to say she recognized the hijacking terrorists as library users? Well she broke the law in doing so.

This statement by the American Library Association addresses their continued vigilance in protecting privacy in light of current events.

but he set up all the evidence to indicate otherwise...

So you paint the current popular sky god variant as a charlatan in the fine tradition of Loki?

Some relevant reading.

One of the lone bright spots from events such as this is that they bring attention to the issue (both good and bad). However, we shouldn't forget that the DMCA is not the only piece of legislation that scares the bejeepers out of people; UCITA is still alive and kicking (a good link on the issues surrounding UCITA is http://www.ala.org/washoff/ucita/index.html

Guess again.

Check out the Notable First Amendment Cases page at the American Library Association. More specifically, see the case of Broadrick v. Oklahoma, 413 U.S. 601 (1973).

Here is part of Justice Byron R. White's decision:

Litigants, therefore, are permitted to challenge a statute not because their own right of free expression are violated, but because of a judicial prediction or assumption that the statute's very existence may cause others not before the court to refrain from constitutionally protected speech or expression.

In other words, you can preemptively sue the government if it is possible for someone to be silenced by a law.

Ergo Felten was completely in the right.

Guess again.

Check out the Notable First Amendment Cases page at the American Library Association. More specifically, see the case of Broadrick v. Oklahoma, 413 U.S. 601 (1973).

Here is part of Justice Byron R. White's decision:

Litigants, therefore, are permitted to challenge a statute not because their own right of free expression are violated, but because of a judicial prediction or assumption that the statute's very existence may cause others not before the court to refrain from constitutionally protected speech or expression.

In other words, you can preemptively sue the government if it is possible for someone to be silenced by a law.

Ergo Felten was completely in the right.

Is this actually true?!?!

According to the American Library Association, Harry Potter has been the most challenged book a couple years, including this one.

There's a subtle distinction, though: "Most challenged" means there have been the most attempts to get it removed from schools and libraries. "Most banned" would seem to imply that Harry Potter has been successfully removed from public access, which is so far from the truth it's scary.

Excellent news... looks like
a) the big boys (corps) have come in and had a word in their ear, or
b) all your letters and lobbying of representatives has worked... I'm with the former :)

I would add another possibility:

c) All the librarians through the ALA have, as always, raised their common voices against a law that offends Freedom of Speech and the Right to Knowledge..

Yes, librarians are a long-time deffenders of our rights. Just check who is against DMCA, filters in internet access (CIPA) and other pitifull, rights-basher laws.

So next time you go to a library to check p0rn from a free computer, please be quiet. That lady with funny glasses that "Shssss!"'s you all the time is on your side. on the Freedom side.

Excellent news... looks like
a) the big boys (corps) have come in and had a word in their ear, or
b) all your letters and lobbying of representatives has worked... I'm with the former :)

I would add another possibility:

c) All the librarians through the ALA have, as always, raised their common voices against a law that offends Freedom of Speech and the Right to Knowledge..

Yes, librarians are a long-time deffenders of our rights. Just check who is against DMCA, filters in internet access (CIPA) and other pitifull, rights-basher laws.

So next time you go to a library to check p0rn from a free computer, please be quiet. That lady with funny glasses that "Shssss!"'s you all the time is on your side. on the Freedom side.

Excellent news... looks like
a) the big boys (corps) have come in and had a word in their ear, or
b) all your letters and lobbying of representatives has worked... I'm with the former :)

I would add another possibility:

c) All the librarians through the ALA have, as always, raised their common voices against a law that offends Freedom of Speech and the Right to Knowledge..

Yes, librarians are a long-time deffenders of our rights. Just check who is against DMCA, filters in internet access (CIPA) and other pitifull, rights-basher laws.

So next time you go to a library to check p0rn from a free computer, please be quiet. That lady with funny glasses that "Shssss!"'s you all the time is on your side. on the Freedom side.

Oh well, welcome to the "Age of Access"...

This reading by choice (instead of the school forced reading) usually leads the young people of today and tomorrow onto the path of higher knowledge and better understanding. So, why not use the 'Net to extend this choice and create a better read society? Is not a well read society better able to make distinctions between FUD and fact? Between the technical and the trash?

Just food for thought...

If you are interested in the subject, another book, Anthrax: The investigation of a deadly outbreak by Jeanne Guillemin is also of interest. This is far more detailed and includes interviews with people directly involved.

Alibek's book is good for learning about Biopreparat activities, but he knew only about Sverdlosk second hand, as the anthrax plant was not run by Biopreparat.

"I wish the book publishers would start reprinting more books about good children who sit still and devote themselves to watching Disney cartoons. If kids must get off of the couch, they might devote themselves to collecting Disney beanbag dolls or maybe those plastic action figures for Disney characters."

Hell yes!

We all *know* those MSC kids would have grown up to be cyberterrorists, drug dealers, money launderers and child pornographers (did I leave anything out?). They might even have done things like code free and open operating systems, in an attempt to destroy prefectly good American institutions like Microsoft; disrupted the smooth functioning of universities like MIT, with so-called "harmelss yet educational" acts of violence and danger, as documented here, here and here; or even subverted the messages of honest hard-working advertisers through blatantly anti-capitalist and possibly Communist-supported billboard vandalism! And they would have tried to justify it with names like "hacking" or "pranks" or "social commentary"!

Books like these should be banned! Kids read this stuff and get ideas into their heads, and that inevitably leads to Columbine or possibly even "thinking for themselves" and (selfishly) having "fun"!

Now stop wasting time reading Slashdot and get back to work making your corporate masters wealthier!

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&saf e=off&q=Jurisline

As I recall... And I Am Not A Lawyer...
Westlaw prints the law books lawyers use... they 'added value' to the legal decisions judges wrote by putting in PAGE NUMBERS. This pagination was used as an attempt to defend their monopoly over the distribution of the content of the law as lawyers used that pagination to cite the law and the pagination was proprietary, value added content. Including the pagination in any duplication of the public domain work was (?is) illegal under copyright law. (I thought this was solved be the removal of the pagination).

Jurisline.com attempted an end run of the Reed Elsevier (/Lexis) publishing empire's hold over online access to public domain law (Reed ironically swiped the data from Westlaw). Apparently Jurisline lost while Elsevier/Lexis got away with it:

http://www.ambar.org/journal/aug00/nstartup.html

Jurisline's attempt to make this info freely available over the net is well chronicled at:

http://showcase.netins.net/web/trhalvorson/law/jur isline.shtml

As mentioned by other posters, the notion that changing the law would be an unlawful derivitive work of copyrighted material is Kafkaesque hilarious - only the original creator, not necessarily an elected legislator, could change the law...
A curious requiem for Douglas Adams, I hope his spirit (and executors!) accept what I believe is fair and fitting use of a portion of his work:

"""
"People of Earth, your attention
please," a voice said, and it was
wonderful. Wonderful perfect
quadrophonic sound with
distortion levels so low as to make
a brave man weep. "This is
Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz of the
Galactic Hyperspace Planning
Council," the voice continued. "As
you will no doubt be aware, the
plans for development of the
outlying regions of the Galaxy
require the building of a
hyperspatial express route through
your star system, and regrettably
your planet is one of those
scheduled for demolition. The
process will take slightly less that
two of your Earth minutes. Thank
you." The PA died away.
Uncomprehending terror settled on
the watching people of Earth. The
terror moved slowly through the
gathered crowds as if they were
iron fillings on a sheet of board and
a magnet was moving beneath
them. Panic sprouted again,
desperate fleeing panic, but there
was nowhere to flee to. Observing
this, the Vogons turned on their
PA again. It said: "There's no point
in acting all surprised about it. All
the planning charts and demolition
orders have been on display in
your local planning department on
Alpha Centauri for fifty of your
Earth years, so you've had plenty
of time to lodge any formal
complaint and it's far too late to
start making a fuss about it now."
"""
-The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Exemptions may be made for fair 'non-infringing' use through the Library of Congress. In a hurry all I could find was:

http://www.ala.org/washoff/Rulemaking.PDF

Providing access to the Law the Citizen is required to abide by seems like a sensible exemption -- allowing unfettered access to this particular class of work through the web seems essential for the 21st Century Citizenry to uphold their civic responsibilities and be Law Abiding Citizens.

Law Links:
http://www.FindLaw.com
http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/

p.s. just because .Gov created/stewards it doesn't mean some politician or bureaucrat can't Sell it Cheap to one of their friends. (i.e. public lands for drilling/logging/railroads, air waves/spectrum for radio, the RIAA's attempt to make musicians creative efforts 'works for hire' in the middle of the night )-:

http://www.HavenWorks.com/
"Vote and be vigilant"
- http://www.HavenWorks.com/hermit/

I reserve the right to change my mind, especially when new or better evidence is brought to light. -Haven Hermit
j-)

10 Bit Myths about copyright explained
ALA copyright Education Program Contains info about fair use,and Copyright on the internet
www.metallicaisgreedy.com which is packed full of tons of info that is pro-napster, in particular in regards to lawsuits,media,etc

Libraries / Librarians are not going to blithley "give over" their users' reading logs.
The American Library Association (ALA) is right in the front lines saying to "them" (LEAs, etc) back off man, nobody gets to see that.

The only way to connect a book to a reader is if the reader still has a book checked out or owes a fine on it for returning it late. (Note to those iniclined - return your books on time and/or pay your late fines or risk having "them" know what you read)

The only historical data kept is statistical, a librarian can merely say "S/he has checked out X million books" or "that book went out X trillion times" All major database vendors for library circulation systems have effectivly been told - we don't want this logged. If it can be logged, we won't buy it.
Kinda like zero-knowledge technically we *could* track it, but we don't.

Despite your opinion of the current status of UCITA, I think that it is far from dead. Take a look at this map to see where UCITA lobbying activities are underway. Check out anti-UCITA ucita.com. and pro-UCITA ucitaonline.com. It's still an issue that has to be followed or it'll take us all by surprise one day, by becoming the law of the land.

Ed

Why don't we start an open source project to build a free software censorware product? I know. It's kind of oxymoronic, or maybe just moronic ;-) -- but bare with me here.

Think about it! Schools and libraries don't want censorware, and the American Library Association is challenging this law.

We don't want censorware either: it doesn't work, and the companies that make it often push radical conservative political agendas, that target a lot of ideas near and dear to us.

So let's make our own product. By controlling the development, we could make certain that the blocked sites list is as minimal as possible to satisfy the legal requirement. The ALA, schools, and libraries would like it for being

a) FREE software (budgets are important, after all), and

b) software that is made by people who are friendly to free speech.

In the meantime, we all continue to support the legal challenges. But in the event that the ever more conservative Supreme Court upholds the law, we also have a weapon to use in holding censorship at least in check. If someone is going to do censorship, then let it be a civil libertarian.

I'd be willing to work on such a project. I think I would enjoy sticking it to CyberSitter -- they once blocked the site of a friend of mine because he's pagan, and especially because he dared take a public stance against them.

Eris

To answer your question about ICRA, I don't think it's clear. Do the ICRA ratings match up with the law? If you blocked all unrated sites, maybe, maybe not. But that blocks a lot of sites. (Is /. rated? How can a user-content driven site rate accurately from day to day?)

Liza

The Notice of Proposed Rulemaking says "Comments . . . can be sent as an electronic file via the Internet to [this site]. Generally, only one copy of an electronic submission must be filed.

OK, I think, why would they WANT more than one copy of an electronic submission?

Then there's this bit of doubletalk:

"If multiple docket or rulemaking numbers appear in the caption of this proceeding, however, commenters must transmit one electronic copy of the comments to each docket or rulemaking number referenced in the caption."

Um, THEY wrote it, don't THEY know whether "this proceeding" has multiple docket numbers?

Thre are pages and pages of this kind of doubletalk, such as I've never read in my life. And if you don't submit your comments correctly, I suppose they count for as much as, well, maybe as much as if you do submit them correctly.

How's this for a comment: fold that "electronic proposal" down to sharp pointy corners . . .

http://www.ala.org/cipa/FCCRulemaking.pdf
it's a PDF.

We've always got filtering stuff at LISNews.com too, :-)

Either the URL was originally typed in wrong (extraneous space) or they've decided to move it. In any case, the proposed rule-making is now here (pdf)
`ø,,ø!

Librarians have had an anti-censorship stance longer than Libertarians.

• It's not actually an official law until President Clinton signs it.
• The very same day that the president signed COPA into law, the ACLU filed a suit against it (and they've been winning so far).
• CIPA is different from COPA and CDA though, in many ways. One of the main differences is that COPA and CDA were criminal statutes, bound by stricter due-process considerations. CIPA is just an incentive-based "suggestion", similar to the 55mph thing, and so it's not bound by constitutional considerations as much.
• This law has been introduced 9 times over the past two years, all by Republicans.
• The American Library Association strongly opposes such a law.

• A general perception exists that Internet filtering is seriously flawed and in many situations unusable. It is also perceived that schools and libraries don't want filtering. These notions are naive and based largely on problems associated with earlier versions of client-based software that are admittedly crude and ineffective. Though some poor filtering products still exist, filtering has gone through an extensive evolution and is not only good at protecting children but also well-received and in high demand.

http://www.ala.org/washoff/fltrguide.htm l

The most amazing aspect of this proposal, among many, is the fact that if your computer or Internet access is paid for by e-rate subsidies, the definition of a minor is under 17 but if the computer in the same school or library is paid for by either Title III or LSTA, the definition of a minor is under 18. So schools and libraries would have to apply different rules to 17 year olds, depending on what computer they were using!.

I also love the fact that in an era of increased demand for privacy protection, particularly for children, this law would also require schools to monitor everything kids do using school Internet access. Sounds common sense, but what if the school allows dial-up access from home? Then the only way to comply is to install monitoring software. Who gets access to those records? How long are they kept? Do you really want to create a complete record of every site a kid has looked at K-12?

Liza

Under the proposal, any school or library that did not install software to filter out pornography would lose its federal dollars intended to help buy Internet access.

If I were a parent sending my kid off to college (and I'm not, but I play a college professor when I'm not doing this computer thing, I'd rather know that money is being spent to purchase up-to-date equipment and pay qualified instructors a fair living wage. I don't care that students might be using their internet access for, among many things, surfing porn. Most college students are 18 and for many intents and purposes, considered adults. How they use their bandwidth is certainly not the goverment's businesss.

No money is provided to buy the software.

Once again, "average Joe" is going to swallow another unfunded Federal mandate. The money has to come from somewhere...what material that might benefit students or the public will not be purchased because of some vocal self-righteous fanatics? Has "average Joe" really thought this one through?

At least they waited until after National Banned Books Week to pull this stunt...

I've looked at many lists of banned and challenged books, and the bible doesn't even appear in the top fifty. My references include:

• http://www.cs.cmu.edu/People/spok/most-banned.html
• http://www.ala.org/bbooks/challeng.html

Can you back up your assertion?

DFN, the Digital Freedom Network is running a contest until September 25th to find the most egregious example of censorware error. The Foil the Filters contest is being held to coincide with the American Library Association's Banned Books Week.

Entries can be either a site you'd expect to be filtered that wasn't, or one that shouldn't have been but was. WIRED is running a story on it here

If there's a national organization of Librarians, they need to get on top of this ASAP.

There is and they are completely against censorship of this or any nature.

The Library Bill of Rights, created by the The American Library Association, states:

The American Library Association affirms that all libraries are forums for information and ideas, and that the following basic policies should guide their services.

I. Books and other library resources should be provided for the interest, information, and enlightenment of all people of the community the library serves. Materials should not be excluded because of the origin, background, or views of those contributing to their creation.

II. Libraries should provide materials and information presenting all points of view on current and historical issues. Materials should not be proscribed or removed because of partisan or doctrinal disapproval.

III. Libraries should challenge censorship in the fulfillment of their responsibility to provide information and enlightenment.

IV. Libraries should cooperate with all persons and groups concerned with resisting abridgment of free expression and free access to ideas.

V. A person's right to use a library should not be denied or abridged because of origin, age, background, or views.

VI. Libraries which make exhibit spaces and meeting rooms available to the public they serve should make such facilities available on an equitable basis, regardless of the beliefs or affiliations of individuals or groups requesting their use.

--

If there's a national organization of Librarians, they need to get on top of this ASAP.

There is and they are completely against censorship of this or any nature.

The Library Bill of Rights, created by the The American Library Association, states:

The American Library Association affirms that all libraries are forums for information and ideas, and that the following basic policies should guide their services.

I. Books and other library resources should be provided for the interest, information, and enlightenment of all people of the community the library serves. Materials should not be excluded because of the origin, background, or views of those contributing to their creation.

II. Libraries should provide materials and information presenting all points of view on current and historical issues. Materials should not be proscribed or removed because of partisan or doctrinal disapproval.

III. Libraries should challenge censorship in the fulfillment of their responsibility to provide information and enlightenment.

IV. Libraries should cooperate with all persons and groups concerned with resisting abridgment of free expression and free access to ideas.

V. A person's right to use a library should not be denied or abridged because of origin, age, background, or views.

VI. Libraries which make exhibit spaces and meeting rooms available to the public they serve should make such facilities available on an equitable basis, regardless of the beliefs or affiliations of individuals or groups requesting their use.

--

I think it should be a little more "local" that that. What gives the right of the community to remove access from my [hypothetical] children, to ideas which they deem unacceptable for their children? I think the American Library Association has a really good perspective on this issue.

Remember, banned books week is September 23-30.

http://www.ala.org/news/announcements/bbw2000.html

Ironically, Pagan Pride Day is September 23rd. It is intentionaly scheduled for the Autumnal Equinoxe...the Harvest festival. Neat coincidence that this oft-persecuted group holds it's day dedicated to public awareness at the same time as another unrelated group brings freedom of speech (and thought) to the public.

I found this quote -
"Often challenges are motivated by a desire to protect children from "inappropriate" sexual content or "offensive" language. Although this is a commendable motivation, Free Access to Libraries for Minors, an interpretation of the Library Bill of Rights (ALA's basic policy concerning access to information) states that, "Librarians and governing bodies should maintain that parents--and only parents--have the right and the responsibility to restrict the access of their children--and only their children--to library resources." Censorship by librarians of constitutionally protected speech, whether for protection or for any other reason, violates the First Amendment."
- from the ALA's Banned Book Week site to be quite telling, it almost implies, to my mind at least, that any effort by the state to "filter" content in a library is censorship. I wonder if there will be some sort of constitutional challenge to efforts like this?

Is this an effort to protect children, an effort to restrict free speech (or access to speach), or just lack of willingness for parents to take responsibility for the development of their children's mores? What is the involvemnet of the EFF, ACLU or other civil rights groups to this disturbing abuse of state power?

As a Canadian, therefore a bit removed from the effects of issue itself, I am still disturbed by the implications. Are there any Canadian /.'s aware of similar issues up here?

Going on means going far

This is not a case of the libraries wanted to protect themselves from the liability of providing minors with unrestricted access to the internet. After all, librarians are typically the strongest supporters of the first amendment and the right to read. Ever go into a library during banned books week? In fact, they encourage you to read any books that have been challenged or censored.

Banned Books Week:
http://www.ala.org/bbooks/

Hey, banned books week begins one week from now!

This issue has nothing to do with filtering out access to DeCSS. Don't be rediculous. But as you pointed out, as it stands (pre-appeal and overturn of the DMCA), software (even if is considered speech) that violates DMCA is not protected by the first amendment.

However,
THIS seems to be ok to put in libraries. Funny how that works.

2. Does the library's role include restricting access to information? This question has been around long before the internet. For instance, should minors be allowed to read the Karma Sutra or the Anarchist Cookbook? Do other organizations (such as the AFA and FRC) have the right to determine what is put on the shelves? Can you or your child be denied access to works such as "Huckleberry Finn", "Fahenheit 451", "Heather has Two Mommies"?

3. If libraries are tasked with controlling accesss, how do they go about it? Working within a budget, how do they pay for it? Software may be the first solution, but it can be rendered ineffective. Can a library actively monitor usage and still respect the user's right to privacy?

For more information, checkout (groan) The American Library Association

Libraries are a hallowed U.S. tradition with a lot of strong backers and the entire balkanization of what is now printed matter will not come to pass without a very big fight. Possibly one day the Library of Congress could play a new roll in distribution (perhaps a media key allowing reading on a library slate, not a great solution but a minimum one).

In the end the author and publisher need a way to make a profit or there won't be any e-books. Stallman's closing remark that copyright will be obsolete is inane. Why should anyone be forced to submit to an idea of the masses that the product of their labor should be free or anything else? Some authors might accept variable or no payment depending on the reader's level of enjoyment but if it works out like shareware it hardly seems like empowering the author. Currently the phone company makes more than the author on shareware downloads.

Micropayment + Transcopyright, an open source culmination of decades of work in the field (Ted Nelson) is one possible strategy in a universe of them.. and Stallman is focusing on shouting when he could be lining up allies. There is no reason why an open source or other software solution not created by publishers could not take hold, if it addresses the needs of authors and publishers. Legal provisions allowing fair (personal or editorial) use need to be covered by new technologies, especially when "solutions" like zoning of DVDs make it impossible to read certain "texts". When infrastructure makes it possible to charge for consumption of media dynamically, that will open the doors of accessibility to many more authors who will depend on some kind of copyright law (perhaps the software code will exceed the legal code) to make their living.

Last I heard, libraries buy their books. So a limit on the number of times a book is read sounds unworkable. But if prices fall naturally (by economics, not some cracker's idea of fairness) to a dollar a book, there is no reason why payment cannot be made up front or from a dedicated account. So I think Stallman's fears are based on an assumption of frozen technology, and that more technology will allow authors to apply all kinds of payment schemes including different levels of payment, annotation, and other characteristics, as envisioned by Nelson and others. It would be more interesting to do a serious analysis of the work done in this field and work toward a solution than to put blinders on and be alarmist. There may be dangers but there are great possibilities.

On the danger side I see communications carriers and credit card companies enforcing stiff inescapable charges, and companies with vested interests in video and audio taking the initiative with things which look more like entertainment titles than books. On the positive side, how about asking the ALA (or O'Reilly, or the EFF,...) for some of that 2 billion and start experimenting openly (not necessarily GPL) with Transmeta slates? That way people will be able to hack at this problem for a long, long time. It may take that long for copyright owners to all shift to a Napster/Stallman/Shareware-esque style of compensation (or not) based on its own merits.

I am no fan of the DMCA. But if Stallman wants to overturn the DMCA he should quit talking about trying to make copyright obsolete and put some energy into figuring out what initiative he could start or join to build a reasonable business model which can be influenced by the community of believers in electronic freedom. If his thinking stands solely on the ideas of GPL and uncontrolled dissemination of works he will lose credibility among those of us who live in a market economy and with it the opportunity to lead.

The DMCA can be interpreted to put ISPs out of business if they don't respond quickly to requests. Several weeks ago, I recieved an email from the RIAA telling me that a customer of ours had an illegal site up, and that we could be help responsible for ANY OTHER copyright violations, now that they have informed us. This was not a site hosted by us, but a customer with a broadband connection. This brings up the following questions...

1.) How does the RIAA go about finding these sites, do they scan networks for port 21. Do they hop on IRC to find these sites?

2.) How am I, as a network admin, supposed to prevent any single user from setting up a server that violates any provision of the DMCA?

3.) If I, as a network admin, am unable to determine whether or not the material on a server is indeed violating any law, am I required to shut it down until I am able to determine this?

If we don't do something about these issues now, we lose our opportunity to do so for 2 years, then 3 years after that.

You're misinformed. Libraries have always been for more then information. I used to work in one, I should know. And, BTW, ask any local librarian if she'd ever consider cutting article out of magazines so people can't see them. She'd be completely shocked at the idea.

Libraries, and librarians, do have an obligation to carry everything they can that fits in the budget. Period.

Library Bill of Rights
Expurgation of Library Materials: An Interpretation of the Library Bill of Rights
Access to Electronic Information, Services, and Networks: An Interpretation of the Library Bill of Rights

Blocking software is using their limited budget to stop information, which is like the CIA paying people to give government secrets to the Chinese government. It's completely opposite what their agenda is.

-David T. C.

You're misinformed. Libraries have always been for more then information. I used to work in one, I should know. And, BTW, ask any local librarian if she'd ever consider cutting article out of magazines so people can't see them. She'd be completely shocked at the idea.

Libraries, and librarians, do have an obligation to carry everything they can that fits in the budget. Period.

Library Bill of Rights
Expurgation of Library Materials: An Interpretation of the Library Bill of Rights
Access to Electronic Information, Services, and Networks: An Interpretation of the Library Bill of Rights

Blocking software is using their limited budget to stop information, which is like the CIA paying people to give government secrets to the Chinese government. It's completely opposite what their agenda is.

-David T. C.

You're misinformed. Libraries have always been for more then information. I used to work in one, I should know. And, BTW, ask any local librarian if she'd ever consider cutting article out of magazines so people can't see them. She'd be completely shocked at the idea.

Libraries, and librarians, do have an obligation to carry everything they can that fits in the budget. Period.

Library Bill of Rights
Expurgation of Library Materials: An Interpretation of the Library Bill of Rights
Access to Electronic Information, Services, and Networks: An Interpretation of the Library Bill of Rights

Blocking software is using their limited budget to stop information, which is like the CIA paying people to give government secrets to the Chinese government. It's completely opposite what their agenda is.

-David T. C.

I don't know much about the Senate bill, but the sponsors of House Bill 19 are the members of the House leadership. Few of them know much about the bill yet. There are a few exceptions: Delegate Sandy Rosenberg and Delegate Nancy Kopp are both members of the House leadership who did not sign on to the bill -- they apparently have some vague idea of some disconcerting going on.

Bob Kopp
(Yes, I am related to one of the above.)

I hope I'm not the first to point this out, but one of the leading opponents to filtering software is the ALA - American Library Association (http://www.ala.org). Check their website for more information on why.

The local library that is acting as my ISP (2 hrs/ per day on 12 lines... No great bargain, even for free) is deep in the Bible Belt, so it's amazing that a filtering policy as enlightened as ours is is in place. All machines with exposed monitors are filtered, at all times. Adults can have an unfiltered account, that is only unfiltered on the in-desk machines. Parents can elect to deny their children access to the Internet, filtered-only access to the Internet, or unfiltered access to the Internet (of course, on those machines with submerged monitors). Personally, I say unfilter them all and let Bob sort them out, but I would like to keep the connectivity, so....

One of the other Slashdotters mentioned that we need to put out the anti-censorship message a little more forcefully. I have to agree. A couple of years ago, I posted a short essay against censorship, both as a celebration of National Banned Books Week (see the ALA homepage for more info on that) and as a some new content for the new website, since our system was just going online at the time. I dashed it off in 20 minutes or so, threw a couple of graphics on the page, and left it be... So, imagine my surprise when doing a vanity search, and up pops my name in a half-dozen places I wasn't expecting. People had quoted my little article. And started linking to it. And it was getting hits. Ok, so I expected 10 or 20 hits a month... No, 10 or 20 hits a day... Wow! A minor little page that doesn't say much of anything! There can't be too much out there about censorship, if I'm turning up that high on the search engines. So, I'm begging everyone: get your views out there. Post your ideas. Get my hitrate down where it belongs!

Excuse me? What?!?!

Define, please, "inappropriate for libraries". I suspect your definition might differ from that of most librarians. (Either that, or you mean "inappropriate for public viewing")

You might want to check out the American Library Association's site, especially their Library Bill of Rights . (There's a section of the site specifically about 'cyberspace'.)

Essentially, the entire site says "Parents -- your kids are your responsibility, and that's where your power to censor should stop." Their stance is that there is no such animal as something which is "inappropriate for libraries." It might be inappropriate for some libraries...those in seminaries, for example.

(Of course, they also advocate privacy barriers so that what one person is viewing doesn't offend anyone else.)

Excuse me? What?!?!

Define, please, "inappropriate for libraries". I suspect your definition might differ from that of most librarians. (Either that, or you mean "inappropriate for public viewing")

You might want to check out the American Library Association's site, especially their Library Bill of Rights . (There's a section of the site specifically about 'cyberspace'.)

Essentially, the entire site says "Parents -- your kids are your responsibility, and that's where your power to censor should stop." Their stance is that there is no such animal as something which is "inappropriate for libraries." It might be inappropriate for some libraries...those in seminaries, for example.

(Of course, they also advocate privacy barriers so that what one person is viewing doesn't offend anyone else.)

Excuse me? What?!?!

Define, please, "inappropriate for libraries". I suspect your definition might differ from that of most librarians. (Either that, or you mean "inappropriate for public viewing")

You might want to check out the American Library Association's site, especially their Library Bill of Rights . (There's a section of the site specifically about 'cyberspace'.)

Essentially, the entire site says "Parents -- your kids are your responsibility, and that's where your power to censor should stop." Their stance is that there is no such animal as something which is "inappropriate for libraries." It might be inappropriate for some libraries...those in seminaries, for example.

(Of course, they also advocate privacy barriers so that what one person is viewing doesn't offend anyone else.)

Check out the ALA website.

The ACPL already had a policy that stated that children should be under responsible adult supervision. This includes their use of the internet terminals. Handy posters next to every terminal reiterated this fact.

As a member of the American Library Association, the ACPL had a responsibility to prevent any kind of censorship of library resources. See the ALA Code of ethics at http://www.ala.org/alaorg/oif/ethics.html it's right up there in item II.

Remember, the ALA has a long history of fighting censorship. They were even the chief plaintiff in opposing the Communications Decency Act.

And if you work for a public library, there are some ALA prepared resources including a Q&A about why the ALA opposed filtering software at http://www.ala.org/pio/cyber/cando.html

The ACPL already had a policy that stated that children should be under responsible adult supervision. This includes their use of the internet terminals. Handy posters next to every terminal reiterated this fact.

As a member of the American Library Association, the ACPL had a responsibility to prevent any kind of censorship of library resources. See the ALA Code of ethics at http://www.ala.org/alaorg/oif/ethics.html it's right up there in item II.

Remember, the ALA has a long history of fighting censorship. They were even the chief plaintiff in opposing the Communications Decency Act.

And if you work for a public library, there are some ALA prepared resources including a Q&A about why the ALA opposed filtering software at http://www.ala.org/pio/cyber/cando.html