Slashdot Mirror

Our readers from a year ago may remember the series we did examining the attempt to force censorware into Holland's libraries. (Holland, Michigan is the home of the Slashdot Geek Compound, such as it is.) In February, voters rejected that attempt. But to quote Poltergeist II, "they're ba-ack." Thanks to a new Michigan law, all of our libraries have to address the question of minors and the internet -- and blocking software is, to many, the natural solution. I went to the Holland library's open board meeting on Tuesday night; here's what's up.

By the way, if you're wondering why you should care about Holland, Michigan: this is going to happen at your local library -- and other public institutions -- soon. It probably has already happened at your local schools. The Holland area is fairly conservative, so it's been at the forefront, but the issue will work its way around the country (and in fact the world) in due time.

Before I describe what happened at the board meeting Tuesday evening, I should put the meeting itself into context.

A small but vocal minority has been pushing for library filters since late last year. At that time, the effort was begun by the American Family Association, with the Family Research Council and a local group stepping in to do the heavy lifting.

The FRC is still playing the dominant role. In fact, Tuesday night, the AFA representative actively distanced the organization from the issue, probably because it has earned its reputation as an extremist group.

Since February, the push has been for communication with the library board: "community input" has been big. Since all board meetings legally must be open to the public anyway, it's never been entirely clear to me what the problem was. The board did form a committee, which met on several occasions with filtering supporters -- the few who showed up -- and educated themselves about their options.

But the pro-filter crowd and the media have been attacking the library for not doing more to engage the community in dialogue. In one recent headline, the city's Mayor, formerly anti-filter, was described as "ripping [the library board's lack of] public input." Ouch.

In fact, the FRC representative Tuesday night apologized at length for the pressure tactics -- even though, in most of the media reports I've seen, her comments were relatively mild.

Just a week ago, she was quoted as saying she:

"...doesn't think a Sept. 12 forum will be sufficient to solicit public input, with attendance limited to 200 people and less than two hours set aside for public comment.

"She said those restrictions will limit the amount of input the board can receive."

That's been the concern all these months; that's what's been keeping the library board awake worrying. Every board meeting has been completely open to the public, and the only issue was how many people the fire marshal would allow in, and how long the community would be allowed to outpour its concerns.

In fact, when the meeting started -- the one and only meeting that's been publicized as a forum for the airing of Holland's views -- fewer than 45 people showed.

Some more trickled in, some trickled back out later after less than two hours of public comment. A total of just over 60 people showed up, about half of whom spoke (excluding the boardmembers and the media, including the toddlers, not that the toddlers did much of the speaking).

The Family Research Council's representative saved her statements for late in the meeting, telling her group's supporters how important it was that they came out, and to hang in there because they were only at the halfway point. Her closing comments were encouragement to those supporters: "we're getting closer and closer, glory God, we will not quit until we get this thing right ... c'mon you people, there's two more hours, get up here and talk for yourselves."

As if that was the signal to wind things down, only a few more people stood to speak. There was a period of questions, which took a while because the lawyer fielded most of them, and then the meeting adjourned almost an hour ahead of schedule.

Three thousand people in the Holland area get the FRC's newsletters; roughly 1% bothered to come.

Why the lack of interest?

Part of the reason, to be sure, is that Holland is sick of the issue; they went through a long campaign early this year.

But another part is that blocking software is not nearly as popular as the vocal minority would have us believe. An AP article "Most parents shun net filters" suggests that just one parent in three uses censorware.

And even that seems large, to some. The latest issue of the American Family Association Journal has an article titled "Low percentage of Christians using Internet filtering shows ignorance of the dangers." They claim that "Seven out of 10 Christians have Internet access -- but only one out of 10 has filtered Internet access."

(Keep in mind, too, that when the AFA says "Christians," they mean conservative Christians, presumably more likely to use censorware.)

Parents simply have better choices when it comes to protecting their children. Education and communication are the most effective tools (the only effective ones, I would argue, in many cases). And they're cheaper too: at least, a library in Hudsonville, near Holland, recently spent $20,000 on card-based censorware (not including maintenance fees) for four computers. The city of Grand Rapids, Michigan, just voted to spend $85,000.

And it takes a sneaky kid about ten seconds to completely bypass the $20,000 system. I know; I did it myself, and spent a while browsing a completely unfiltered internet.

But it's political pressure that installs such systems, not necessarily actual demand. Holland's library has taken a great deal of heat for not holding meetings which only a tiny fraction of the community seems interested in. Of course it's easy to use hindsight, but it's my guess that holding the meetings earlier and more often would have taken the lid off the child-size pressure cooker; everyone would have felt better. That's something to consider for the next community faced with this issue.

And speaking of demand, only about 100 patrons at Hudsonville have signed up for the internet cards. The system was installed under pressure from local conservative organizations; others, like that in Grand Rapids, will be installed thanks to a new Michigan law.

That law, Public Act 212, takes effect in our fair state on October1 and in effect, according to the Holland library's lawyer, makes it illegal for minors to use the internet. It demands that terminals for those 17 and under be "restricted from receiving" material "harmful to minors" (that's the underage equivalent of illegal obscenity). No software can guarantee such a restriction, of course, unless it executes the shutdown command.

In fact, it was recommended that the adults' terminals be not only shielded for privacy, but placed so that no minor might walk by and catch a glimpse of something harmful.

So the line seems pretty clearly drawn. How it will play out in reality remains to be seen.

You've probably figured out by now that I'm opposed to blocking software. Before the end of the month, I'll look at what alternatives a library might adopt -- too late for Michigan libraries, but perhaps not too late for yours. There are many choices to be made between the simplistic extremes of "filters" and "nofilters," some of which protect our right to free expression more than others.

Unfortunately, you won't see such alternatives in the traditional media. When filter supporter Tish Fackler pulled out her air filters, she gave a little laugh and said "looks like I'm going to be on TV tonight." Then she held up her meaningless props and delivered the soundbite that was on TV that night. I'll try to keep it a little more real than that.

Our readers from a year ago may remember the series we did examining the attempt to force censorware into Holland's libraries. (Holland, Michigan is the home of the Slashdot Geek Compound, such as it is.) In February, voters rejected that attempt. But to quote Poltergeist II, "they're ba-ack." Thanks to a new Michigan law, all of our libraries have to address the question of minors and the internet -- and blocking software is, to many, the natural solution. I went to the Holland library's open board meeting on Tuesday night; here's what's up.

By the way, if you're wondering why you should care about Holland, Michigan: this is going to happen at your local library -- and other public institutions -- soon. It probably has already happened at your local schools. The Holland area is fairly conservative, so it's been at the forefront, but the issue will work its way around the country (and in fact the world) in due time.

Before I describe what happened at the board meeting Tuesday evening, I should put the meeting itself into context.

A small but vocal minority has been pushing for library filters since late last year. At that time, the effort was begun by the American Family Association, with the Family Research Council and a local group stepping in to do the heavy lifting.

The FRC is still playing the dominant role. In fact, Tuesday night, the AFA representative actively distanced the organization from the issue, probably because it has earned its reputation as an extremist group.

Since February, the push has been for communication with the library board: "community input" has been big. Since all board meetings legally must be open to the public anyway, it's never been entirely clear to me what the problem was. The board did form a committee, which met on several occasions with filtering supporters -- the few who showed up -- and educated themselves about their options.

But the pro-filter crowd and the media have been attacking the library for not doing more to engage the community in dialogue. In one recent headline, the city's Mayor, formerly anti-filter, was described as "ripping [the library board's lack of] public input." Ouch.

In fact, the FRC representative Tuesday night apologized at length for the pressure tactics -- even though, in most of the media reports I've seen, her comments were relatively mild.

Just a week ago, she was quoted as saying she:

"...doesn't think a Sept. 12 forum will be sufficient to solicit public input, with attendance limited to 200 people and less than two hours set aside for public comment.

"She said those restrictions will limit the amount of input the board can receive."

That's been the concern all these months; that's what's been keeping the library board awake worrying. Every board meeting has been completely open to the public, and the only issue was how many people the fire marshal would allow in, and how long the community would be allowed to outpour its concerns.

In fact, when the meeting started -- the one and only meeting that's been publicized as a forum for the airing of Holland's views -- fewer than 45 people showed.

Some more trickled in, some trickled back out later after less than two hours of public comment. A total of just over 60 people showed up, about half of whom spoke (excluding the boardmembers and the media, including the toddlers, not that the toddlers did much of the speaking).

The Family Research Council's representative saved her statements for late in the meeting, telling her group's supporters how important it was that they came out, and to hang in there because they were only at the halfway point. Her closing comments were encouragement to those supporters: "we're getting closer and closer, glory God, we will not quit until we get this thing right ... c'mon you people, there's two more hours, get up here and talk for yourselves."

As if that was the signal to wind things down, only a few more people stood to speak. There was a period of questions, which took a while because the lawyer fielded most of them, and then the meeting adjourned almost an hour ahead of schedule.

Three thousand people in the Holland area get the FRC's newsletters; roughly 1% bothered to come.

Why the lack of interest?

Part of the reason, to be sure, is that Holland is sick of the issue; they went through a long campaign early this year.

But another part is that blocking software is not nearly as popular as the vocal minority would have us believe. An AP article "Most parents shun net filters" suggests that just one parent in three uses censorware.

And even that seems large, to some. The latest issue of the American Family Association Journal has an article titled "Low percentage of Christians using Internet filtering shows ignorance of the dangers." They claim that "Seven out of 10 Christians have Internet access -- but only one out of 10 has filtered Internet access."

(Keep in mind, too, that when the AFA says "Christians," they mean conservative Christians, presumably more likely to use censorware.)

Parents simply have better choices when it comes to protecting their children. Education and communication are the most effective tools (the only effective ones, I would argue, in many cases). And they're cheaper too: at least, a library in Hudsonville, near Holland, recently spent $20,000 on card-based censorware (not including maintenance fees) for four computers. The city of Grand Rapids, Michigan, just voted to spend $85,000.

And it takes a sneaky kid about ten seconds to completely bypass the $20,000 system. I know; I did it myself, and spent a while browsing a completely unfiltered internet.

But it's political pressure that installs such systems, not necessarily actual demand. Holland's library has taken a great deal of heat for not holding meetings which only a tiny fraction of the community seems interested in. Of course it's easy to use hindsight, but it's my guess that holding the meetings earlier and more often would have taken the lid off the child-size pressure cooker; everyone would have felt better. That's something to consider for the next community faced with this issue.

And speaking of demand, only about 100 patrons at Hudsonville have signed up for the internet cards. The system was installed under pressure from local conservative organizations; others, like that in Grand Rapids, will be installed thanks to a new Michigan law.

That law, Public Act 212, takes effect in our fair state on October1 and in effect, according to the Holland library's lawyer, makes it illegal for minors to use the internet. It demands that terminals for those 17 and under be "restricted from receiving" material "harmful to minors" (that's the underage equivalent of illegal obscenity). No software can guarantee such a restriction, of course, unless it executes the shutdown command.

In fact, it was recommended that the adults' terminals be not only shielded for privacy, but placed so that no minor might walk by and catch a glimpse of something harmful.

So the line seems pretty clearly drawn. How it will play out in reality remains to be seen.

You've probably figured out by now that I'm opposed to blocking software. Before the end of the month, I'll look at what alternatives a library might adopt -- too late for Michigan libraries, but perhaps not too late for yours. There are many choices to be made between the simplistic extremes of "filters" and "nofilters," some of which protect our right to free expression more than others.

Unfortunately, you won't see such alternatives in the traditional media. When filter supporter Tish Fackler pulled out her air filters, she gave a little laugh and said "looks like I'm going to be on TV tonight." Then she held up her meaningless props and delivered the soundbite that was on TV that night. I'll try to keep it a little more real than that.

Our readers from a year ago may remember the series we did examining the attempt to force censorware into Holland's libraries. (Holland, Michigan is the home of the Slashdot Geek Compound, such as it is.) In February, voters rejected that attempt. But to quote Poltergeist II, "they're ba-ack." Thanks to a new Michigan law, all of our libraries have to address the question of minors and the internet -- and blocking software is, to many, the natural solution. I went to the Holland library's open board meeting on Tuesday night; here's what's up.

By the way, if you're wondering why you should care about Holland, Michigan: this is going to happen at your local library -- and other public institutions -- soon. It probably has already happened at your local schools. The Holland area is fairly conservative, so it's been at the forefront, but the issue will work its way around the country (and in fact the world) in due time.

Before I describe what happened at the board meeting Tuesday evening, I should put the meeting itself into context.

A small but vocal minority has been pushing for library filters since late last year. At that time, the effort was begun by the American Family Association, with the Family Research Council and a local group stepping in to do the heavy lifting.

The FRC is still playing the dominant role. In fact, Tuesday night, the AFA representative actively distanced the organization from the issue, probably because it has earned its reputation as an extremist group.

Since February, the push has been for communication with the library board: "community input" has been big. Since all board meetings legally must be open to the public anyway, it's never been entirely clear to me what the problem was. The board did form a committee, which met on several occasions with filtering supporters -- the few who showed up -- and educated themselves about their options.

But the pro-filter crowd and the media have been attacking the library for not doing more to engage the community in dialogue. In one recent headline, the city's Mayor, formerly anti-filter, was described as "ripping [the library board's lack of] public input." Ouch.

In fact, the FRC representative Tuesday night apologized at length for the pressure tactics -- even though, in most of the media reports I've seen, her comments were relatively mild.

Just a week ago, she was quoted as saying she:

"...doesn't think a Sept. 12 forum will be sufficient to solicit public input, with attendance limited to 200 people and less than two hours set aside for public comment.

"She said those restrictions will limit the amount of input the board can receive."

That's been the concern all these months; that's what's been keeping the library board awake worrying. Every board meeting has been completely open to the public, and the only issue was how many people the fire marshal would allow in, and how long the community would be allowed to outpour its concerns.

In fact, when the meeting started -- the one and only meeting that's been publicized as a forum for the airing of Holland's views -- fewer than 45 people showed.

Some more trickled in, some trickled back out later after less than two hours of public comment. A total of just over 60 people showed up, about half of whom spoke (excluding the boardmembers and the media, including the toddlers, not that the toddlers did much of the speaking).

The Family Research Council's representative saved her statements for late in the meeting, telling her group's supporters how important it was that they came out, and to hang in there because they were only at the halfway point. Her closing comments were encouragement to those supporters: "we're getting closer and closer, glory God, we will not quit until we get this thing right ... c'mon you people, there's two more hours, get up here and talk for yourselves."

As if that was the signal to wind things down, only a few more people stood to speak. There was a period of questions, which took a while because the lawyer fielded most of them, and then the meeting adjourned almost an hour ahead of schedule.

Three thousand people in the Holland area get the FRC's newsletters; roughly 1% bothered to come.

Why the lack of interest?

Part of the reason, to be sure, is that Holland is sick of the issue; they went through a long campaign early this year.

But another part is that blocking software is not nearly as popular as the vocal minority would have us believe. An AP article "Most parents shun net filters" suggests that just one parent in three uses censorware.

And even that seems large, to some. The latest issue of the American Family Association Journal has an article titled "Low percentage of Christians using Internet filtering shows ignorance of the dangers." They claim that "Seven out of 10 Christians have Internet access -- but only one out of 10 has filtered Internet access."

(Keep in mind, too, that when the AFA says "Christians," they mean conservative Christians, presumably more likely to use censorware.)

Parents simply have better choices when it comes to protecting their children. Education and communication are the most effective tools (the only effective ones, I would argue, in many cases). And they're cheaper too: at least, a library in Hudsonville, near Holland, recently spent $20,000 on card-based censorware (not including maintenance fees) for four computers. The city of Grand Rapids, Michigan, just voted to spend $85,000.

And it takes a sneaky kid about ten seconds to completely bypass the $20,000 system. I know; I did it myself, and spent a while browsing a completely unfiltered internet.

But it's political pressure that installs such systems, not necessarily actual demand. Holland's library has taken a great deal of heat for not holding meetings which only a tiny fraction of the community seems interested in. Of course it's easy to use hindsight, but it's my guess that holding the meetings earlier and more often would have taken the lid off the child-size pressure cooker; everyone would have felt better. That's something to consider for the next community faced with this issue.

And speaking of demand, only about 100 patrons at Hudsonville have signed up for the internet cards. The system was installed under pressure from local conservative organizations; others, like that in Grand Rapids, will be installed thanks to a new Michigan law.

That law, Public Act 212, takes effect in our fair state on October1 and in effect, according to the Holland library's lawyer, makes it illegal for minors to use the internet. It demands that terminals for those 17 and under be "restricted from receiving" material "harmful to minors" (that's the underage equivalent of illegal obscenity). No software can guarantee such a restriction, of course, unless it executes the shutdown command.

In fact, it was recommended that the adults' terminals be not only shielded for privacy, but placed so that no minor might walk by and catch a glimpse of something harmful.

So the line seems pretty clearly drawn. How it will play out in reality remains to be seen.

You've probably figured out by now that I'm opposed to blocking software. Before the end of the month, I'll look at what alternatives a library might adopt -- too late for Michigan libraries, but perhaps not too late for yours. There are many choices to be made between the simplistic extremes of "filters" and "nofilters," some of which protect our right to free expression more than others.

Unfortunately, you won't see such alternatives in the traditional media. When filter supporter Tish Fackler pulled out her air filters, she gave a little laugh and said "looks like I'm going to be on TV tonight." Then she held up her meaningless props and delivered the soundbite that was on TV that night. I'll try to keep it a little more real than that.

Our readers from a year ago may remember the series we did examining the attempt to force censorware into Holland's libraries. (Holland, Michigan is the home of the Slashdot Geek Compound, such as it is.) In February, voters rejected that attempt. But to quote Poltergeist II, "they're ba-ack." Thanks to a new Michigan law, all of our libraries have to address the question of minors and the internet -- and blocking software is, to many, the natural solution. I went to the Holland library's open board meeting on Tuesday night; here's what's up.

By the way, if you're wondering why you should care about Holland, Michigan: this is going to happen at your local library -- and other public institutions -- soon. It probably has already happened at your local schools. The Holland area is fairly conservative, so it's been at the forefront, but the issue will work its way around the country (and in fact the world) in due time.

Before I describe what happened at the board meeting Tuesday evening, I should put the meeting itself into context.

A small but vocal minority has been pushing for library filters since late last year. At that time, the effort was begun by the American Family Association, with the Family Research Council and a local group stepping in to do the heavy lifting.

The FRC is still playing the dominant role. In fact, Tuesday night, the AFA representative actively distanced the organization from the issue, probably because it has earned its reputation as an extremist group.

Since February, the push has been for communication with the library board: "community input" has been big. Since all board meetings legally must be open to the public anyway, it's never been entirely clear to me what the problem was. The board did form a committee, which met on several occasions with filtering supporters -- the few who showed up -- and educated themselves about their options.

But the pro-filter crowd and the media have been attacking the library for not doing more to engage the community in dialogue. In one recent headline, the city's Mayor, formerly anti-filter, was described as "ripping [the library board's lack of] public input." Ouch.

In fact, the FRC representative Tuesday night apologized at length for the pressure tactics -- even though, in most of the media reports I've seen, her comments were relatively mild.

Just a week ago, she was quoted as saying she:

"...doesn't think a Sept. 12 forum will be sufficient to solicit public input, with attendance limited to 200 people and less than two hours set aside for public comment.

"She said those restrictions will limit the amount of input the board can receive."

That's been the concern all these months; that's what's been keeping the library board awake worrying. Every board meeting has been completely open to the public, and the only issue was how many people the fire marshal would allow in, and how long the community would be allowed to outpour its concerns.

In fact, when the meeting started -- the one and only meeting that's been publicized as a forum for the airing of Holland's views -- fewer than 45 people showed.

Some more trickled in, some trickled back out later after less than two hours of public comment. A total of just over 60 people showed up, about half of whom spoke (excluding the boardmembers and the media, including the toddlers, not that the toddlers did much of the speaking).

The Family Research Council's representative saved her statements for late in the meeting, telling her group's supporters how important it was that they came out, and to hang in there because they were only at the halfway point. Her closing comments were encouragement to those supporters: "we're getting closer and closer, glory God, we will not quit until we get this thing right ... c'mon you people, there's two more hours, get up here and talk for yourselves."

As if that was the signal to wind things down, only a few more people stood to speak. There was a period of questions, which took a while because the lawyer fielded most of them, and then the meeting adjourned almost an hour ahead of schedule.

Three thousand people in the Holland area get the FRC's newsletters; roughly 1% bothered to come.

Why the lack of interest?

Part of the reason, to be sure, is that Holland is sick of the issue; they went through a long campaign early this year.

But another part is that blocking software is not nearly as popular as the vocal minority would have us believe. An AP article "Most parents shun net filters" suggests that just one parent in three uses censorware.

And even that seems large, to some. The latest issue of the American Family Association Journal has an article titled "Low percentage of Christians using Internet filtering shows ignorance of the dangers." They claim that "Seven out of 10 Christians have Internet access -- but only one out of 10 has filtered Internet access."

(Keep in mind, too, that when the AFA says "Christians," they mean conservative Christians, presumably more likely to use censorware.)

Parents simply have better choices when it comes to protecting their children. Education and communication are the most effective tools (the only effective ones, I would argue, in many cases). And they're cheaper too: at least, a library in Hudsonville, near Holland, recently spent $20,000 on card-based censorware (not including maintenance fees) for four computers. The city of Grand Rapids, Michigan, just voted to spend $85,000.

And it takes a sneaky kid about ten seconds to completely bypass the $20,000 system. I know; I did it myself, and spent a while browsing a completely unfiltered internet.

But it's political pressure that installs such systems, not necessarily actual demand. Holland's library has taken a great deal of heat for not holding meetings which only a tiny fraction of the community seems interested in. Of course it's easy to use hindsight, but it's my guess that holding the meetings earlier and more often would have taken the lid off the child-size pressure cooker; everyone would have felt better. That's something to consider for the next community faced with this issue.

And speaking of demand, only about 100 patrons at Hudsonville have signed up for the internet cards. The system was installed under pressure from local conservative organizations; others, like that in Grand Rapids, will be installed thanks to a new Michigan law.

That law, Public Act 212, takes effect in our fair state on October1 and in effect, according to the Holland library's lawyer, makes it illegal for minors to use the internet. It demands that terminals for those 17 and under be "restricted from receiving" material "harmful to minors" (that's the underage equivalent of illegal obscenity). No software can guarantee such a restriction, of course, unless it executes the shutdown command.

In fact, it was recommended that the adults' terminals be not only shielded for privacy, but placed so that no minor might walk by and catch a glimpse of something harmful.

So the line seems pretty clearly drawn. How it will play out in reality remains to be seen.

You've probably figured out by now that I'm opposed to blocking software. Before the end of the month, I'll look at what alternatives a library might adopt -- too late for Michigan libraries, but perhaps not too late for yours. There are many choices to be made between the simplistic extremes of "filters" and "nofilters," some of which protect our right to free expression more than others.

Unfortunately, you won't see such alternatives in the traditional media. When filter supporter Tish Fackler pulled out her air filters, she gave a little laugh and said "looks like I'm going to be on TV tonight." Then she held up her meaningless props and delivered the soundbite that was on TV that night. I'll try to keep it a little more real than that.

You may recall our series on the battle over censorware in the libraries surrounding the Slashdot Geek Compound in Holland, Michigan. In the final piece, I wrote: "This isn't the end, though. It's just the beginning." Well, the pro-filtering groups have been busy almost since the day they lost the vote, and will almost certainly put the same issue up for a vote again this year, probably on the November ballot. Here's the first news worthy of a heads-up: old, flawed censorware (SmartFilter) is being repackaged with a new name and some card-based hardware that can assign different patrons different settings. Its presentation last night was well-received, and local groups seem to be ready to adopt the system. Last time the Censorware Project checked out this product, it had recently modified its database to allow children to read "How To Have Sex With A Horse."

The mandatory library filtering ballot in Holland, Mich., home of the Slashdot Geek Compound, has been defeated. With heavy voter turnout of 41% (compared to 12% in 1996), the proposal was rejected by a pretty wide margin: 55% to 45%. The Holland library will remain unfiltered - or, more accurately, will now have the right to make up its own mind about whether blocking software is appropriate. See the local press coverage (or national or international), or read on for more.

I think it was my friend Lizard on the fight-censorship mailing list who said: "You can't compromise with book-burners. When someone asks you to burn 1,000 books, you cannot agree to burn only 500." He's exactly right. Any middle ground is a step backwards, and hard to recover.

It's important to keep in mind how tough the battle was. Holland was chosen to be a testbed by national groups like the American Family Association and Family Research Council, and they spent a lot of money. Why? Because the AFA and FRC stood to make a lot of money by using Holland as an example for nationwide campaigning. They have been hyping up this ballot as the first big step in a nationwide campaign.

And they figured Holland would be a slam-dunk. It's one of the most conservative communities in American. And the measure was well-timed: the ballot was on the same night as the Republican primary. (Michigan is not a closed primary, though, and many Democrats did vote.)

Some Slashdot posters have commented that I've seemed pessimistic in my reports on the campaign. They've been right. I couldn't read the city's mood very well, not being a native, and based on the coverage and talks I'd seen, I didn't think the chances were very good.

While the AFA and FRC together contributed over $40,000, the anti-filter side raised - locally - $2,000.

The AFA sponsored a "pushpoll," in which a Florida firm made phone calls to hundreds of likely voters, asking them "questions" designed to leave the impression that the library is inviting to pedophiles. Local anti-filter volunteers went door-to-door.

The pro-filter organizations ran radio, newspaper, and cable TV advertisements, they sent out at least three direct mailings, and they spent thousands on slick presentations to local groups.

And when it came down to the vote, they lost.

This isn't the end, though. It's just the beginning. The heads of the various pro-filtering groups are all hinting that the battle is not over. Presumably that means it will become another ballot issue, perhaps later this year, perhaps next year. And it will certainly be happening elsewhere in America at the same time. (Write me when it gets to your community.)

In some cases, the unaccountable censorship of secretive blocking software will be turned down at the voting booth. I'm guessing that, in the next five years, we'll see a definitive statement on the relevance of the First Amendment, one way or the other, in the courts.

But for now ... well, I'll close by congratulating everyone in Holland who worked to defeat this measure, and by quoting from one of the direct mailings funded by the AFA. You'll have to imagine this text as it appears, in 30-point headlines, with yellow highlights:

"America's watching, Holland. The debate over Internet filters on library computers is a national issue. Now, the focus is on Holland, Michigan.

"Tuesday, February 22nd, Holland citizens will decide the first ballot vote on filtering in the nation. How we vote will affect this issue nationwide.

"On February 22, send a clear message to America. Tell America we must protect our children from Internet pornography and drugs."

Last week, I gave a presentation on SurfWatch, and blocking software in general, in downtown Holland, Mich. Preparing for it was an interesting experience, mostly in annoyance, hard work, and dealing with getting seriously sick two days before. Read on for the story of recovering, preparing, talking, giving away $100, a bolt of lightning, and why nothing anyone does is going to stop fundamentalists from bringing issues like this to America's ballots.

I'm not a public speaker, and I hadn't stood before an audience in quite a while. The feedback I'd gotten from my first presentation on SurfWatch was that I talked too fast and too much. At the time, I'd wanted to communicate as much as possible of what the Censorware Project had learned over the last two years, in a half hour. An impossible task, and I shouldn't have tried.

But I felt I could do better, so I wanted to try again. That's the effort that ended up becoming Thursday's presentation.

My main problem is that the subject is complicated. Many computer professionals have this problem when trying to communicate computer-related ideas to nonprofessionals. If these things were simple, we wouldn't need computers. But trying to get across too much information in a half hour didn't work.

The other thing I'd tried that didn't work was borrowing the computers of the Family Research Council. The FRC had two computers set up, one filtered and one not, run by two volunteers. I'd thought it would be a clever coup to use their own computers to show their software failing.

But it wasn't impressive for one reason: when I showed an innocent Web site blocked, all that showed up was the "Blocked by SurfWatch" screen. I was using the FRC's filtered computer and their other one was turned off. Nobody had any idea that valuable information was being blocked, except me.

Kind of the way the censorship works in the library. But not an effective demo.

For my second go at it, I rented a ballroom in downtown Holland, advertised it in the paper, and brought my own computers. I purchased SurfWatch and installed it on one of them. And I spent some time thinking over which issues were important enough to hit and which were just too technical to mention.

Setting up was great fun, if by "fun" I mean wrestling with a network under a deadline. The 10baseT jack didn't seem to be connected, one of the extension cords didn't work, a projector wouldn't turn on, and finally I was faced with Windows' endless dialog boxes of options just to use DHCP. But it all worked out with time to spare.

I began my talk by explaining out why I was there and why blocking software was wrong. Currently, Holland's opposition to the software is being waged largely on political issues: chiefly, the fact that three-fourths of library taxpayers cannot vote on the ballot. To many, what the blocking software actually does is a non-issue.

But these are mere procedural concerns. Every community is going to have to face the core problem squarely, sooner or later; it might as well be now. So I began my talk by laying out, from the beginning, my belief that blocking software inherently violates the First Amendment.

After talking about some of the myths put forth in the community's debate, my next step was to display some pornography on the big screens. The local Family Research Council has been trotting out a presentation that focuses on some of the most graphic stuff available on the web: bestiality, fisting, etc. I'd decided to try not offending my audience quite as much. I chose some milder Web pages, mostly softcore, though several of the sites I chose also contained harder material.

And, of course, unlike the Family Research Council's, my demonstration showed the pornography appearing on both screens: filtered and un-.

I think I'll not reveal here which porn sites I showed. I want to see how long SurfWatch goes without finding them. So far it's been about two weeks, but of course revealing them here would get them blocked immediately for PR purposes.

I will say that I chose six sites that all begin with the letter "A". This was to make the point that there is plenty of unblocked pornography - there being 25 other letters in the alphabet. As if to make my point, a Tennessee paper ran that same day a story about a schoolteacher who was fired for accessing over a hundred porn sites - right through the school's "filter."

After all, if the software fails only a tiny fraction of the time, it still allows through - dozens? hundreds? thousands? - of porn sites. How many porn sites does the average person need? What's the point in blocking 99% of it, if the remaining sites are more than enough to keep anyone busy?

The next step in my talk was the flip side: showing protected Web pages unfairly blocked. Finding a plethora of wrongly-blocked pages was easy. SurfWatch uses URL keyword blocking, so, for example, the complete text of the classic book Of Human Bondage is blocked because of "bondage" in the URL. The hard part was narrowing the list down to 10 to demonstrate.

(If you're interested, here are the ten blocked pages I used: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10.)

Next, I pointed out that these sorts of errors were not often corrected. What data there is suggests that most errors go unfixed. In our analysis of Web logs in the State of Utah, we found about 300 wrongly blocked sites, of which only six were overridden. Also, in the Family Research Council's $7,000 canned demo, they tried to show how easy it was to fix errors by unblocking The Onion. Since they couldn't even do their prepared site correctly (they left graphics.theonion.com blocked), how could the staff be expected to do the job on real sites, in a busy library?

I explained that the errors I'd found were intrinsic to blocking software, because of the growth of the Web. In my first talk, I spent 10 minutes talking about exponential growth; this time, I just gave the impressive figure that, during just the course of my talk, a million Web pages were created or changed. Much quicker and I'm sure it made the same point.

There seemed to be concern, in Holland, that pornography just "popsup" at any time, for no reason. I debunked that myth by pointing out that typos almost never lead to offensive Web sites. I read this quote from the Supreme Court's ruling on the Communications Decency Act, where they affirmed a lower court's conclusions:

"Communications over the Internet do not 'invade' an individual's home or appear on one's computer screen unbidden. Users seldom encounter content 'by accident.' ... Almost all sexually explicit images are preceded by warnings as to the content. Even the Government's witness ... testified that the 'odds are slim' that a user would come across a sexually explicit site by accident."

All the incidents of "verified pornography" in the Holland press seem to boil down to the same two cases over and over. In the first, a woman was reading Hotmail and, when she was done, closed the browser window. Behind it was porn that another user had left up as a prank.

There are programs that can be run between users' sessions to shut down Netscape and clear its history - my local library is using one with much success - so blocking software isn't necessary to solve this problem. I've explained this to the woman, but she continues to use her incident as an argument for blocking software.

The second incident involved a teenage girl. It seems she was at the library computer and stumbled across naked women purely by accident while doing an innocent search for chocolate chip cookie recipes. Interestingly, she didn't report this to her mother, apparently out of embarrassment, until weeks later. I'd like to speak with her as well but the local pro-filtering groups refuse to put her in touch with me.

I haven't been able to replicate this event, and neither have other people who have tried. And I know a lot about search engines. Now, I'm not saying it didn't happen. Maybe it was a misunderstanding.

What I did in my speech was hold up a $100 bill and offer it to the first person who could show me how it was done. I'll make the same offer to Slashdot readers. Let's see whether this is an urban legend or not. See the bottom of this story for the rules.

I spoke briefly about the legal issues. The Holland area has been hearing suggestions that it will be legally safer to use blocking software. In fact, though the case law is by no means definitive, the experiences of Livermore and Loudoun point toward the opposite conclusion.

Next was the fun part, where I brought up some quotes from the two organizations pushing filters in Holland to illustrate the folly of relying on unaccountable third parties for censorship. In a 1996 legal brief, the Family Research Council had mentioned Cyber Patrol by name as a product that families and libraries "should make use of." But just two years later, in a bulletin called "Filtering Out Decency," they were warning parents away from using the same software.

Why? Because Cyber Patrol had stuck to its guidelines for what constituted hate speech. They had reviewed the American Family Association, the other organization pushing filters in Holland, and found them to be espousing intolerance of homosexuals. The entire AFA site now found itself censored, by the same type of software it had been pushing. In a bulletin called "Filtering Out Morality," the AFA warned parents to think twice before using any blocking software:

"In a secularist culture, both filtering software and federal regulations may well be used to filter out Christianity along with other undesirable elements.

"Another kind of software simply informs parents what sites their children have visited. Instead of making it impossible for children to see certain sites, this approach puts parental discipline at the center. Children, realizing that their parents are looking over their shoulders, are thus taught to internalize the restraints and to develop a conscience of their own.

"As Christians get involved in these debates - before they get filtered altogether - they should keep in mind the warning of the great Puritan poet John Milton ... 'If it come to prohibiting, there is not aught more likely to be prohibited than truth itself.'"

Teaching children to develop a moral conscience of their own? There's a radical idea. Why did it take censorship backfiring before anyone thought of that?

I wrapped things up by talking for a bit about the importance of teaching these moral lessons to children. The children of today are growing up in the 21st century. The Internet will be available to them on every street corner and desk, and mostly unfiltered. What they need is not a temporary and leaky set of blinders strapped on. They need to be given an ethical foundation and the self-reliance to make good decisions about their own lives.

Somewhere in there I called up the AFA's Web site and showed that their discussion about pornography was blocked by SurfWatch as if it were pornography. That got a chuckle from the audience and made the point: it isn't just one product that backfires. The very product that has been pushed in their community blocks the very organization that has spent $35,000 pushing it.

As I wrote in an earlier article, I'm not sure any of this will make any difference to most people. For most, the issue is and will always be pornography: to be against pornography is to support filters.

And the opposition to sexually explicit material is, at heart, an emotional one. It's a primal one. Sex and fear are two of the gut instincts that we humans carry with us from our earliest days.

The day after my talk, the Holland Sentinel carried a powerfulinterview with the man who is behind the city's ballot initiative. IrvBos is the head of the Holland Area Family Association, a branch of the American Family Association.

It seems his aversion to pornography began when he was a boy, in a dramatic incident. At the age of 12, he found a book by the side of the road - a book with stories about "pretty graphic things," a book that the young boy secreted away in his parents' barn.

When "lightning struck the barn, burning it to the ground," it must have been a frightening demonstration of God's power to the guilty child, the child who associated that barn with sneaking behind his parents' back to do evil things, to read evil words.

I think I put together a pretty good presentation Thursday night, but it couldn't have compared to a bolt from the sky striking down a house of evil - like "Sodom and Gomorra," according to Mr.Bos's recollections.

That's hard to top. I can talk about the Internet equivalents of electrons and lightning rods all I want. But I don't think anyone can get through to people who believe this battle to be an epic one, a battle of good and evil. There is something primal there.

We'll see Tuesday night how the vote comes out.

Rules for the $100 offer are as follows. Find a search result URL that shows naked people, for a search on "chocolate chip cookies" or "chocolate chip cookie recipes." I'll accept any variant that an inexperienced Web-surfer might search for. Your result must appear on one of the first five pages of results returned (typically the first 50 results). I'll accept any major search engine. Send me the exact query you used; I will only accept queries I can verify to work as claimed. You aren't allowed to put up a cookie page, submit it, then change its content; to prevent this, you have until 11:59PMEST, Wednesday the 23rd. Only the first person gets the money; order is determined by timestamp of Received: headers at my server. I'll mail you a check or donate it to your favorite charity. This offer is made by me personally, not Slashdot, Andover.net, or VALinux. Notify me at jamie@mccarthy.org.

Update: 02/22 9:30 PM EST by J : I'm getting a lot of submissions that underscore the importance of properly spelling queries. Since I said I'd allow variants, I'll allow these and pick the most reasonable-sounding to give the $100 to. Some of the better ones so far: "chocchipcooky," "chocolateecipe," and the amusing "chocolatecoochie." If you can't beat those, don't bother emailing me.

But what I'm really looking for is a search engine result that looks innocent - that a 16-year-old girl might click on without suspecting pornography at the other end. See the CNN story:

"She typed in 'Chocolate Chip Cookies,' hit the search button and immediately there appeared before her eyes a picture of a nude woman."

The issue is whether pornography appears unexpectedly, from clicking on an innocent-looking link. If no one finds one of those, the other Slashdot authors and I will just decide on the most reasonable-sounding of the other submissions (first entries win ties).

Last week, I gave a presentation on SurfWatch, and blocking software in general, in downtown Holland, Mich. Preparing for it was an interesting experience, mostly in annoyance, hard work, and dealing with getting seriously sick two days before. Read on for the story of recovering, preparing, talking, giving away $100, a bolt of lightning, and why nothing anyone does is going to stop fundamentalists from bringing issues like this to America's ballots.

I'm not a public speaker, and I hadn't stood before an audience in quite a while. The feedback I'd gotten from my first presentation on SurfWatch was that I talked too fast and too much. At the time, I'd wanted to communicate as much as possible of what the Censorware Project had learned over the last two years, in a half hour. An impossible task, and I shouldn't have tried.

But I felt I could do better, so I wanted to try again. That's the effort that ended up becoming Thursday's presentation.

My main problem is that the subject is complicated. Many computer professionals have this problem when trying to communicate computer-related ideas to nonprofessionals. If these things were simple, we wouldn't need computers. But trying to get across too much information in a half hour didn't work.

The other thing I'd tried that didn't work was borrowing the computers of the Family Research Council. The FRC had two computers set up, one filtered and one not, run by two volunteers. I'd thought it would be a clever coup to use their own computers to show their software failing.

But it wasn't impressive for one reason: when I showed an innocent Web site blocked, all that showed up was the "Blocked by SurfWatch" screen. I was using the FRC's filtered computer and their other one was turned off. Nobody had any idea that valuable information was being blocked, except me.

Kind of the way the censorship works in the library. But not an effective demo.

For my second go at it, I rented a ballroom in downtown Holland, advertised it in the paper, and brought my own computers. I purchased SurfWatch and installed it on one of them. And I spent some time thinking over which issues were important enough to hit and which were just too technical to mention.

Setting up was great fun, if by "fun" I mean wrestling with a network under a deadline. The 10baseT jack didn't seem to be connected, one of the extension cords didn't work, a projector wouldn't turn on, and finally I was faced with Windows' endless dialog boxes of options just to use DHCP. But it all worked out with time to spare.

I began my talk by explaining out why I was there and why blocking software was wrong. Currently, Holland's opposition to the software is being waged largely on political issues: chiefly, the fact that three-fourths of library taxpayers cannot vote on the ballot. To many, what the blocking software actually does is a non-issue.

But these are mere procedural concerns. Every community is going to have to face the core problem squarely, sooner or later; it might as well be now. So I began my talk by laying out, from the beginning, my belief that blocking software inherently violates the First Amendment.

After talking about some of the myths put forth in the community's debate, my next step was to display some pornography on the big screens. The local Family Research Council has been trotting out a presentation that focuses on some of the most graphic stuff available on the web: bestiality, fisting, etc. I'd decided to try not offending my audience quite as much. I chose some milder Web pages, mostly softcore, though several of the sites I chose also contained harder material.

And, of course, unlike the Family Research Council's, my demonstration showed the pornography appearing on both screens: filtered and un-.

I think I'll not reveal here which porn sites I showed. I want to see how long SurfWatch goes without finding them. So far it's been about two weeks, but of course revealing them here would get them blocked immediately for PR purposes.

I will say that I chose six sites that all begin with the letter "A". This was to make the point that there is plenty of unblocked pornography - there being 25 other letters in the alphabet. As if to make my point, a Tennessee paper ran that same day a story about a schoolteacher who was fired for accessing over a hundred porn sites - right through the school's "filter."

After all, if the software fails only a tiny fraction of the time, it still allows through - dozens? hundreds? thousands? - of porn sites. How many porn sites does the average person need? What's the point in blocking 99% of it, if the remaining sites are more than enough to keep anyone busy?

The next step in my talk was the flip side: showing protected Web pages unfairly blocked. Finding a plethora of wrongly-blocked pages was easy. SurfWatch uses URL keyword blocking, so, for example, the complete text of the classic book Of Human Bondage is blocked because of "bondage" in the URL. The hard part was narrowing the list down to 10 to demonstrate.

(If you're interested, here are the ten blocked pages I used: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10.)

Next, I pointed out that these sorts of errors were not often corrected. What data there is suggests that most errors go unfixed. In our analysis of Web logs in the State of Utah, we found about 300 wrongly blocked sites, of which only six were overridden. Also, in the Family Research Council's $7,000 canned demo, they tried to show how easy it was to fix errors by unblocking The Onion. Since they couldn't even do their prepared site correctly (they left graphics.theonion.com blocked), how could the staff be expected to do the job on real sites, in a busy library?

I explained that the errors I'd found were intrinsic to blocking software, because of the growth of the Web. In my first talk, I spent 10 minutes talking about exponential growth; this time, I just gave the impressive figure that, during just the course of my talk, a million Web pages were created or changed. Much quicker and I'm sure it made the same point.

There seemed to be concern, in Holland, that pornography just "popsup" at any time, for no reason. I debunked that myth by pointing out that typos almost never lead to offensive Web sites. I read this quote from the Supreme Court's ruling on the Communications Decency Act, where they affirmed a lower court's conclusions:

"Communications over the Internet do not 'invade' an individual's home or appear on one's computer screen unbidden. Users seldom encounter content 'by accident.' ... Almost all sexually explicit images are preceded by warnings as to the content. Even the Government's witness ... testified that the 'odds are slim' that a user would come across a sexually explicit site by accident."

All the incidents of "verified pornography" in the Holland press seem to boil down to the same two cases over and over. In the first, a woman was reading Hotmail and, when she was done, closed the browser window. Behind it was porn that another user had left up as a prank.

There are programs that can be run between users' sessions to shut down Netscape and clear its history - my local library is using one with much success - so blocking software isn't necessary to solve this problem. I've explained this to the woman, but she continues to use her incident as an argument for blocking software.

The second incident involved a teenage girl. It seems she was at the library computer and stumbled across naked women purely by accident while doing an innocent search for chocolate chip cookie recipes. Interestingly, she didn't report this to her mother, apparently out of embarrassment, until weeks later. I'd like to speak with her as well but the local pro-filtering groups refuse to put her in touch with me.

I haven't been able to replicate this event, and neither have other people who have tried. And I know a lot about search engines. Now, I'm not saying it didn't happen. Maybe it was a misunderstanding.

What I did in my speech was hold up a $100 bill and offer it to the first person who could show me how it was done. I'll make the same offer to Slashdot readers. Let's see whether this is an urban legend or not. See the bottom of this story for the rules.

I spoke briefly about the legal issues. The Holland area has been hearing suggestions that it will be legally safer to use blocking software. In fact, though the case law is by no means definitive, the experiences of Livermore and Loudoun point toward the opposite conclusion.

Next was the fun part, where I brought up some quotes from the two organizations pushing filters in Holland to illustrate the folly of relying on unaccountable third parties for censorship. In a 1996 legal brief, the Family Research Council had mentioned Cyber Patrol by name as a product that families and libraries "should make use of." But just two years later, in a bulletin called "Filtering Out Decency," they were warning parents away from using the same software.

Why? Because Cyber Patrol had stuck to its guidelines for what constituted hate speech. They had reviewed the American Family Association, the other organization pushing filters in Holland, and found them to be espousing intolerance of homosexuals. The entire AFA site now found itself censored, by the same type of software it had been pushing. In a bulletin called "Filtering Out Morality," the AFA warned parents to think twice before using any blocking software:

"In a secularist culture, both filtering software and federal regulations may well be used to filter out Christianity along with other undesirable elements.

"Another kind of software simply informs parents what sites their children have visited. Instead of making it impossible for children to see certain sites, this approach puts parental discipline at the center. Children, realizing that their parents are looking over their shoulders, are thus taught to internalize the restraints and to develop a conscience of their own.

"As Christians get involved in these debates - before they get filtered altogether - they should keep in mind the warning of the great Puritan poet John Milton ... 'If it come to prohibiting, there is not aught more likely to be prohibited than truth itself.'"

Teaching children to develop a moral conscience of their own? There's a radical idea. Why did it take censorship backfiring before anyone thought of that?

I wrapped things up by talking for a bit about the importance of teaching these moral lessons to children. The children of today are growing up in the 21st century. The Internet will be available to them on every street corner and desk, and mostly unfiltered. What they need is not a temporary and leaky set of blinders strapped on. They need to be given an ethical foundation and the self-reliance to make good decisions about their own lives.

Somewhere in there I called up the AFA's Web site and showed that their discussion about pornography was blocked by SurfWatch as if it were pornography. That got a chuckle from the audience and made the point: it isn't just one product that backfires. The very product that has been pushed in their community blocks the very organization that has spent $35,000 pushing it.

As I wrote in an earlier article, I'm not sure any of this will make any difference to most people. For most, the issue is and will always be pornography: to be against pornography is to support filters.

And the opposition to sexually explicit material is, at heart, an emotional one. It's a primal one. Sex and fear are two of the gut instincts that we humans carry with us from our earliest days.

The day after my talk, the Holland Sentinel carried a powerfulinterview with the man who is behind the city's ballot initiative. IrvBos is the head of the Holland Area Family Association, a branch of the American Family Association.

It seems his aversion to pornography began when he was a boy, in a dramatic incident. At the age of 12, he found a book by the side of the road - a book with stories about "pretty graphic things," a book that the young boy secreted away in his parents' barn.

When "lightning struck the barn, burning it to the ground," it must have been a frightening demonstration of God's power to the guilty child, the child who associated that barn with sneaking behind his parents' back to do evil things, to read evil words.

I think I put together a pretty good presentation Thursday night, but it couldn't have compared to a bolt from the sky striking down a house of evil - like "Sodom and Gomorra," according to Mr.Bos's recollections.

That's hard to top. I can talk about the Internet equivalents of electrons and lightning rods all I want. But I don't think anyone can get through to people who believe this battle to be an epic one, a battle of good and evil. There is something primal there.

We'll see Tuesday night how the vote comes out.

Rules for the $100 offer are as follows. Find a search result URL that shows naked people, for a search on "chocolate chip cookies" or "chocolate chip cookie recipes." I'll accept any variant that an inexperienced Web-surfer might search for. Your result must appear on one of the first five pages of results returned (typically the first 50 results). I'll accept any major search engine. Send me the exact query you used; I will only accept queries I can verify to work as claimed. You aren't allowed to put up a cookie page, submit it, then change its content; to prevent this, you have until 11:59PMEST, Wednesday the 23rd. Only the first person gets the money; order is determined by timestamp of Received: headers at my server. I'll mail you a check or donate it to your favorite charity. This offer is made by me personally, not Slashdot, Andover.net, or VALinux. Notify me at jamie@mccarthy.org.

Update: 02/22 9:30 PM EST by J : I'm getting a lot of submissions that underscore the importance of properly spelling queries. Since I said I'd allow variants, I'll allow these and pick the most reasonable-sounding to give the $100 to. Some of the better ones so far: "chocchipcooky," "chocolateecipe," and the amusing "chocolatecoochie." If you can't beat those, don't bother emailing me.

But what I'm really looking for is a search engine result that looks innocent - that a 16-year-old girl might click on without suspecting pornography at the other end. See the CNN story:

"She typed in 'Chocolate Chip Cookies,' hit the search button and immediately there appeared before her eyes a picture of a nude woman."

The issue is whether pornography appears unexpectedly, from clicking on an innocent-looking link. If no one finds one of those, the other Slashdot authors and I will just decide on the most reasonable-sounding of the other submissions (first entries win ties).

You think your community is conservative? Holland, Michigan, home of the Slashdot Geek Compound, is a conservative community. "Y2K," according to yard signs on my way to last night's library meeting, stands for "Yes 2 King Jesus." Supposedly the city has gone to every Republican presidential candidate but one (Abraham Lincoln). Now the American Family Association has brought mandatory library censorware to a vote on Feb.22, and the measure's opponents have a tough six weeks ahead of them. This is the first time the battle over library filters has come near my community, and my first close look at the grass roots of a First Amendment struggle. Click for more.

The conservative community isn't the only reason that the AFA has chosen the Holland area, in my home state, to be one of its important fronts in the library blocking-software war.

There is an unusual law in the city of Holland that allows any measure to be brought to a ballot vote by petition. This is good in that it brings democracy directly to the people. Unfortunately, if a couple thousand people signed a petition demanding that the mayor must part Lake Michigan or forfeit his salary, that issue would go on the ballot. Democracy doesn't always make sense.

You may have seen press about the Republication presidential candidates campaigning in our fair state. This is because our governor pushed the primary ahead this year, so that we are now one of the first states to cast a ballot for the nominees. Registered Republicans will be going to the polls on Feb.22 to decide which candidate they like best.

Registered Democrats don't get to vote on GOP candidates and largely don't care. But in the city of Holland, thanks to a last-minute petition drive spearheaded by the AFA, there will be one additional issue on the ballot: mandatory blocking software in the city library.

Ironically, the surrounding townships help pay for the same library, but because the petition-to-ballot law applies only in the city, they won't be voting on how their money will be spent.

Holland Republicans, already at the polls to nominate a candidate, will merely have to check one more box. Holland Democrats, assuming for the sake of argument that they exist, will first have to learn that they can vote on Feb.22, and then take the trouble to drive down to the polls for the sole purpose of, as the AFA will surely characterize it, forcing children to look at pornography.

Not that it's quite that simple - the issue surely doesn't break precisely across party lines - but: Ouch! Putting the issue on the ballot on the same day as the Republican primary was a brilliant strategic move. If this is what local politics are all about, maybe I'm glad I haven't gotten involved before.

But if last night's meeting at the library is any indicator, it's not over yet.

The meeting was sponsored by Families for Internet Access, a small Holland group working to oppose library blocking software. Roughly 200 people showed up in the basement of the library to discuss the issue, including at least three Slashdot readers. The large majority were clearly opposed to filters. Luckily, the minority was vocal enough that at least some of their views could be heard, so it wasn't too one-sided.

Don Wildmon, president of the Tupelo, Mississippi-based AFA, says "a community's taxpayers own the local library," and it's going to be interesting to see if that's true. The Holland library has had few problems with inappropriate material to date. The computers in the children's section are not on the net. The internet terminals in the adult section are clustered closely in a well-lit area; patron sessions are limited to 30minutes once per day, and library staff walk through the area frequently to enforce this rule. Even with access restricted to brief sessions, there is almost always a line waiting to use the next computer.

In the four years they've offered internet access, there have been a total of six incidents where a patron had to be removed for causing a disturbance. Of these, only one involved viewing of inappropriate material (it was unclear whether or not this was pornography). To put this in perspective, there were 26,000 patrons who used the internet last year alone.

It seems a bustling, crowded public area in a public library, in front of a big window facing a busy street, is not an environment where people commonly go to look at porn. Imagine that. As one of last night's presenters said, "there is an effective filter in place already, and that is the good people of Holland." It seems clear that censorware is a solution in search of a problem - at least in this community.

But the AFA knows how to look for a problem. The pamphlet that they circulate on library "safety" suggests some ways to determine whether a library has "come under the influence of the American Library Association." The "citizen activist" is urged to "use these helps to learn if your library is a community friend or foe":

"Inquire if your library ... celebrates ALA's 'Banned Books Week.'"

"Search for classic scholarly books. A healthy selection should be available. Suggested titles... Principia Mathematica by Sir Issac Newton." [sic]

"On your library's computer, go to www.yahoo.com or any of the popular Internet search engines. In the search field enter the following: XXX,hardcore,nude"

Are those really the best ways to determine whether a library has a problem with pornography?

Incidentally, I've not gotten confirmation, but the rumor is that the local AFA will be recommending SurfWatch as their filter of choice. In which case, that last suggestion is an interesting one. I purchased and installed SurfWatch on my home computer this weekend, and it blocks me from accessing Yahoo. I still can't figure that out, considering the company that sells it partners with Yahoo.

The AFA has also been claiming support from Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.). But at Monday night's meeting, he said he can't specifically support the local initiative because he doesn't know what it's all about. In fact, when the AFA's position was described to him, he interrupted to ask what "AFA" stood for.

In the end, it may not matter whether the problem of inappropriate library material exists or is manufactured. The AFA also recommends that its activists "take [their] concerns through the library chain of command," but in Holland, they refused to meet with the library and went straight to the ballot instead. The voters will decide whether censorware gets installed, and the public's chance to learn about the issues may be limited at best.

In the next six weeks I hope to get a "view from the trenches" of Holland's First Amendment struggle, and to bring it to Slashdot. I'll make no bones about the position I take on the issue. I'll try to focus less on why blocking software is a bad idea in libraries - I'll leave it to other websites to explain that - and more on how the memeticwarfare ^[*] is being conducted. I'll be reading all your comments. Check the YRO section, too, for updates not quite important enough for the Slashdot homepage.

Because this month, mandatory library censorware is a hot topic in Holland. Next month, it may be in my home town. And the month after that - yours.