Slashdot Mirror
Filtering Internet in Public Libraries
Many of Shaw's plays deal with the absurdity of modernity. As Shaw wrote HeartbreakHouse in 1919, he was looking back over the old century he was from, but also turning his gaze forward to the new era of technological whirligigs: their promise and, more often, their price. In the production I saw at the ShawFestival, the crazy machinery and projected film images from the era set the tone for Shaw's bemused, puzzled, sad question: what on earth are we to do now?
Monday night's meeting at the library was an informational forum arranged by the League of Women Voters. It opened with a detailed talk by a lawyer about exactly what the local ballot initiative means in legal terms, which was interesting to me but which many attendees found tedious. Oddly enough, the first item on his agenda was the First Amendment, which he simply skipped as too complicated. In the final analysis, of course, it may be the only legal issue of any importance.
After a half-hour of careful explanation, the co-chair of one of the local pro-filtering groups took her turn at the lectern, and began her talk by listing the organizations that were for and against filters in libraries. Those in favor: 2500 local signers of the petition, the Family Research Council, the American Family Association, our beloved governor John Engler, her group Holland Area Citizens Voting Yes, several Republican groups I didn't catch, and I think she would have mentioned Thomas Jefferson, John F. Kennedy and Mother Theresa if they weren't dead.
The groups against filters? The Gay/Lesbian Alliance, and Feminists For Free Expression - who, she was careful to point out, believes that the proper response to "badporn" is "goodporn."
Well, isn't that special. No word on whether the Communist Party or Atheists International had taken sides on the issue.
She repeated that the library does not track patron usage and so does not know if there is a problem with pornography. This is one of the contentious issues - with tens of thousands of patrons using the internet in the last four years, there have been only six instances where someone had to be removed for violating library usage rules. Only one of these is known to involve viewing pornography. In that respect, Holland is probably fairly typical; my local library has roughly the same number of complaints proportional to number of terminals.
I wanted to point out that, even if the library did keep logs, it would be a full-time job just to keep figures on the appropriateness of patrons' reading choices. I know. I've written perl code to break down a month's worth of school and library logs in the state of Utah: a gigabyte gzipped. We still don't have good figures. About four-tenths of a percent of websurfing is inappropriate for libraries, is our best guess. But we don't know.
When the first anti-filtering speaker got up, almost the first words out of his mouth were that he wasn't affiliated with the gay and feminist groups mentioned - and a nervous laugh and smile. I can't blame him.
I was the first one to stand up with a question. I briefly mentioned the fact that, in Loudoun County, a federal judge had declared library censorware to be a violation of the First Amendment and struck it down - after an extended and expensive legal dispute. I asked how, hypothetically, such a dispute would impact the city.
I was hoping to get people thinking about the way that a simple vote could divide the community. Holland has the potential to become one of the nation's test cases, and I'm not sure the city realizes what it's getting into.
But the woman who walked to the lectern to answer my question was KimberleyFraser of the Family Research Council, to whom I had addressed a Slashdot openletter earlier that same day.
I'd told Kimberley last week that I would be writing such a letter, and told her she'd get a chance to respond. I made it clear that her response would not be edited in any way. I'd just print it as she wrote it. Free publicity.
But when she got to the mike, the first thing she said was that she would not be responding. Why? Take a look at that letter again. Each Slashdot story has a clever little "dept." that it's "from" - this story pointed out that the Blue-Footed Booby was blocked by the stupid software, so I ran it "from the don't-look-at-those-boobies dept."
I'm not sure if any Slashdot regulars are even reading the depts. - I've never gotten e-mail or read a comment that even mentions them. But Ms.Fraser did. She informed us that she would not be responding to the letter because it was "from the don't look at those boobies department" (pause for dramatic effect). She held aloft a printout of the Slashdot page and shook it. From my chair I could see the yellow streaks of highlighter.
I'm not sure she even understood that the boobies in question were birds. She may not have read the whole letter. She then proceeded to share more comments, as many as she was allowed in her one minute to answer my question. It seems many of the blocked sites I'd listed were (as I said) from products besides SurfWatch, as if that entitled her to ignore SurfWatch's own errors; then she started making another point and her minute ran out. She walked out of microphone range saying that the debate would be continued. Debate?
The anti-filtering side did manage to stand up and talk about the effect of legal action on the community. I'm sure nobody remembers what they said.
Another question was on how patrons will know that material is blocked, so that errors can be unblocked. Good question - our analysis of the Utah logs shows that, in practice, errors are almost never corrected. For some reason, patrons just don't want to go to their librarian to say, "please let me look at this page that apparently is hardcore pornography."
The example that the Family Research Council has been using to show how easy it is to unblock sites is The Onion (and this was what Kimberley said in her answer). They've been standing up in front of audiences while their techies click at the keys, showing first how The Onion is blocked as obscenity, then how with a swift adjustment of the filter, we can read the story Local Prostitutes Eagerly Await Dentists' Convention. Then - I'm not making this up - Kimberley reads the first few paragraphs of that story, to illustrate how lascivious it is.
The funny thing is that their demonstration illustrates the opposite.
Their techies only type in www.theonion.com to be
unblocked; graphics.theonion.com remains blocked, so the
pictures don't come through. They've actually been demonstrating how
difficult it is for librarians to make on-the-fly corrections
to blacklists. Nobody has seemed to notice.
After some more questions, an exchange developed where the director of the library ended up pointing out that attendants are near the internet terminals, and explaining the procedure to follow if someone is offended by inappropriate material. (Some people do complain: the last complaint I heard about was the BritneySpears site, though I doubt they thought it was offensive for the same reason that I do.)
The meeting closed with Kimberley retorting, "If my child sees porn, how will you erase that image from his mind?" I assume that was a rhetorical question. "A library attendant is good," she said, "but an attendant can't throw his body between the child and the screen." It was late and the building was closing; that pretty much wrapped things up.
In my work with the Censorware Project over the last two years, I've gotten used to analyzing blocking software in intricate detail. Often I think we know more about some software packages than even their manufacturers; in any event we pore over megabytes and gigabytes of data to learn as much as we can.
That knowledge is worth nothing at meetings like these. Nobody cares how the software works. Nobody is interested in terms like keyword blocking, overbroad blocking or underblocking, nor even information on effectiveness or First Amendment legal issues. The issue will be decided purely on the basis of emotion. Gigabytes evaporate down to two bits of data: (1)there exists porn; (2)filters block porn. There seems to be nothing more that anyone wants to know.
Through much of HeartbreakHouse, the characters talked past each other, unable to communicate, unable to understand. At the end, the stage that had served as workshop and sitting-room for the entire play slowly cracked open, drew apart, and a chasm grew between the rear of the stage and the front. The players, now set outside on a balcony, talked fearfully as the lights reddened and the first mortars of the GreatWar were heard in the distance. As Shaw and his audience knew in 1919, all of their talk, their whole world from the past, was now a faded backdrop of meaningless words to the machine guns, zeppelins, aeroplanes, and tanks of the modern era. Technology itself had caused the chasm between centuries. Some things never change.
It is the parents' job to teach the children what is appropriate and what is not. By making such an issue of it only makes kids more curious. Why do you think there is such a problem with underage drinking in this country? It is because of the DARE program and all these other programs that make these things seem more sacred to kids. Once we stop making it such an issue, the problem will go away. Just look at Europe for instance, they don't have these problems because they don't make them such big issues.
I believe the big deal is attempting to determine what's more important, protecting kids from what a number of crotchety adults deem offensive, or the 1st Ammendment of the US Constitution?
Because of that big deal, we're gonna keep running into this problem.
--
Peace,
Lord Omlette
AOL IM: jeanlucpikachu
[o]_O
explaining how they got a failing grade on a term paper because netwatch blocked a site they were researching.
And you can do the Abbie Hoffman thing, dress up like Revolutionary War Heroes, bring an American flag, and talk about how many people died for freedom of speech.
Then maybe some poor, earnest children talking about how surfwatching the library shuts them off from information they need to better themselves, since they're poor orphans and can't afford to have their own computers. But they'll try to make a go at it, pumping gas for a living, guvnor.
George
The movement out there that is trying to protect our freedoms is made to look like NAMBLA.
They are trying to protect their children, we are trying to corrupt them.
It is pretty difficult to see around that. The media has done a pretty darn good job of scaring the bejeesus out of the majority of the public when it comes to the internet, movies, guns, video games and porn.
The crux is similar to being a pro-choice advocate without coming off as a lover of baby-killing... only more difficult in this case, I believe.
No I'm wondering why people get all in arms about people complaining about taxpayer money going to subsidize someone's porn surfing habit at a library.
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Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
It's tiring to repeat this, but here goes:
(1) Library acquisitions are and must be governed by local community standards.
(2) There are no local community standards on the internet.
(3) Therefore, if libraries are going to make use of the internet, they will have to find a way to impose local standards on it, EVEN if that means much desirable content is lost.
As a matter of political fact, this argument will win EVERY time, but it's also the right argument. (3) follows from (1) and (2). Which premise do you disagree with?
Anything worth doing is worth doing badly -- G.K. Chesterton
Don't try to reason with a mob. Talk to lawyers, local government, members of the media, and small groups of individuals. It may help more. Of course it is important to put in an appearance at forums like the one described in the article.
-- My comment is above.
For a while, it substituted 'sock' for 'cock', which made portions of the internet extremely amusing. From time to time you'd get stories about 'sockpit voice recorders' and suchness, though.
Using an SSL connection from the client to the proxy makes it pretty hard for big brother to determine what all you're up to.
[
The real question is not "should there be filtering software on public library computers?"
The question is also not "do I have a right to use publicly accessible computers, which my tax dollars paid for, to view pornography or whatever else I want?"
The question is: "Do I have a right to use publicly accessible computers, which everyone's tax dollars paid for, to view whatever I want to in a family-oriented place such as a library?"
I believe it would be a shame to have to stick the computers in the back room to prevent children from seeing what people use them for.
I also think that filtering software, particularly the blacklist (dominant) variety, is flawed and hopeless.
The individual librarians should have the right to warn or throw out habitual abusers of the workstations at their own discretion. Libraries should be allowed to post such a policy without being challenged by the ACLU. If this were the case, we would be able to rely on common sense rather than having to resort to filtering software.
So for the 150th time, if the majority of people want it that way, what's the big deal?
Gee, I dunno, maybe because it stomps all over the First Amendment?
Why should my child be denied access to perfectly valid content simply because you are afraid that your child might see some pictures of people having sex? Why should a librarian have to become a censor simply because you aren't capable of teaching your child not to look at things you feel are inappropriate for him to look at?
Crotchety adults v. constitution is not what this is about. It's not technically difficult to have filtering based on an individualized profile that is keyed to a kid's library card. The parents can set the filtering level when they apply for the card and adjust from there. Adult cards have no filtering and you can't access the internet without a library card either swiped or put in a reader.
Is this really so technically difficult to protect the liberties of adults while allowing parents to limit the surfing of their children? How about technology to *help* responsible parenting?
DB
Oh, please. "Majority-rules" is not any sort of justification when the majority is ignorant about what they are doing. How can you even say that with a straight face?
This sort of response shows the complete lack of interest in solving problems. If parents do not want their children to see pR0n, then why don't you sit down with your own children and discuss sexuality with them? How about supervising your children as they use computers? I'll bet your only honest responses to these questions could possibly be: "It's too inconvenient to me." or "It makes me uncomfortable to talk to my children openly and honestly."
If I didn't want my (fictional, since I don't have any) children to see things I see offensive, like bigotry, hatred, or extremely beligerant ignorance, I have to keep them from leaving the house. But rather than that, I would think that it would be much more appropriate and constructive to actually sit down and discuss why people act that way and how to deal with the frustration and discouragement that those actions can cause.
I don't know why people can't educate and then trust/support their own children. It's one of the things that really upset and depress me about parents, and one of the reasons that I won't have children. I just don't think that you can protect your children by closing the world off from them; it's really just security through obscurity. And we all know that doesn't work.
---------The early bird gets the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.
I'll tell you why I'm upset:
My "taxpayer money" is supposed to be subsidizing totally free access to all information but is being kept from doing so by some right-wing nuts (as opposed to right-wing non-nuts) who haven't even bothered to check if there is a problem before deciding that the only solution is the shotgun approach.
--
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Ah. An automatic Rush Limbaugh generator. What's the URL?
Weblogging Considered Harmful:
The problem transcends the majority.
Ever hear the phrase "Tyranny of the Majority"? It was coined by one of the founders of the United States (don't remember which one, but I'm reminded of Hamilton or Jefferson).
The majority of people want nothing more than a warm bed, food, and a few shiny things to make their lives worthwhile. A society that provides that doesn't need documents like the American Bill of Rights. If you like that, look at Communism, Socialism, or Monarchy done well. There have been marches in Russia calling for a return to the days of Joseph Stalin. Why? Those people aren't stupid or brainwashed, they're hungry and cold. Their newfound freedom hasn't gained them what they want. They remember food, warmth, and safe streets. The oppression was, to them, worth it. So you may see, this is not just about protecting the children--this is about people who either:
a) Want freedoms for themselves but don't feel them appropriate for children.
-or-
b) Don't want people to excersize freedoms they have and can't get around that pesky First Amendment.
It's not about what the majority wants. It's about living the life that you want to live--quality of life. If people want to view controversial pages at the library, they should. Knowledge (and thus libraries) are not about what the entire community feels comfortable showing their children.
If you want to protect your children, that's fine--but you do it. You can't leave children alone in the world. The Internet and Libraries reflect the world--as they should. Why should you be able to leave your child alone there? Don't try to make the world be a parent for you. If you don't have enough time to spend with your children, don't have them . . . it's that simple.
While library terminals are obviously not the place to be viewing pornography, a librarian can be infinitely more effective than blocking software. A community of tens of millions of people can post pornography at a rate with which active blocking can never compete. It's impractical. Computers just aren't that smart yet.
Furthermore, incorrect blocking clearly violates the rights of minorities who need to be heard. They can never recover the damage from being blocked--mindshare.
Given that, you must understand that the library is responsible--as a public institution--to aide them in being heard. They are not responsible for protecting your children from the world. It is impractical at best--censorship at worst.
At any rate, has anyone proposed a compromise? Bottom line, anything that is blocked is *LEGAL* material for adults to view. Has anyone considered blocking software that can be deactivated for adults?
The issue is that there are some things that can have an adverse effect on children because they are not prepared to deal with those things. Adults don't have that problem. What about conditional blocking?
At any rate, just because you find it unpleasant or unsuitable for your children, doesn't mean it has no place in a public library or in our society. It's just not for you or your children.
That said, try conditional blocking that accomplishes the same thing without violating others' rights--or better yet, start a children's library. That would completely solve the problem, wouldn't it?
I think Mauve has the most RAM. --PHB (Dilbert Comic)
The real test of commitment to free speech is when the majority viewpoint finds a particular minority to be odious, and either permits or blocks their viewpoint.
I think you fail the test.
--
The problem is that it's not what people really want. What people really want is to protect their children. They see passing on their morals as one vehicle for this; this in and of itself isn't a problem, but rather than examining and evaluating them they get passed on blindly, which is. But I digress.
The obvious way to protect a child is sheltering the child. I don't think that this is a correct solution, as it raises a child to be defenseless against the rigours of the life it will experience as it grows older.
The obvious way to shelter a child from "bad" content is to hide it from them - and every parent does that. This isn't necessarily a bad thing to do, as the child may not be emotionally equipped to handle exposure to some things (like images of brutal killings on CNN) - that I won't argue. However, so long as their child is "protected", parents don't care what else the filter does; they don't know the technical details and don't want to spend the time and effort to learn.
It's not that people want to remain ignorant for its own sake, but that with the rapid pace of technology, people must learn increasingly specialized tasks, techniques and tools in order to further advance the state of the world.
I am going to assume you went to Calvin College.
I do not think there are many more strict schools (asides from BYU or Jerry Falwell's Liberty College) than Calvin College, and Hope College (in Holland) is not too far behind it.
I have a number of friends who were severely punished for drinking on campus at Calvin. My favorite rule has to be the following:
(Only during allowed times) Members of the opposite sex may be invited into your dorm room ONLY if the door is left open and each person keeps two feet on the ground at all times.
I am continually amazed that a frat-haven such as Hope College produced (what certainly seems to be the case) such an open-minded individual as Rob Malda. And I am even more amazed these guys continue to live in Holland, MI.
I often help Kalamazoo College (a small, very liberal school) with recruiting, and since the schools are so close geographically, students are often looking at both both Hope and K as choices. One issue that often comes up (especially with athletes) is that students at Hope warn them about all the "gays" at Kalamazoo College!
I just think such rules and attitudes are silly.
What the majority of people want is not necessarily relevant. Public libraries are maintained for everyone - not for the majority. Its an important distinction. Libraries are not the property of "the majority" to do with what they will, they are a public service, provided by the state to give access for everyone to information that might otherwise be inaccessible.
It is doubly offensive for the "the majority" to try to promulgate a non-solution to a largely imaginary problem. Another point you might want to take into account is that "the majority" in a case like this is the majority of those who participate in political campaigns - the majority of interfering busybodies, frankly.
No I'm wondering why people get all in arms about people complaining about taxpayer money going to subsidize someone's porn surfing habit at a library.
/.?
Are you completely clueless or do you just play someone who is on
When you want to view porn, wheres the first place you go, a public library? Give me a break.
The publicness and openness of the library, for 99% of people today, would inhibit them from checking out porn. You wouldnt be nervous and/or apprihensive checking out some muff at a local library? Heh. People doing this intentionally would be such a small fraction of reality it isnt even funny.
-- iCEBaLM
I think that the real solution to this problem is not to ban internet sites but to ban the use of the human brain.
I mean if people stoped thinking on thier own and followed everyone else all of this would be a non issue!
SO UNITE WITH ME, BAN THE USE OF THE BRAIN!!!
DOWN WITH THOUGHT!!!
I still don't see where the first amendment comes in. The first amendment doesn't give you the right to look at kiddie porn. The first amendment doesn't give you the right to scream fire in a crowded theatre. The first amendment doesn't give you the right to do anything you want, anywhere, anytime. No one is saying you can't look at porn, or bombs, or anything else you want, they are saying you can't look at it on a system the government is providing for use (and no, you don't even have a right to use the system, or have the government provide a system for you to use). It is a generally accepted tenet in this country that minors are not allowed access to certain things. That is why you can't put up a poster of a naked woman in the window of your business. There is and must be limits to what people can see. Just because you think your kids are mature enough to see anything they want, and it's good for them doesn't mean everyone else feels that way. In your house, you can do what you want (including showing porn to your kids, or showing them the Onion, or nothing at all if that is what you desire), but that doesn't mean the government has to help you do this in public places. Many people feel they shouldn't have to worry about their child seeing pornography over someone's shoulder in the library. I happen to agree with them. But I also think you should be and are more than welcome to view it in non-public places.
People seem to think that if you can't do anything, anywhere you want, it's censorship. Censorship is trying to stop people from doing something AT ALL. I can take my pants off and walk around my house. I like to do it, it feels good. Does that mean I'm being censored because I can't do that at work or at the mall?
"Information wants to be expensive" - Stewart Brand, the same guy who said "Information wants to be free"
Keep in mind this is the same group of people that published a study that 80% of women had been "raped"... although the study was thoroughly debunked (did you know 2 or more aspirin before sex constituted "rape" b/c the woman was under the "influence of drugs"?). The truthfulness that this group is, at best, questionable. They are effectively hiding their prejudicial views behind a thin veil of political correctness. I urge caution in any dealings with them.
>>Oh, and a library doesn't have the right to decide what it wants to put on its shelves? If so, can't it decide what it wants to put on its computers?
Actually, when the marginal cost of allowing disfavored content through is so low, they probably don't. And shouldn't, personally. Look at the variety of communities that have to give parade permits to groups they would just as soon deny oxygen to.
Sure, if the volume starts to be problem, and use of the bandwidth for more common library activities, such as research, gets affected, then limit it. Like if there were more hours per year spent on KKK marches down Main Street then actual vehicle traffic, then something's out of whack.
"So for the 150th time, if the majority of people want it that way, what's the big deal?"
The whole point to the Bill of Rights is that there are some things that we want to have the right to do that may not hold up to a majority vote at all times.
It is only the majority the people willing to show up and speak at this meeting and similar ones. Those who want filters are painting anyone who doesn't want them as corrupting the morals of the youth. That is a honorable role once played by Socrates; his award for it was a nice bowl of hemlock. People who stand up individually against these filters may experience the modern day equivalent.
If each book public libraries acquired were first approved in such public meetings, the contents of most of our libraries would be vastly different. In my experience, libraries contain a wide range of books that while reflecting local interests also reflect many conflicting view points. There are books in my public library that I find highly offensive and others that I know many other would. I am glad they are there.
One of my favorite library books was, "Fold a banana." I would not like to have to justify its purchase. It is a small fun book that I find funny. It contains suggestions of things you could do if you are bored and illustrations of them. If taken literally it and its sequel "Throw a tomato into a fan." could be viewed as a very bad influence on children--just imagine the messes from the titles alone! Yet, it was there in the library. I can just hear the argument about what should have been purchased instead. Some boring book that had a better moral lesson no doubt. The web allows library patrons access to both fun sites and the boring moral sites, no extra charge.
Also in our library were such classics as "Joy of Sex", "My Secret Garden", "Sex, a User's Manual" as well as various books on homosexuality. If the library has such books, why not allow web pages with similar content to be viewed in the library? You certainly can read those books there, even the ones with explicit illustrations, as long as you aren't noisy about it. I know I have.
--- If you don't want to know the answer, don't ask the question.
Proposed Solution: Add a filter, such as Surfwatch
New Problem: Software that does this suffers from the fact that the source is not publicly available.
Related problems: Such software does not filter data from more henious sites, such as doubleclick.
Odd discovery: Slashdot is now owned by VA Linux.
Proposal: Programmers could work on creating an open source configurable blocker that actually is worth something. It could use a public database that people can submit updates to (similar to dmoz). These updates simply contain information about they type of content. The people doing the installing choose which forms of content are not accessable. In addition they can add or remove sites and IP addresses as desired.
- -naked
- -paysite
- -portman
- +slashdot.org
- +classic art
The above would remove sites marked as pay and naked as well as anything to do with stoned women. However,slashdot would be allowed (regardless of any settings above it) as would sites detailing classic art.Advantages: It's not like /. is short of volunteers.
-----
No Zen is good zen
While I agree totally with your rebuttal of the 3-point argument above you are wrong and Raymond is wrong about Hitler's vote, if you quote him correctly.
The July 1932 election saw the Nazi's receive a 37.3 percent vote (13.7 million) - this was the highest that they ever won, this is not an overwhelming election, this is a minority of the population.
heck, you don't even need multiple boxes just different usernames.
Username : child
Password : child
Blocking software : On and in charge
Username : Adult
Password : (changes every week, ask librarian)
Blocking software : nowhere to be found, like it should be on a public terminal in a free country.
It's like Homer said "Here's to alcohol, the cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems." Just replace alcohol with technology and you have a hell of a mixer.
+&x
ya'll might want to check out http://www.lisnews.com for librarians views on filtering, along with other stories on filtering. It's slasdot for libarians!
From the first level:
Is this really so technically difficult to protect the liberties of adults while allowing parents to limit the surfing of their children??
Yes
and there's minimal cost involved in adding mag stripe readers
I'm sorry were talking about the real world here, not some superhappy fantasyland where all the software works perfectly. This stuff comes with only one setting, on or off, as far as I've heard.
Sure, the hardware won't be a problem, but who's going to write the software? You'll need a fat database containing not only each user, but all the sites that have been turned off for them as well (If you can even set the software up on a single-system basis). How are you going to integrate it with surfwatch?
willing to write the software non-gratis just to get people to shut the hell up about it.
non-gratis means not free. This project would cost thousands of dollars, possibly tens of thousands. If the software had this capability built in, it would be a different issue. But it doesn't. So shut up.
[ c h a d o k e r e ]
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
> I still don't see where the first amendment
> comes in.
Perhaps you do not understand our side
of the argument then.
> The first amendment doesn't give you
> the right to look at kiddie porn.
No document can GIVE you a right. It can only
attempt to define a right, or limit the right.
Even in a legal context...your point is highly
debatable.
> The first amendment doesn't give you the right
> to scream fire in a crowded theatre.
Which again is debatable (though current legal
consensus agrees with you).
> The first amendment doesn't give you the right
> to do anything you want, anywhere, anytime.
No but it is intended to protect your right to
publish or speak your views without restriction.
More to the point, it says that the government has
no right to stand in the way of you publishing
your views or speaking you rmind, nor may it
stand in the way of you hearing others expressions
of their views.
Your statments convey the idea that if something
is sexually explicit, then it can not possibly be
expressing a persons views or feelings. If it
could be said blanketly that this is the case,
then you would have grounds for saying the
first ammendment does not aply.
> Many people feel they shouldn't have to worry
> about their child seeing pornography over
> someone's shoulder in the library
Perhaps we should pass a law stating that it is
illegal for other countries to bomb the US?
That way we wont HAVE to worry about being bombed?
Whether or not you worry about something is your
choice. It is not anyone elses, much less the
governments, responsibility to easy your mind.
You can be worried about mothra attacking New
York City...I will not support a law against
Giant monstors named Mothra from entering NYC.
The point is that the whole reason for public
internet terminals is to provide network access
for people who can not afford private access.
Now, you want to premptivly restrict what they
can do with these terminals. You want to use
technology that has been proven to not work
properly. Why? to solve a problem of people
looking at porn in libraries...a problem that
has yet to be demonstrated occuring. As someone
(perhaps in the article?) said...in an entire
year there were 6 incidents of people acting
inapropriatly in the library...only 1 of those
was over porn on a terminal.
How would you address the problem of a person who
is doing research on porn, yet has no internet
connection onf their own (or is personal research
not a valid use for a library? maybe people who
can't afford their own connection shouldn't be
allowed to do their own research?)
Perhaps now we should make it illegal to say
"fuck" in a public place, or to discuss anything
sexual, for fear that your children might walk by
and hear it.
> I can take my pants off and walk around my
> house. I like to do it, it feels good. Does that
> mean I'm being censored because I can't do that
> at work or at the mall?
As a fairly utilitarian person about most things,
I accept only 2 functions of clothing.
1) protecting the body from the elements
2) Pockets
As such I see no reason why you should not be
allowed to walk around the mall completely
naked (though one wonders where you would stow
your wallet). In fact, I find the idea of men
with guns comming out and forcibly dragging a
person away and throwing them in a cage fairly
barbaric...especially when all they were doing is
walking around.
Being offended by something is a choice, noone
else is responsible for the choices you make for
yourself.
-Steve
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
Kindly produce proof that, upon exposure to a sexually explicit image, a child is irrevocably corrupted.
...What? I'm sorry, but proof is required. You are proposing to seriously screw over the civil rights of millions of people -- not just members of the community, but people around the world who will be cut off -- based on the seriously dubious idea that children and the community will be irrevocably harmed if we don't trash these rights.
You think the problem is so bad that I should give up my hard-won rights? Then I want proof, dammit. Scientific, independently verifiable proof. If you can't or won't produce it, then stop wasting our time.
Schwab
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
The FRC comes accross in this article as the screeching fanatics we all know them to be (except the people posting here who agree with them). Their rejection of the open letter supposedly for its department would be comical if it were true. Don't worry it isn't, the FRC never had any intention of responding to the open letter unless it reflected well on their cause to do so. They are an 'ends justifies the means' group, and will use whatever unethical or immoral means to win. After all, God will forgive them for lying for His sake right? Obviously they haven't read much about Jesus and the Pharisees, but who cares its their Bible after all, they can choose to ignore it whenever they wish. The fact that behaving this way should utterly destroy any credibility their cause has doesn't matter, they know from history that it won't matter.
Anyone who believes this is about "protecting kids from porn" ought to know better. The best way to protect children from the evils of the Internet would be to restrict access to the Internet to those over 18, not use some half-baked filtering system that doesn't really work. No, this'll serve it's purpose which is to put a notch on the FRCs belt (Next newsletter, "We have forced X number of libraries to install Internet filters," I'm sure) and because any censorship is good censorship as far as they are concerned.
I feel bad for the author of this letter, because he obviously thought he was dealing with decent, reasonable people. Hopefully, now he, and everyone else who matters, knows better. This is a nasty, ruthless political organization and there is essentially no difference between them and every other nasty, rutheless political organization that claimed to have the community's best interests at heart. Well, one difference, these people use the Bible to justify their corrupt behavior rather than some scientific theory. It amazes me that people can use the Bible, which spoke out particularly harshly in the New Testament of the hubris of religious leaders behaving in this way to accomplish these kinds of goals.
All the creatures will die, And all the things will be broken. That's the law of samurai. (Jubai, 1605)
Your point being? I believe in free speech and riot police too (Heck, I've seen 'em! :-) ). I fully support free speech, but I don't support large-scale vandalism and looting. against the first the riot police shouldn't be used, against the second it should.
What's the big deal? I've seen porn since I was pretty young, and I think it's a safe guess to say that porn is available to all kids, even though they might have had to do a bit more effort for it before the internet.
But getting back to the point, what's the problem, as long as it isn't forced on you, I can't think of any examples that seeing porn voluntarly causes disorders/traumas/whatever. Look at me, I turned out alright, except for the fact that I post to slashdot.
I doubt that Rob wants to act as judge and jury on problems like this. Better to just let it go. People spot things like this pretty quick. /.ers aren't a bunch of morons (most anyway). While I would agree that this person is deliberately trying to impersonate Bruce, I don't think I'd want to set a precedent that could lead to more difficult decisions later on that would probably be very divisive and cause more problems than they solve.
Hmm.. this thread would be more on topic if it was under the "cybersquatting" story :)
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
What's insane and irrational is that you go on for several paragraphs about how homosexuals, feminists and other liberals are out there trying to control and destroy the lives of children. If this is what you believe, fine, but don't expect me to believe so much a single word of it without proof. Furthermore, since you're talking about violating people's rights here, I'm demanding proof beyond a reasonable doubt. This is my right as an American and as a human being.
What is equally insane is that you would cast any opposition to your position as insane. This strikes me as exceptionally small-minded and even fascist.
Finding God in a Dog
I agree that libraries, as well as schools should not install any internet filters, but not because of the first ammendment. As I understand it, the first ammendment only covers the author's right to say what they want, not the public's right to access it. As long as the libraries, schools, parents, etc. don't try to actually shut down the sites I don't believe they are going against the Bill of Rights.
BUT, there are reasons why filtering software should not be used:
1) No filter is 100% accurate so alot of porn will still be able to be viewed (sites specifically make their sites pass the "tests" so they get by filters ) and legitimate sites will be block ( the classic case I always hear about is that pictures of the statue David could be block because he is nude )
2) There have been no studies showing that there is even a problem with people looking at "inappropriate" material. I think it is stupid to just assume there is a problem, as I work in a college campus computing facility and have never seen people looking at porn or bomb sites, etc. This is like the debate over violent video games - the parents claim that the games cause kids to be violent but there have been no studies (that I know of anyway) that have been done to prove it. It is just parents, media, gov. that BELIEVE there is a problem.
3) Putting filters on the Internet stations at libraries and schools wouldn't even solve the problems anyway. Partly because #1 and also because the kids will just go somewhere else, like their homes where they most likely won't be supervised.
There is no way to ensure that children don't view material that their parent's don't want them to and this isn't because of the internet. When I was younger (~12) me and my friend found his dad's collection of Playboys. Off course we looked at them even though we weren't supposed to. Parents just need to try and teach their children morals and explain to them why such material is inappropriate and trust their kids to do the right thing. There is no way to protect children forever, they will eventually grow up. All we can do is to give them the tools so that they can function in the real world.
Everyone talks about how the filters that are out now are terrible and that an open filter would be the solution but I've never seen anyone actually attempt an open source filter. Would you work on an open source filter if you knew it would be accepted by the library community? Would a filter that obtained it's lists off a publicly accessable (and alterable) list on the web be better? Maybe a list with moderation where people could rate a site up or down based on it's content and the library could choose to filter out content that had a +2 rating or whatever. I think we need to realize that content filters are not going to go away and we need to work on better ones, not just bash the current ones and hope that nobody uses them.
Free clue: the last poster was trolling you.
As a side note, I've known homosexuals (male and female) since I was ten. None of them ever came on to me when I was young. I was 19 before a gay man hit on me, and I politely turned him down. "Take it for the compliment it is," so to speak. I am unabashedly and openly heterosexual, I enjoy sex with adult women and not with adult men, and that's that. Sorry, I was never recruited, diddled, or anything like that.
I should note that the kind of censorware the FRC is promoting would have censored my testimony, since it contained "homosexual content." That is why a lot of us are fighting FRC on this issue.
Finding God in a Dog
You could make the same argument about books. I would argue that a book can be far more "dangerous" than an image of Hillary Clinton and Tipper Gore having sex with assorted farm animals. Books convey ideas and bad ideas have resulted in the deaths of millions of people.
Henry Ford Sr., a prominent Michiganer, sponsored, published and distributed "The International Jew: The World's Foremost Problem", a vicious work of anti-semitic propaganda. Should that be in the Holland public library? It has historical relevance to Michigan and the United States. It has also been republished on the web by various anti-semitic groups and individuals. Should you block or allow access to the hardcopy version of the work and the web sites?
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
"If the law says that, the law is a ass, a idiot." - Mr. Bumble
"The law is an ass, and I have to spank it." - Grafitto in the UM law library
--
Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
OK, here's an odd question, all answers to which I openly welcome:
What is so *bad* about pornography? Specifically, how, exactly, does it "harm" children?
My own mind just can't seem to make the connection between naked women (or men...) and "harm" to a child. I remember when I was young (7? 8?) an older friend of mine had procured some smut rag or other and showed it to me. Needless to say, it has not turned me into a serial rapist, or an abusive boyfriend, or even a chauvinist pig. I'm sure millions have had an analogous experience, with equally non-existant results. And there's so much more than smut magazines and internet porn. What about Victoria's Secret catalogs? How far is that from "pornography"? Should we make VS ship their catalogs in black plastic so no children are "harmed" by images of mostly-naked English women in suggestive poses? The little Sunday ad booklets from Target, Sears, K-Mart, etc. have lingerie in them, should they be censored too? How about the black&white ads in the paper itself? I just don't get it, so maybe you guys can help me out here?
MoNsTeR
Bandwidth costs money. Computer time costs money. If somebody is hogging the few library computers available, or wasting the bandwidth downloading MPEGs
Bandwidth is, in almost all cases a flat fee. I don't have any real data available, but I seriously doubt that having filtered 'net access will slow it down by much. On the other hand, you Will certainly have to spend lots of money on filtering software. You pay more if you filter then if you don't. Discouraging misuse of publicly-funded computers means saving money;
Misuse? wtf are you talking about? Since when is looking up Gay rights issues, or information about abortion misuse.
Otherwise more money will be thrown at the problem to either A) buy more computers, B) pay more for increased bandwidth or C) both.
What about D) Nether? Holland MI (and that is what we are talking about here) isn't having any problems with capacity or bandwidth right now, and they have an uncensored library. If what you are saying is true, then they already spent the money and it isn't an issue. You are also saying that a statistically significant portion of the population wants the stuff. As you know, only one person in Holland has ever been caught looking at porn, and this was in 4 years. Blocking porn, in this case would only save 0.0001% in resources if he couldn't do that. And its not like can go out and buy 29.998 computers, or 0.9999 t1 lines. You pay more with filtering then you do without. Damn right that's what I'm saying. If you have a community full of uncompassionate penny-pinchers who don't want to provide public access to the Internet....well hey: it's their local tax dollars. With that decision they'll have to deal with the stigma of being [insert negative term here], which in turn could have an impact on tourism, etc. etc. In the end, they'll lie in the bed they make.
You don't really think it'll impact tourism, do you? And it's not like small towns get much of that anyway. On the other hand, you'll still be limiting what people can learn and read about. This is an issue of freedoms, and I don't give a god damn who's tax dollars it is.
I suspect that if I lived at or below the poverty line in the U.S. (which still means you own a stereo, VCR and TV I think), not being able to surf the Net at my leisure wouldn't be a major concern...especially when most of the things you do on the Net may still be accomplished in the Real World.
Wow, I'm glad your confident enough to speak for a class of people you know nothing about. It's something that I would never do. Fortunately, I've lived under the poverty line most of my life. When I was growing up we had nether a VCR, stereo or even color TV (I was born in 1980, btw). And I sure as hell cared about using computers and getting online. When I was 12 and 13 I would go to the library and use their Macs (No internet connection). Later I would use Iowa States public computer labs, and their Internet connection (I grew up about 3 blocks from Durham Center). And, my freshman year of higschool, when I finally did get a computer (after working all summer to be able to afford one). Got online immediately, surfing the web over the only 2400 baud link that AOL provided in our town. Later I would spend upwards of $40 a month, paying about $8 an hour for high speed (14.4kbps) over an 800 number. Some poor people do want to use the Internet, fuckhead. And just because you don't feel they need to be able to doesn't really matter.
[ c h a d o k e r e ]
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
Bandwidth costs money. Computer time costs money. If somebody is hogging the few library computers available, or wasting the bandwidth downloading MPEGs
Bandwidth is, in almost all cases a flat fee. I don't have any real data available, but I seriously doubt that having filtered 'net access will slow it down by much. On the other hand, you Will certainly have to spend lots of money on filtering software. You pay more if you filter then if you don't. Discouraging misuse of publicly-funded computers means saving money;
Misuse? wtf are you talking about? Since when is looking up Gay rights issues, or information about abortion misuse.
Otherwise more money will be thrown at the problem to either A) buy more computers, B) pay more for increased bandwidth or C) both.
What about D) Nether? Holland MI (and that is what we are talking about here) isn't having any problems with capacity or bandwidth right now, and they have an uncensored library. If what you are saying is true, then they already spent the money and it isn't an issue. You are also saying that a statistically significant portion of the population wants the stuff. As you know, only one person in Holland has ever been caught looking at porn, and this was in 4 years. Blocking porn, in this case would only save 0.0001% in resources if he couldn't do that. And its not like can go out and buy 29.998 computers, or 0.9999 t1 lines. You pay more with filtering then you do without.
Damn right that's what I'm saying. If you have a community full of uncompassionate penny-pinchers who don't want to provide public access to the Internet....well hey: it's their local tax dollars. With that decision they'll have to deal with the stigma of being [insert negative term here], which in turn could have an impact on tourism, etc. etc. In the end, they'll lie in the bed they make.
You don't really think it'll impact tourism, do you? And it's not like small towns get much of that anyway. On the other hand, you'll still be limiting what people can learn and read about. This is an issue of freedoms, and I don't give a god damn who's tax dollars it is.
I suspect that if I lived at or below the poverty line in the U.S. (which still means you own a stereo, VCR and TV I think), not being able to surf the Net at my leisure wouldn't be a major concern...especially when most of the things you do on the Net may still be accomplished in the Real World.
Wow, I'm glad your confident enough to speak for a class of people you know nothing about. It's something that I would never do. Fortunately, I've lived under the poverty line most of my life. When I was growing up we had nether a VCR, stereo or even color TV (I was born in 1980, btw). And I sure as hell cared about using computers and getting online. When I was 12 and 13 I would go to the library and use their Macs (No internet connection). Later I would use Iowa States public computer labs, and their Internet connection (I grew up about 3 blocks from Durham Center). And, my freshman year of higschool, when I finally did get a computer (after working all summer to be able to afford one). Got online immediately, surfing the web over the only 2400 baud link that AOL provided in our town. Later I would spend upwards of $40 a month, paying about $8 an hour for high speed (14.4kbps) over an 800 number. Some poor people do want to use the Internet, fuckhead. And just because you don't feel they need to be able to doesn't really matter.
[ c h a d o k e r e ]
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
Damn right that's what I'm saying. If you have a community full of uncompassionate penny-pinchers who don't want to provide public access to the Internet....well hey: it's their local tax dollars. With that decision they'll have to deal with the stigma of being [insert negative term here], which in turn could have an impact on tourism, etc. etc. In the end, they'll lie in the bed they make.
Indeed, "community" can decide if there will be any computers in the library. However if there will be any, it's not a "community"'s right to put restrictions on those computers' use if those restrictions contradict with First Amendment -- "community" can't change Constitution how it applies to the library. If "community" will manage to change Constitution, then they can apply their version of First Amendment in the library, and if "community" will build a private library, owned and funded entirely by their members, they can establish their own rules -- but as long as library is built, funded and managed by government, and Constitution prohibits government from restricting speech, libraries can't place such restriction even if every person who lives in the radius of 50 miles around them thinks that they must.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
..... ends when it reaches my face.''
Children do not, by definition have many rights that adults have. Their rights are a functions of their parents.... So a more accurate phrasing of what you want is ``Parents have the right to keep their children from seeing pornography in public.''
But replace the words `seeing pornography' with `being around negros'. Literally go and do it to your post. This is the same argument that was used before the era of civil rights. Keep the children away from corrupting negros.. Have ``negro hours'' in the public library so that they can use it.
Thank god for our country that this was overturned. Your rights to protect your children have limits as they should. ``..... to save the children'' is an often-used phrase for many horrors. discrimination, `seperate but equal',
There is also the other philosophical issue about filtering software being the same as burning books. Its keeping the books from ``corrupting the youth.'' Do we want to teach our children that burning books ``for the good of the community'' is OK.
Not to mention, its hypocritical. I knew how to make Nitrocellulose (smokeless gunpowder) when I was 12! The criminal that did this to me? It was an old Time-Life about the history of polymers and how nitrocellulose was accidently discoverd.
(For my obligatory corrupt-the-youth crusade, I'll tell you how.. Someone had a vial of nitric&sulpheric acids they were trying to seperate. They spilled it accidently. He used a cotton shirt to clean it up and hung it out to dry. When he came back, the shirt was gone.)
...was Alexis, Comte de Toqueville. Not one of the founding fathers, but a thinker that had a great influence during his time period. It was said in his work (he was French, btw) "Democracy in America," published in 1835. He rather disliked the American political system, denouncing it as "La tyrannie de la majorité."
This sentiment was expressed in less succinct/eloquent terms by Adams, Madison, and Jefferson, but it was Toqueville who coined the phrase.
This is merely a historical footnote, and doesn't change anything about your point, but I just wanted to clarify, in case you decide to use it in the future.
As an aside, I'd care to note that our culture* is the only one on record in which a decision made by any portion of a society is held as binding on all members of the society.
This isn't to say that other cultures don't make decisions that are held as binding on their members, merely to say that they offer an alternative. In short, if you don't like it, you can leave. To say this in our culture today is a farce. Even if they'd let you go, there's really no place to go to. In other cultures in the past, simply walking away happened relatively often- if you didn't like the way things were going, you could go do things your way. It was a viable option, and not a punishment or anything of the sort. In contrast, the massive infrastructure and population that our culture encompasses makes it impossible to leave, making the tyranny of the majority (or minority) only so much more real. Had we a place to go, it wouldn't matter.
*Culture is being used here in a very broad, semi-anthropological manner. The "culture" I'm describing happens to occupy the vast majority of the Earth's surface, save a few isolated tribes, etc.
---sig---
If my child sees a right-winged Christian how do you erase that image from his or her mind?
--
-- Slashdot sucks.