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ACLU Joins Fray Over Cyber Patrol Censorware
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Text of the ACLU's Press Release:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Friday, March 24, 2000
NEW YORK -- The American Civil Liberties Union will enter a Boston court this Monday to argue that a ban on a program allowing users to decode the Internet blocking software Cyber Patrol constitutes a "classic prior restraint on speech" in violation of the U.S. Constitution.
The Cyber Patrol controversy is but the latest round in a heated debate over flaws in so-called filtering software that both "overblocks" non-pornographic Web sites on subjects like Super Bowl XXX and fails to block many sites parents may not deem appropriate for their children.
In legal papers filed with the court today, the ACLU said that Cyber Patrol's lawsuit is unnecessary because the company can easily block their customers from accessing any Web site or page on which the decoding program appears, whereas some of the Web sites may be out of the jurisdiction of the court.
Acting on behalf of three U.S. Web site operators who posted "mirror" copies of the decoding program, the ACLU said their free speech rights would be violated if the court granted the company's request for a preliminary injunction against the Swedish and Canadian creators of the program.
"Under Cyber Patrol's logic, I'd be breaking the law if I bought a Ford Mustang and looked under the hood," said Chris Hansen, a senior ACLU staff attorney and lead counsel in the case. "I don't think it is asking too much for Cyber Patrol and other software companies to tell the American public exactly what their software blocks, especially when Congress wants to force both children and adults to use it."
Last Friday, March 17, U.S. District Judge Edward F. Harrington granted a 10-day temporary restraining order against the creators of the program. Cyber Patrol then sent subpoenas to the ACLU's clients, suggesting that they would be bound by that order and any future court bans.
In addition, at least one American reporter has confirmed receipt of subpoena from Cyber Patrol ordering him to reveal the name of "each and every person who produced, received, viewed, downloaded or accessed" the decoding program from his site.
The Web site operators, Waldo L. Jaquith, Lindsay Haisley and Bennett Haselton, each said that they posted the decoding program as a form of political protest against Cyber Patrol's legal actions and against "censorware" in general. Their Web sites can be found at: www.peacefire.org (Haselton), www.fmp.com (Haisley) and www.waldo.net (Jasquith).
"We thought it would be educational for some politicians, who are recommending blocking software for use in every school in the country, to see the mistakes that the codebreakers found in Cyber Patrol's list," said Haselton, 21, operator of Peacefire.org, a Web site he founded specifically to defend the free-speech interests of people under 18 on the Internet.
Haselton said that Peacefire recently decrypted the lists of sites blocked by two other programs -- I-Gear and X-Stop -- and found that they had error rates between 68 and 76 percent for blocking pages in the educational ".edu" domain.
Haselton, Jasquith, and Haisley are represented as "nonparties" to the Cyber Patrol lawsuit by Hansen of the national ACLU, Sarah Wunsch, an attorney with the ACLU of Massachusetts, David Sobel, general counsel for the Electronic Privacy Information Center based in Washington, and Jessica Littman, a visiting professor of law at New York University.
In 1998, a federal district judge said that forcing adults to use blocking software like Cyber Patrol in public libraries "offends the guarantee of free speech." Last month, a proposal aimed at forcing a Michigan public library to install Web filtering software on computers was defeated by voters.
"With Congress renewing efforts to mandate use of such flawed software in public schools and libraries, the Cyber Patrol battle only serves to emphasize that information on what is blocked must be made available to consumers, let alone libraries and schools," Hansen said.
The hearing in Microsystems Software, Inc. V. Scandinavia Online, IslandNet.com, Eddy L.O. Jansson and Matthew Skala, Civil Action No.00-10488-EFH, will take place on Monday, March 27, at 2:00 p.m. in U.S. District Court in Boston.
The ACLU's opposition to motion for preliminary injunction in the case is online at http://www.aclu.org/court/cyberpatrol_motion.html. The motion to quash subpoenas is online at http://www.aclu.org/court/cyberpatrol_quash.html.
Cyber Patrol is a subsidiary of toy company giant Mattel Inc., which is publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange.
I find it interesting that people (read: I am probably talking about you) believe that it is okay for libraries to "filter" (i.e., make unavailable, especially to minors) certain books and magazines, yet somehow these same libraries should be disallowed from blocking this exact same material on their computers.
I (and many others here too I've noticed) don't have a problem with libraries filtering access to certain books/magazines for children. It's usually done accurately and is appropriate given the fact that the librarians are not supposed to provide access to books/magazines that would likely be deemed innappropriate for a child. If a parent wants the child to have access to such a book, the parent can get it for the child or perhaps make a special arrangement with the library. So that isn't a real issue.
The problem with Internet filtering is that it just plain doesn't work. You say they "are not 100% effective", but it's much worse than that. There were many many sites in the various lists that were incorrectly blocked or blocked for reasons that aren't disclosed to the consumer (i.e. sites that post lists of blocked sites or criticize the software). Not to mention the fact that parents (and even the libraries) don't get to see what sites are being blocked. These companies have deceived their customers and cannot be trusted. Then there's the problem of filtering access for adults, which should not be permitted. Adults know what they're doing and should not need to be protected.
As far as the Supreme Court's decision goes, they can decide that obscenity shouldn't be allowed, but people's definitions of obscenity will probably continue to change over time, just as they always have. Hell, Baywatch would have been considered obscene 40 or 50 years ago. (I still think it's obscene, but not because of the lack of clothing :)
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
I am glad that the ACLU is in the fray. At least this issue will not be lost because the people who care can't afford lawyers.
That said, i think will finally give some money to the ACLU. It is about time really. They helped me out when I got married. I wanted to keep my name and my husband wanted to take my last name. The county clerk said that we could not do that just by getting married but would have to fill out lots of forms and pay lots of money. The ACLU told us our rights and gave us the information to tell the clerk. When she found out we knew our rights, she stopped fighting.
--- If you don't want to know the answer, don't ask the question.
I agree you can come across dodgy stuff on the Internet, but I think you're much more likely to come across dodgy stuff at school. Schoolkids talk graphically about sex all the time. They can get pornographic magazines from newsagents. And you experience far more violence in the average playground than it's possible to experience through a computer screen. So I think real life and school is far more dangerous.
perl -e 'fork||print for split//,"hahahaha"'
Our Canadian provincials and global regional offices are connected, via dialup, to an ISP in lieu of an actual connection to the corporate intranet. Most of them have Cyber Patrol installed after a porno hungry secretary in Hong Kong got in trouble with the local authorities. During one visit to the Urbana, Illinois office, the software denied me access to 'www.freshmeat.net', 'www.rootshell.com', and to my own website at www.crosswinds.net. Most of Purdue University (including the job-relevant pages about PAPERS/AFAPI, a clustering API) was unavailable to me, as were most of the University of Michigan websites on a similar subject.
But these are just the unfair blocks. It failed to block 'karups.com' a porn site, as well as 'fuckfest.com', whose intent is obvious. I was consistantly able to access porno!!!
I confirmed (with the admin pass I used to finally make it through to FM) that the software was indeed set to 'sex'. Why the hell is this product still on the market? That was six months ago, and I bet I could still make it through to 'hard-core' porn in thirty seconds! So my review is this: It doesn't fucking work. Their blocked list is and has been wrong, C'mon! Freshmeat is going to corrupt me? What, I'm going to feel the power of the source? Is AFAPI really the anal fucking API? The U of M is going to turn me into a boozing sex fiend? I'm going to corrupt myself? CP is just shit. (My employer has realized this; We're switching the regionals over to mandatory VPN, travelling through the 'good' blacklist of the local firewall.)
.sig: Now legally binding!
I'm sure CyberPatrol will swiftly add ACLU and affiliated websites to the following block categories:
;)
Violence / Profanity
Partial Nudity
Full Nudity
Sexual Acts / Text
Gross Depictions / Text
Intolerance
Satanic or Cult
Drugs / Drug Culture
Militant / Extremist
Sex Education
Questionable / Illegal & Gambling
Alcohol & Tobacco
Reserved 4
Reserved 3
Reserved 2
Reserved 1
We wouldn't want to expose our children to the evils of the ACLU now, would we
Best Regards,
SEAL
The ACLU defends *individual* liberties. The second amendment gives states the right to operate militias, and therefore is not within the mandate of the ACLU.
The ACLU is one of the most important organizations in the history of political freedom. They chose their mission, and IMHO they do a damn fine job of it.
For more info on their position see http://www.aclu.org/library/aaguns.html.
The cure for 1933 is 1917.
What we hate is a list that someone else runs, wont reveal, and expects us to use. I want the freedom to turn off my own channels. I don't need someone else to do it for me.
Imagine this:
What if everyone had the ability to create and maintain their own censorware list. What if we had the ability to let it reference other lists dynamicly? What if it was a common standard, like HTML, and supported by open source censorware? What could we do?
Well, let's consider the following commands: (HTML's <> have been changed to [] in order to make typing easier)
- blk would block out anything where the destination address contained the text in question.
- [a blk="http://www.badporn.com"]badporn[/a] - blocks all html from www.badporn.com
- [a blk="ftp://3733t.org"]Cracks[/a] - blocks ftp (but not hypertext) from 3733t.org (but not it's subdomains).
- [a blk="doubleclick.com"]Doubleclick[/a] - blocks anything containing "doubleclick.com" - note that the ".com" is important or files such as "doubleclick.htm" would also be blocked. This means no ftp, no html, no subdomains. Nothing gets through.
- alw would always allow sites containing a string to be put through.
- [a alw="slashdot"]Slashdot[/a] - even http://www.badporn.com/slashdot/nakedhemos.gif would get through your filter. Hmmm. We need a better filter. Maybe I should put a [a blk="nakedhemos"]EEK![/a] just in case...
- [a alw=".edu"]Compus Crusade for Cthulhu[/a] - unblock all edu sites.
- lnk would include another file in your blocking. Anything blocked by that file or by a file called by that file would be blocked.
- [a lnk="http://www.virtualsurreality.com/popupads.ht
m "]Ken's list of annoying popups[/a]
The order of operations is easy. No rule overrules a previous rule. i.e. The top rule can never be broken. Rules at the bottom can be overturned repeatedly. The last alw or blk (working from bottom to top) that applies wins.Think about it.
-----
No Zen is good zen
Do it on their dime! That's what they have the number for
Fight Spammers!
They can block the CPHack.exe program from being executed.
There has been several 'hacks' to bypass/disable CyberPatrol that has been published for some time. now.
Fight Spammers!
Holy shit, my name is on the front page of Slashdot.
Yet my karma stays at 81. Quick, make like I'm Bruce Perens and make this a 5!
:)
I am not for censorship at all. But given the net and the fact that a parent cannot be expected to supervise all the time a kid is on the net some measures can be expected. The chance of accidently bumping into offensive stuff is not as low as most would like to beleive out here. Just my 2 cents. Farhat. ** Life is a sexually transmitted disease.
At the intersection of computation and biology.
But whoops, it also says that CyberPatrol only has about a 67% success rate at correctly blocking offending sites ...
Guess about 1/3 of the little cyberTimmies will be finding their way past CyberPatrol on the first try! DOH!
You know what to do with the HELLO. ...
Help create an open-source world
More argument about censorship... how much time have we officially wasted now?
If everybody is really worried about censorship, protesting against CyberPatrol and SurfWatch is the wrong place to start. I suggest the FCC. After all, this is the same government agency that "filters" your TV -- indeed, they have placed restructions on almost the entire electromagnetic spectrum! I find it interesting that people (read: I am probably talking about you) believe that it is okay for libraries to "filter" (i.e., make unavailable, especially to minors) certain books and magazines, yet somehow these same libraries should be disallowed from blocking this exact same material on their computers. There is a double-standard here: you cannot keep libraries from filtering the internet without also telling them to make pornography (in the form of books and magazines) readily available to anyone and everyone.
Right now, this entire campaign just smells like one big geekfest ("liberate our computers!") instead of a true free speech movement. If you're really worried about a perceived violation of your Constitutional rights, I suggest you get your priorities in line. Remember, however, that the Supreme Court has ruled that obscenity is not covered under the 1st Amendment. It has also ruled that government agencies such as the FCC are not unconstitutional either, even though the Constitution makes no mention of them. The reality is, pornography filtration is here to stay no matter what you try to do.
Thus I say to you, Good luck trying to get the FCC to lift its restrictions. Better yet, try going to your average American suburb or small town and tell them they are wrong for having city zoning laws that keep adult bookstores away from the middle of their neighborhoods. This is just pure craziness.
Part of the arguments I see here is that since software filters are not 100% effective, they shouldn't be used at all. Where is this logic coming from? This does not make sense. "People are trying to fix the problem, but are only human and are not 100% effective; therefore, we should eliminate all efforts to keep young children from being accidentally expose to pornography." That's the key: these libraries are not trying to keep every Joe Schmoe from being able to access pornography; they are only trying to keep kids from accidentally running across it (and don't give me that "you can't find pornography unless you go out and look for it" crap). Until a government agency does a study, we are not going to get true objective results as to the accuracy of the software filters, and even if/when one is completed, I'm still not certain that will matter; obviously the concensus up to this point has been, "something is better than nothing." Thus my prediction: pornography filters on library computers are here, and are going to be here, for a long time. Quit being puppets to liberalism and use a little common sense: software filtration is not illegal/unconstitutional, and if a community wants to have filters, let'em have'em, and go download your pr0n on the free computers at your nearest college library.
Well, there goes my precious karma...
Ryan Kirk
Be polite if you do.