Posted by
CmdrTaco
on from the slashdot-will-be-the-third-site-censored dept.
An anonymous reader wrote in to say that "CNN is reporting on a federal plan that has been attached to an appropriations bill which would require that public schools and libraries institute censorware or lose government funding. It could be voted on as early as this week. Check out the article."
210 comments
Tax revenues
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Anonymous Coward
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You know, if the federal government didn't take [steal] so much tax money, they wouldn't be able to usurp so much power. It seems like we always hear arguments about cutting/not cutting taxes for economic reasons, but never any mention about what income taxes have done for the feds: allow them to exercise much more power than the constitution provides for by utilizing a nonsense "interstate commerce" argument.
Can you find anywhere in the U.S. Constitution that grants the congress the power to censure school libraries?
Re:good idea
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Anonymous Coward
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Well, here's the problem with this argument. I do want me tax dollars spent on it, and I also want the government to do my job as a parent. So, I guess its up to the elected officials to try to figure things out, afterall, thats what they're elected for.
Like a school I should not have to worry about "bad" things happening to my children at a library. I live in a small upper/middle class town in New England and just last year there were 2 cases of a man exposing himself in the public library (Which does have internet connections). Since finding this out I haven't gone back there.
Small children are routinely dropped off for book readings/story telling sessions in which they are pretty much left on there own for an hour or so except for the 1 or 2 people who are running it.
Personally I think that the amount of 'research' at the lower grade levels that is done on the internet is terrible. For those that don't know what to look for its far more the misinformation superhighway than it is the information. At least books have gone through some sort of editing process and if nothing else will teach you decent grammar. The internet has become the 'easy way out' for doing school work and the way i see it will result in nothing except creating an even lazier generation that we current have. Fear that!
Feel free to moderate down to -1000
I'm getting tired
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Anonymous Coward
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of how "For the Children" is the Root Password for the Constitution and Bill of Rights. Somehow, if you mutter that magic phrase in passing, you can ignore the Constitution, Bill of Rights, and legal precedence, pushing your own viewpoint upon everyone else. I'd like to see an end to laws like this, and now view "For the Children" as a red flag, uttered by someone announcing yet another assault upon my rights and privacy.
I am not a PoliSci student or anything like that, so as far as I know that might be ok, but from a layman's view stuff like this sounds utterly rediculous! If a new law or etc cannot be passed by standing on it's own merits, it shouldn't be passed at all.
Welcome to the desert of the real.
GOOD! HOORAY!
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Anonymous Coward
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FINALLY! A way to get the feds out of the local school districts!
Or as they say "... and the horse you came in on."
Part of the problem is that some people find talking about breast cancer to be obscene. Anytime sex gets anywhere near the picture, a certain portion of the populace goes whacko, in one way or another. Seems like this has been true for multiple centuries, if I read my history correctly.
Caution: Now approaching the (technological) singularity.
--
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Re:Why Christians are against it, and you should b
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HiThere
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Doesn't approach them in quality or what? I don't think all that highly of some of the books on those lists. Mr. Dahl, for example, has little in the way of literary style to recommend him, though he is easy for young children to understand.
Caution: Now approaching the (technological) singularity.
--
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Re:A clear call for open source censorware
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HiThere
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I think you missed what I meant. The list is editable by the useing organization (or individual). If a library wanted to block a list of sites, they could. They could share blocked lists. Or they could go the other way and just allow particular sites. I don't care. My point was that I want local control.
I wasn't really worrying about you being able to see boobies, though what you see in blue footed birds... Caution: Now approaching the (technological) singularity.
--
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Who defines what is moral and amoral in our society anyhow? While I may find something tasteful and artistic, someone else may see it as pornographic. I find it interesting that the US is all about personal liberties and freedoms but, in reality, its more socialist than the government would admit. Public health, public libraries, public access... all controlled, regulated, and censored by the government. Personal freedom ends where public morals begin. Is this good? Is it bad? Who am I to say... I'm just a number in the system, a peg in the hole, a cog in the wheel. You are too if you don't oppose censorshhip in public libraries.
Let the parents control what their children see. Let them be responsable for what may come from their inaction and inability to control what their children have access to. GO to the libraries and GO into the schools - see what they have in terms of monitoring and protecting the children from bad things. I agree, if a child is surfing hustler.com (or whatever), that is inapropriate for the setting and a person telling them so. But to coldly and calculatingly cut off access to information...
Finally, when does it go from censoring pornographic material to censoring religious texts and public forums. Where do you draw the line? Who decides this? If "we the people" mean anything anymore, it certainly won't be the government, and it certainly won't be a company.
Could this be a conspiracy by the companies that make that kind of software to get a lucradive "sweet" government deal? hrmm.
Verbatim
-- Price, Quality, Time. Pick none. What, you thought you had a choice?
This sounds like a good idea, but unfortunately, the states' citizens are _still_ paying the federal taxes as well. So in essence, they are paying twice for the same services.
Maybe the federal government should only be able to tax the states (i.e. tax a certain percentage of the state's tax revenue).
It's interesting to note that in a country where the _states_ are the soverign powers, the federal government takes the majority in tax revenue...
-- "Save the whales, feed the hungry, free the mallocs" -- author unknown
CONGRESSIONAL SWITCHBOARD PHONE #
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blach
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The Number for the Capitol Switchboard is:
202-224-3121
What is the bill number and copy of it?
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tSade
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Is there a bill number and a text copy of the to-be-bill out there somewhere. If there isn't, can you keep us up to date so we can write to our political fronts (who really want the bill number or whatever they call it). I want the text because I really like to see what else is added in there.
Re:What is the bill number and copy of it?
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Mr.Phil
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It's attached to a Seneate Appropreations bill, so that even if Mr President Clinton doesn't like the filtering rider, he may not veto the whole bill and the filtering rider will stay attached. There was quite a bit on this on NPR (National Public Radio) this morning and should be focused on durning All Things Considered tonight on NPR.
But they seem to be concentrating their efforts against the ALA directly.
Your quote is best answered by the paragraph directly following in the CNN article, which quotes Marvin Johnson of the ACLU.
"Responsibility implies choice, but blocking removes all choice."
-- --sugarman--
Approach this from another angle.
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OgGreeb
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Perhaps what is needed is for a public group to release, possibly with a $10 shareware fee (so people will take it seriously), an Internet site blocker which blocks only one site, say "hustler.com". This way, the libraries can be in compliance with the law and still return responsibility and choice to the end-users. -Gary
-- -- Gary Goldberg KA3ZYW 301/249-6501 AIM:OgGreeb
Digital Marketing Inc., Bowie, MD//www.digimark.net/
Christians think MAPS is an "Agent of Satan"
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macdaddy
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It's absolutely true! Liveprayer.com got on the RBL list because of the way they ran their mailing lists (without an opt-in method). After fixing the problem and being removed from the RBL, Reverend Bill Keller sent a message to all his, um, minions saying that MAPS was out to "thwart Reverend Bill Keller's Internet ministry and liveprayer.com". It is reproduced on MAPS site, here.
Honestly that's the funniest damn thing I've read in weeks! I was rolling on the floor, clutching my left nut and thanking God I use a Mac and Linux!
Re:Christians think MAPS is an "Agent of Satan"
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JustShootMe
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That reminds me so much of the cult I grew up in. "someone doesn't like what we're doing, so they're of satan, oh and please send all your money to this address so we can get more hapless suckers"
The answer is obvious. If you were not so tied up in your media generated preconceptions, you might have noticed. The Christian Coalition is made up of individuals. As the main Christian politicaly active organization, many Christians are members. The top level of the orginization has an agenda that is not in accord to many of the members. The local chapters being somewhat autonomuse have come to there own conclusions.
A large number of Christian, including myself, believe that censorship is a great evil, causing far more harm then good. Parents need to be involved with there childrens lives. Young kids computor time can be monitored. Surfing the web can be a family activity. As our kids get older, they should know right from wrong. There is a lot of stuff that is not pleasent in the world. We need to bring up our children to be able to deal with it. My son would never go to a porn site ( yah, right, the kids 17, sure he would'nt). At some point the children need to become responcible for their own lives. We as parents might not like the decisions that they make, but we had the chance to make our mistakes, and so should they.
Most Christians do not use censorware in their home, feeling that it is unnecessary at best, and a tool of satan at worst. As I stated earlier, most like to be involved with their children instead. I can not think of anything I have enjoyed more then watching my son turn into a man, even though it sometimes hurts to see him make bad choises.
Most Christians realize that if they are doing their job, censorwere is not needed. So the only ones that are being "protected" are other peoples kids. That means that the loud minority of extreemists self proclaimed Christians clamering for censorware are real interesteds in only foisting there brand of Christian morality on others, basicly taking away there freedom of choise. This is sad because our Father, God, has made us with free will, and expects us to use it, even when it hurts Him ( just like my son visiting some stupid site). Christians, as God, kids, should try to emulate our Big Dad, and not emulate satan, whos big thing is control, and removing choice.
I will be writing to Sen. McCain right after I get home. I use to be a real fan, and supporter of him, even though he would give me dirty looks outside of "Harry and Steves", musta had somtin ta do with my a** (**** censor!) length hair and my Harley.
At various times, filters have blocked sites that cater to gays and lesbians as well as conservative sites that contain language hostile to homosexuals.
I imagine that that is what the leader of America, Donald Wildmon is upset about.
-- All the creatures will die,
And all the things will be broken.
That's the law of samurai. (Jubai, 1605)
If any place shouldn't be censored it's the library!
I'd rather have mandatory censorship at every house than to see the libraries censored (and once the libraries go, so will everything else).
The library should be the one place where one can find _any_ information he wishes. --------
Life is a race condition: your success or failure depends on whether you get the work done on time.
IANAL. The way I read the text of the bill, it is the responsibility of the school to select and install software that blocks all obscene material and all child pornography.
We all know that none of the commercial filterlist software packages accomplish this. In fact, the only way to comply with this is to choose a set of known 'safe' sites, and only allow access to those sites. But few if any schools are actually going to do this, because it renders the Internet rather useless to the educational mission.
So that leaves open the possibility that schools could download and install a freely available, open source proxy server that screens out goatse.cx, but allows all other content through. Does that comply with the letter of the law? If it doesn't, then neither does installing any of the popular censorware packages.
The censorware vendors are wetting themselves at the thoughts of schools taking thousands of dollars out of their textbook budgets to buy licenses for their scam software. I hope that schools will take a stand against them by adopting a minimalist, free filtering solution.
-- General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
Tacking stuff onto bills
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Tassleman
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Ok, I see stories and comments all the time referring to new laws, etc that are being passed by attaching them to other bills.
HOW CAN THIS POSSIBLY BE RIGHT?
I am not a PoliSci student or anything like that, so as far as I know that might be ok, but from a layman's view stuff like this sounds utterly rediculous! If a new law or etc cannot be passed by standing on it's own merits, it shouldn't be passed at all.
I agree; cutting the strings tied to federal funding might be just the thing some libraries need. But there is the point someone else makes later in this thread; a library that can't afford the censorware can't afford to lose the meager funds they do get.
Congress doesn't have the authority
by
Neolithic
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Congress shall make no law... abridging the freedom of speech...
-1st Amendment, Bill of Rights
Now, this isn't to say that censorware shouldn't be installed to begin with. That is a debate in and of itself. The problem here is that it doesn't fall under Congressional jurisdiction. If censorware is to be installed, it needs to be mandated by the individual institutions.
Maybe the AFA doesn't want this being done at
the Federal level, and prefers local control... might easily be the case if they feel they're stricter about what should be banned than they think the Washingtonians are.
-- Only the dead have seen the end of war.
The price of the Gov't dollar.
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Stonehand
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Every Gov't dollar is a bit more leverage. And when the dollars are finite (that is, always...), and there are questions about how to allocate money...
The only way for locals to avoid the strings of conditions that come with the money is to avoid it altogether. It's the same deal as, say, arts funding; recall the whole spat between NYC mayor Giuliani and the museum (Was it the Brooklyn MOA? Don't recall which) over controversial art in a building tied to a city lease?
They can't legally, AFAIK, mandate censorware on ALL libraries (it'd be tricky to find a clause that permits this; even 'necessary and proper' does not seem to apply, since why must it be done by the Feds and not at the state/local level...), but they can probably legally set this condition, given that this deal isn't likely a guaranteed entitlement...
the laws basically say something is obscene if the local community thinks its obscene. so if the local community had control over the (open) list of blocked sites/words, it sounds like a good idea. but it becomes a problem when its some proprietary software people don't understand blocking people from information on breast cancer. at which point people start acting like information about breast cancer is obscene
your comment is full of misguided fears and half truths. number one with a little help the internet provides nearly unlimited access to journals through systems like jstor. most public schools can't afford any sort of journal subscription. sure i agree elementary school kids aren't writing research papers, but if they learn how to look things up on the internet (under a teacher/librarian's supervision), they will be better prepared than i was. which brings me to my other point, to rebut your point about the internet being an 'easy way out' of school work. sure its possible, but it's also possible that students are getting off the hook when it comes to doing research and critical thinking because most schools can't afford any sort of decent store of information (encyclopedias don't count, i'm talking modern journals, etc). an optimist might expect this to create a generation that's not lazier than what 'we current have' (although whether that's true or not is debatable) but instead is more able to critically read and understand arguments and information about a wide area of subjects, allowing them to identify their interests and passions earlier in life and make meaningful contributions.
Well of course; library have all those things, what are they, oh ya, books. We wouldn't want people reading and thinking for themsleves would we? No, we want them mindlessly in front of the TV, and maybe reading the occasional Time, or TV Guide, or a tabloid. But to read a book that might get them thinking? That would be horrible, its time we burned these libraries and all their contents!
This is, in fact, the inevitable consequence of the Federal Government being allowed to "fund" something it does not have the constitutional authority to directly control. As soon as that institution, in this case the school system, becomes dependent on that funding, the government can threaten to withdraw the funding if the school doesn't follow orders.
And voila, the federal government suddenly controls something it didn't and couldn't before. So when your presidential or congressional candidate promises to help pay for your state or local program, what he's really saying is that he wants to control it.
Since when is looking at the big picture Offtopic?
-- In order to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe.
-Carl Sagan
The actual bill isn't so bad!
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BillHop
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The House bill is number HR4577.
I think the Senate bill is S5588.
The admendment I could find is SA3635. Here is its text and the senators' discussion of it from JuneRead it! Once again, everyone is over-reacting.
Since this bill provides no funding to purchase the software, I'm curious to know what the delta between that cost and the lost funding would be. If the library has the option of spending a roughly equal amount of money for either censoware or internet access (the former would get the latter paid for through funding, the latter would eliminate the need for the former), one would hope that there would be a relatively large number making the right choice. Hell, just giving them the choice in the first place would be relatively refreshing.
-- Ideology breeds Hypocrisy. Just how much is up to you.
As the other poster pointed out, you're wrong about the U.S. being founded by Christians.
But that still leaves the other question: how can you want an ignorant homophobe as President? I guess that makes you a homophobe, too! --
-- And the men who hold high places must be the ones who start
To mold a new reality... closer to the heart
Re:And who picks the sites to be blocked?
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Ryu2
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If the censorware blindly uses pattern-matching in the URLs (there was a article linked from Slashdot a while back giving some real-life examples of the absurdity of this), Slashdot itself may very well be censored (perhaps of "slash" being objectionable?!)
--
There's 10 types of people in this world, those who understand binary and those who don't.
Um, hello? The US was founded by Christians trying to escape religious persecution. These same Christians wrote an anti-establishment (of state religion) clause into the Bill of Rights.
Phillips believes in that. (It's the Constitution party for a reason.) Removing barriers to posting the Ten Commandments is nowhere near to establishing Christianity as a state religion. It's simply removing gov't from controlling education, something it has no constitutional grounds to do in the first place. The sooner you recognize that, the better off we'll be.
Your rights are safer with a God-fearing man as president than without.
Frankly, I'm really tired of religions trying to tell people what to do with themselves. I really wish people would keep their religions to themselves and just love others.
Funny, because that's exactly what Christ says. However, that must be applied consistently. And if you apply it consistently, you find that He's told you "have" to do certain things. But, only if you really want to love people. You're free not to love if you so choose.
I love everybody, including the unborn. I can't let my love for woman X (expressed in being supportive of her choices) override my love for baby Y (expressed in my desire that he lives). Life is more fundamental than liberty.
In my worldview, life is precious. If you view life as precious, and advocate loving others (as you claim), the only logical and self-consistent result is that you be pro-life. I consider myself "pro-choice" too (inasmuch as liberty is good) but no one's "choice" to murder another is justifiable.
Real slavery is when your life means nothing, and can be disposed of at a whim without remorse. So who's the slave: a girl wanting an abortion or the unborn child inside her?
"With great power comes great responsibility." Men and women share the power to create a new life. They also share the great responsibility of raising the child that is the consequence of their actions. If you're not prepared for the consequences, refrain from the actions.
As dboyles said, parents have the right and duty to keep abreast of what their children are doing. It's called parenting.
I don't buy it. To me the "morality" of abortions is a morally hazy thing. If it were me, I wouldn't get one, but I respect that it's enough of a grey area that I would rather err on the side of liberty. Therefore I'm pro-choice.
I'm not pro-abortion. Just pro choice. I don't believe it's apropriate to filter our view of morality on others - at least until the baby is, by all standards, viable. *all* standards.
Otherwise, keep your nose out of a woman's choice. If it's not your choice to make, stay the hell out.
And actually, I'm a man. I'd never ask a woman to get an abortion. And I probably wouldn't stay with a woman who aborted my child. But if I have nothing to do with it, the most I'd do is talk to her as a friend. And I wouldn't begrudge her her choice with her own body.
Frankly, I'm really tired of religions trying to tell people what to do with themselves. I really wish people would keep their religions to themselves and just love others.
Ah, another victim of revisionist history. There is a substantial amount of evidence indicating that most of the Founders were indeed Christians.
I am not homophobic. Homonauseated, perhaps.
Now a bit from the CP platform...
Article I of the Bill of Rights reads: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."
Our Constitution grants no authority to the federal government either to grant or deny the religious expressions of the people in any place. Both the First and Tenth Amendments forbid such tyranny.
We call upon all branches of government to cease their attacks on the religious liberties of the people.
We assert that any form of taxation on churches and other religious organizations is a direct and dangerous step toward state control of the church. Such intrusion is prohibited by the Constitution and must be halted.
We assert that private organizations such as the Boy Scouts of America, can determine their own membership, volunteers, and employment based on their oaths and creeds.
I was psyched to see Applelust on top of the earlier version of the bill. But CNN covered language that goes much further than the McCain mandate. It was so bad the conservatives had to come out against it! That's what was news.
-- These opinions are my own. My employer is not aware of them, does not endorse them, and is not responsible for them.
The Conservatives Answer for Themselves
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Liza
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We are writing to you today to express our concerns about the proposed Internet filtering amendment to H.R. 4577, and the chilling effect that it would have on the Internet. While we are all gravely concerned about the proliferation of pornography on the Internet and children's access to such material, we hope to see responsible legislation that will empower parents and that will actually prevent children from accessing harmful material online.
The Children's Internet Protection Act, added to H.R. 4577 by Senators McCain and Santorum, and Representatives Istook and Pickering, would require that all public libraries and schools that receive federal funds for Internet access to install blocking software to restrict access to "inappropriate" material.
Filtering is not exclusive to pornographic content; it can also be used to target First Amendment protected speech. This was highlighted in the past when CyberPatrol, the largest filtering software manufacturer, ruled that the American Family Association's web site would be subject to filtering by their software program because of their long-standing opposition to homosexual activism.
There is growing concern within the conservative community regarding the use of filtering systems by schools and libraries that deliberately filter out web sites and information that promote conservative values. There have been many reported incidents of schoolteachers and administrators targeting pro-environment groups that differ with the global warming hypothesis, as well as pro-life organizations with filtering software to prevent students from hearing alternative approaches to those issues.
These precedents send a frightening message to political and social organizations that promote causes contrary to the positions held by the "politically correct" American Library Association and National Education Association. For conservative organizations to be subject to filtering for the content of their speech violates the most fundamental understanding of the First Amendment. The Children's Internet Protection Act would not only justify, but would mandate the use of these inappropriately restrictive devices.
We are also opposed to the practice of Congress mandating regulations by tying them to the use of federal money for state projects. This practice of taking money from the states, generously redistributing portions of it to other states, and then returning what is left with provisional strings attached is immoral and an abuse of power. Regardless of the good intentions this bill was drafted to achieve, this approach to federal funding is destructive to the most basic notions of federalism and must not become a normal practice.
Nothing is more effective than efforts to educate parents and children about Internet safety and how to properly use online resources. Moreover, Internet filters are an imperfect solution to this important problem. With millions and millions of web sites already online, and more added every day, children will always be able to access content we might wish they couldn't.
Education programs can help them to deal with the very real danger certain kinds of content could pose; Internet filters offer a false sense of security on this issue.
Additionally, Congress' own Commission on Online Child Protection is due to submit its own report on Internet safety for children in mid-October. That report will embody several months' extended effort on the part of the commission's nineteen members, and will provide Congress with important recommendations for future decisions regarding children's online safety. Congress should not legislate on this topic before that report has been received, lest it undermine the importance of the COPA Commission's work or make avoidable legislative mistakes.
The amendment's provision for "monitoring the online activities of minors either through supervisory or technological means" is also problematic. This language is inappropriately vague, and could be even open the door to unprecedented law enforcement access to people's online habits. Issues of technological monitoring must be dealt with far more care than is evident in the proposed legislation.
For these reasons, we encourage you to oppose the Children's Internet Protection Act, and any other efforts to dilute the potential of this powerful medium. We hope that you agree that an educational approach that empowers parents, instead of blunt, ineffective mandates, is the best way to address the issue of protecting children during their online experiences. We appreciate your concern and attention to this matter.
Yes, I think it's disgusting. How can they do that? Is there a law somewhere that says you can tack anything you want on to another bill? To me it subverts the ideals of a democracy. Seems to me the only way the few overule the majority.
If anyone has any info on how this is legal please post it.
-- People who bite the hand that feeds them usually lick the boot that kicks them
Re:Counterpoint... from the other side
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Sangammon
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First, suppose John Doe enters public library and uses public library's computer to access illicit material (such as child porn, etc.). Now suppose 5-year-old kid sees John Doe John Doe's screen with said illicit images and asks his mom what that is. Mother is outraged. What is the library's legal liability?
A mother should never be outraged when her child asks 'what is that'. She should be proud.
-Tal
--
Shake and shake
the ketchup bottle.
None will come,
and then a lot'll.
Thank you for putting it right out in the open: the purpose of women is to make babies, and we should be grateful for that opportunity?
The poster was talking about pre-industrial times, and this comment should not be contorted to mean that in this day and age.
I believe every state has a way for the parental notification/consent (depending on state) laws to be bypassed by a court. If some teenage girl has been raped it seems that the courts would certainly bypass the partental consent, and hopefully action could be taken against the predatorial adult as well
I don't think that Brown vs. Board of Education belongs in this argument, it didn't establish the role of the states over the parents. It did however increase the responsibilities of the states, but not in the way you describe. I do not think any of our schools are ready to replace parents.
Also a point that has not yet been brought up, no minor can have any other medical procedure performed without parental consent, so why should abortions be any different.
As a final point, I am pro-choice, I don't want to erode the right a little piece at a time, but most teenagers are not ready for the real world as much as they think they are.
Great Study-hall project!
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catseye_95051
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I used to hang out during boring study halls at the computer terminal and write games.
You KNOW if they put censorware on school computers the kids will try to crack it (and succeed.)
I can't think of a better way to get them interested in learning more about computers, so I'm all for this bill!
I can see the intentions of this
by
cecil36
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What Congress has in mind is requiring censorware be in place to block the inappropriate content that's out there. I feel that only the porn sites be blocked, and if there's an offensive word, that the word be *'d out. Although there should be freedom to access whatever you want, do keep in mind that what is offensive is deemed offensive by the offended, unless a higher power overrules the offended. I'm for this so that all the garbage that's out there stays out of the schools, and so that kids today learn some responsibility when using the Internet.
Doesn't anyone actually check the source of a story? That "AP" at the beginning means it's an Associated Press story. It has nothing to do with CNN. I see this all the freakin' time on Slashdot. A little journalism knowledge couldn't hurt, guys.
"If I can't be President, you can all eat static."
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brassman
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So, when a Senator proposes a bill that he knows damn good and well is unconstitutional, what should the repercussions be? Should we settle for mere impeachment?
Though its always a good idea to contact your congresperson and tell them your stand on issues, its not like this is in immediate danger of being passed as is. If you go to thomas.loc.gov and read the versions of the bill, you'll find the senate version has many rider type emmendments, like a patient's bill of rights, that probably won't be included in the final version. Obviously this is anther example of how government does lots of backhanded, under the table manuvering, and another reason why you should vote for real candidates in elections instead of the dominant party stiffs, but I think people are a bit needlessly worried.
I'd like to thank Congress for further pissing away my tax dollars
And there is a good way to get conservative Congressfolk to oppose it. Write them a letter saying word to that effect, and asking them if they support this waste of money and intrusion of the Fed's into individuals' lives. If you've got 'liberals' representing you then word it so as to question their liberal credentials.
Which means all GIFs are pornographic.
by
yerricde
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(b) the material is patently offensive because it affronts contemporary community standards relating to the description or representation of sexual matters
The free software community's standard for delivering sexy images is PNG or JPEG, not GIF. GIF is "patently offensive" (U.S. Patent 4,558,302) to the free software community.
Another twist on funding....
by
clyons
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Another interesting point is the impact on schools or libraries that CANNOT AFFORD to go out and buy blocking software for all their internet connected computers. So potentially, schools which are already underfunded will get more federal funds cut.
Answer me this: To get into Congress, do you have to play connect the dots and LOSE every time???
The very definition of censorship
by
jcoleman
·
· Score: 1
Censorship is only censorship if it's done (or mandated) by the government. Your school librarian does not engage in censorship if he crosses out the dirty words in each book in the library. If he is required to do that by the government, that that is censorship.
Amendment I.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Sounds like the law discussed above would abridge someone's right to free speech. Depending on the blocking software, it could possibly abridge the freedom of the press. If this law passes, you can pretty much bet that a case fighting this will go before the Supreme Court.
There are already checks and balances in place. If you added your strikeout idea what good would that do if those judging these laws can't always agree on what is and is not constitutional? Who will judge the judges then?
--
--
As a matter of fact, I am a lawyer. But I play an actor on TV.
Re:And who picks the sites to be blocked?
by
clary
·
· Score: 1
Who indeed?
By all rights, whoever pays for the service should be able to limit it as they see fit. The taxpayers pay for it, but will never agree on what or whether anything should be blocked. Solution? Don't force taxpayers pay for it in the first place.
For this reason we should not have public schools. We tax all (at least all property owners in most states) to fund public schools, when there is no way we can come to agreement on what the students should learn or be exposed to. I send my children to a particular parochial school, because I happen to approve of both the academics and morals taught there.
I had never before considered that this should apply to public libraries as well as schools.
--
"Rub her feet." -- L.L.
Re:And who picks the sites to be blocked?
by
clary
·
· Score: 1
Well, you are very short sighted and greedy.
I shouldn't respond to flamebait, but in short, why don't you just bite me?
I have never used blocking software, and never will. My solution at home is discussion and supervision.
You are under the mistaken view that censorship is always bad. Censorship is evil when it the use of force to prevent the exchange of information. If I decline to pay for distributing information I find objectionable, some would call that censorship too, but I do not see it as a problem. In fact, I would normally reserve the actual word "censorship" for the former case, just to keep from diluting its effect.
Short-sighted and greedy? Because I would prefer to direct my giving as I see fit, rather than have my resources redistributed by force? Guilty, I guess.
Do you have children? I have those discussions you talk about routinely. Even so, I would prefer to "shield" my kids from some of the more vile stuff on the internet for a bit. I think that reasonable, since they are all under 10. As each child gets older, he gets exposed to more stuff, and gets continuing direction and guidance from his mother, myself, and others. We do try to exert a reasonable amount of control on who are those others, but that too will decrease gradually as the children get older.
--
"Rub her feet." -- L.L.
Re:I Just Can't Believe It!
by
No+One
·
· Score: 1
Bah, sounds like someone's stupid enough to actually believe Rush Limbaugh. News flash: the Republicans are not, and never have been, defenders of your rights (unless you believe you have a right to force your christian morals on other people, to dump your shit in my backyard, or to have my tax money pay for your company's fuckups). Up until the mid '80's, the Democrats did a moderately decent job of supporting free expression. Then, they decided to out-Republican the Republicans, and we end up with the system we've got today, where there's no substantive difference between the parties. Each is pushing basically the same Christian-supremacist corporate feudalistic agenda in slightly different words.
You want your rights protected? Vote Green. Vote Libertarian. Vote New Party. But neither of the Weasel Twins (my apologies to weasels) is going to do jack shit to protect your rights.
This has nothing to do with the first amendment. They want to block obscenity and child pornography. Obscenity and child pornography are illegal. They are not protected by the constitution. If you don't like that, you can try to fight to have obsenity and child pornography legalized, but until then, you'll have trouble fighting laws against them.
And despite what you may think, obscenity is not illegal.
This has nothing to do with what I think. This is the legal definition. Obscenity has been (and still is) defined by the Supreme Court as being illegal and not having constitutional protection. Material that is merely pornographic is not obscene and is protected by the first amendment.
I posted the bill at:
http://www.lisnews.com/article.php3?sid=2000101608 3332
Here's Some:
H.R.4577
Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2001 (Public Print)
-------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------
TITLE VI--CHILDREN'S INTERNET PROTECTION
SEC. 601. SHORT TITLE. This title may be cited as the `Childrens' Internet Protection Act'.
SEC. 602. REQUIREMENT FOR SCHOOLS AND LIBRARIES TO IMPLEMENT FILTERING OR BLOCKING TECHNOLOGY FOR COMPUTERS WITH INTERNET ACCESS AS CONDITION OF UNIVERSAL SERVICE DISCOUNTS. (a) SCHOOLS- Section 254(h) of the Communications Act of 1934 (47 U.S.C. 254(h)) is amended--
(1) by redesignating paragraph (5) as paragraph (7); and
(2) by inserting after paragraph (4) the following new paragraph (5):
`(5) REQUIREMENTS FOR CERTAIN SCHOOLS WITH COMPUTERS HAVING INTERNET ACCESS-
`(A) INTERNET FILTERING-
`(i) IN GENERAL- Except as provided in clause (ii), an elementary or secondary school having computers with Internet access may not receive services at discount rates under paragraph (1)(B) unless the school, school board, or other authority with responsibility for administration of the school--
`(I) submits to the Commission a certification described in subparagraph (B); and
`(II) ensures the use of such computers in accordance with the certification.
`(ii) APPLICABILITY- The prohibition in paragraph (1) shall not apply with respect to a school that receives services at discount rates under paragraph (1)(B) only for purposes other than the provision of Internet access, Internet service, or internal connections.
`(B) CERTIFICATION- A certification under this subparagraph is a certification that the school, school board, or other authority with responsibility for administration of the school--
`(i) has selected a technology for its computers with Internet access in order to filter or block Internet access through such computers to--
`(I) material that is obscene; and
`(II) child pornography; and
`(ii) is enforcing a policy to ensure the operation of the technology during any use of such computers by minors.
`(C) ADDITIONAL USE OF TECHNOLOGY- A school, school board, or other authority may also use a technology covered by a certification under subparagraph (B) to filter or block Internet access through the computers concerned to any material in addition to the material specified in that subparagraph that the school, school board, or other authority determines to be inappropriate for minors.
`(D) TIMING OF CERTIFICATIONS-
`(i) SCHOOLS WITH COMPUTERS ON EFFECTIVE DATE-
`(I) IN GENERAL- Subject to subclause (II), in the case of any school covered by this paragraph as of the effective date of this paragraph under section 602(h) of the Childrens' Internet Protection Act, the certification under subparagraph (B) shall be made not later than 30 days after such effective date.
`(II) DELAY- A certification for a school covered by subclause (I) may be made at a date that is later than is otherwise required by that subclause if State or local procurement rules or regulations or competitive bidding requirements prevent the making of the certification on the date otherwise required by that subclause. A school, school board, or other authority with responsibility for administration of the school shall notify the Commission of the applicability of this subclause to the school. Such notice shall specify the date on which the certification with respect to the school shall be effective for purposes of this clause.
`(ii) SCHOOLS ACQUIRING COMPUTERS AFTER EFFECTIVE DATE- In the case of any school that first becomes covered by this paragraph after such effective date, the certification under subparagraph (B) shall be made not later than 10 days after the date on which the school first becomes so covered.
`(iii) NO REQUIREMENT FOR ADDITIONAL CERTIFICATIONS- A school that has submitted a certification under subparagraph (B) shall not be required for purposes of this paragraph to submit an additional certification under that subparagraph with respect to any computers having Internet access that are acquired by the school after the submittal of the certification.
`(E) NONCOMPLIANCE-
`(i) FAILURE TO SUBMIT CERTIFICATION- Any school that knowingly fails to submit a certification required by this paragraph shall reimburse each telecommunications carrier that provided such school services at discount rates under paragraph (1)(B) after the effective date of this paragraph under section 602(h) of the Childrens' Internet Protection Act in an amount equal to the amount of the discount provided such school by such carrier for such services during the period beginning on such effective date and ending on the date on which the provision of such services at discount rates under paragraph (1)(B) is determined to cease under subparagraph (F).
`(ii) FAILURE TO COMPLY WITH CERTIFICATION- Any school that knowingly fails to ensure the use of its computers in accordance with a certification under subparagraph (B) shall reimburse each telecommunications carrier that provided such school services at discount rates under paragraph (1)(B) after the date of such certification in an amount equal to the amount of the discount provided such school by such carrier for such services during the period beginning on the date of such certification and ending on the date on which the provision of such services at discount rates under paragraph (1)(B) is determined to cease under subparagraph (F).
`(iii) TREATMENT OF REIMBURSEMENT- The receipt by a telecommunications carrier of any reimbursement under this subparagraph shall not affect the carrier's treatment of the discount on which such reimbursement was based in accordance with the third sentence of paragraph (1)(B).
`(F) CESSATION DATE-
Thank you for putting it right out in the open: the purpose of women is to make babies, and we should be grateful for that opportunity?
A fellow poster has already come to my defense,
but I'll bite. Did you not notice that I said married teenage women? Is not childbearing the exclusive domain of the woman? I don't know about you, but my parents and my wife's parents are starting to wonder where the grandkids are (hey, we ARE trying:) Society kinda puts pressure on newly married people to make babies. In that age of hit-or-miss birth control (rhythm method anyone?) I'm sure that it didn't take long after the wedding night for the midwife to pay her first visit! See, nothing nefarious in my comment, but a keen understanding of young people!
The purpose of women is twofold: one, to bring honor and glory to their maker; two, to be a companion. The union of man and woman is the only part of creation that wasn't good: it was very good. Women act as a compliment to men. Individually they are incomplete, as are men. To say any different is to go against nature and common sense.
Finally, to answer your question, yes, you should be grateful for the blessing that is childbearing. I will admit that since the fall, childbirth has been problematic:) , but overall I know of no mother that would want it any other way. I know of very few fathers that would not, if you caught them privately, admit a little jealousy.
You continue:
It is now the role of the state to provide education to minors (read Brown v. Board of Education), so there is no longer any need to hold them in thrall of their parents. And it
is precisely that state education (in the form of library access) that is the subject of this article on slashdot. Your words have meaning, so think carefully about what sort
of world you'd have us live in. One of habitual rape and unanswered pleas for help? Or one for emancipation. Our country has had many great moments of emancipation
(13th amendment, 19th amendment, etc.) It is now time for another.
I'm sorry that you see human government as the answer to all people's problems. Haven't we seen enough failures in human government to know that it can't and won't fix everything? When was the last time you read Brave New World by Aldus Huxley? Is that the kind of world you'd want to live in? That seems to be what you're saying. I'm sorry, life is not about carnal pleasure without consequences. Yeah, sex is fun. I admit it. Sex is not, however, the pinnacle of existance.
Ya know what's funny? Sex is another one of those things that is a reflection of our relationship with God. Did you know that? Our relationship with God is reflected in the marriage relationship, and sex is an integral part of that. Our relationship with God is supposed to be so close as to be similar to that with a spouse! I should also probably mention that God is a jealous husband, and demands fidelity in his bride.:)
You tell me that my words have meaning, but from my perspective you don't seem to have thought your own position through to its logical end. What group of people could better care for a child than its own parents? Who knows it better? Do you really think that a government agency would do a better job?
Government has, in the past century, done no less than everything in its power to destroy families. Can you not see the results around you? Government can't, can't, give a child a moral foundation. Not this government anyway. Morality can't be instilled in a child via an act of congress. It's not implanted by executive order. It's not fostered through judicial ruling. Morality is learned through the careful, loving instruction of parents.
And morality must be taught. I'm sure you know, if you deal with kids at all, that they don't have to be taught how to be bad. Evil comes naturally to them. They are by their very nature selfish. Kids must be taught correct behavior, and it can't be done by a government program. It's done on a one-on-one basis, parent and child.
Your supposed savior, on the other hand, does everything it can to ensure parental failure. Corporal punishment can land a parent in jail if a teacher or other offical has an political axe to grind. Parents send their children to schools, much of the time out of neccessity, where they have no control over disagreeable cirricula. (Many of my friends have turned to home schooling or are tightening their belts and sending to private schools.) The single best defense a father can have for his family is unceasingly villified in the media and by government officials. And heaven forbid that a parent doesn't tow the "party line" like the sadly misled parents that followed David Koresh (I've yet to see solid evidence of what Reno claimed to happen, please show me wrong!).
The one best guide for parents is laughed at as outdated and outmoded in this "modern" age. Let me tell you a secret. It doesn't matter how many cars you own, how many degrees are on your wall, how many programming languages you know. You're the same kind of person that lived four thousand years ago. People just haven't changed.
The more I think about this, the more I think our difference in opinion stems from a difference in references. I recognize God's influence on the world, and its need for his saving grace. You, I fear, don't. Without that common reference, I see that you are trying to fill that God-shaped-void that each of us is born with with government.
Didn't mean to preach, but without acknowledging where I'm coming from it's hard to respond.
Why should I be forced to subsidize your child's education through a mill levy or a tax. I am a single man, but I pay for other breeders kids to go to school. You may say it is for the betterment of society as a whole. I say overpopulation is rampant, and contributes to more pollutants in the environment. I would go further, and say making me pay for your offspring does more harm to the earth than if you would not have had them at all.
(Nowhere did you say you did or didn't have kids. You did say "and my child's life.")
Re:I hate subsidizing parents
by
Arandir
·
· Score: 2
I don't want you subsidizing my kids! Reread the post!!! As it stands right now, your property taxes are going to subsidize those who have children of school age. Get the government out of schools and you only have to pay for it if you send a child to school (or donate to an education charity, scholarship, etc).
-- A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
Re:I hate subsidizing parents
by
Arandir
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· Score: 2
If you employ anybody, you benefit from state sponsored education.
Last time I hired someone, they had been homeschooled and received a degree from a private university.
Maybe you are a selfish g-dammned lout of a parent, but every other parent that I know of has their children's education as their Number One Priority. They WILL NOT forgo their child's education if the state ceases it's redistribution of wealth from the child-less to the child-blessed. Maybe that's what you would do, but it's insulting to say that others would do the same.
Now, it *is* desirable for society if every one is educated, just as it is desirable for everyone to be well fed. But just as the government does not mandate that all children be fed from state-run grocery stores, neither do children need to be educated in state-run schools. For those that need assistant, there are other avenues for help. Those who can't afford food can receive food stamps. Those that can't afford an education could get educational assistance.
It's amazing that even with food vastly more vital than education, no one is clamouring for a state monopoly on grocery stores.
-- A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
The issue of how much autonomy states have on issues the federal gov't considers important enough was settled, as the major issue, in the Civil War. The Federal gov't won.
-- Looking for freelance Actionscript (Flash/Flex) or ColdFusion work and/or freelance developers. Email me, put Slashdot
McCain is one of the founders of this...
John_McCain@McCain.senate.gov
I like McCain. But he still deserves to get more email for being in the national public eye by running for president.
-- Looking for freelance Actionscript (Flash/Flex) or ColdFusion work and/or freelance developers. Email me, put Slashdot
Realistically I'd be for this if...
by
karandago
·
· Score: 1
Honestly though I seriously don't think people should be looking at porn sites... and certain things of that sort in the library... (And yes people will... I know of people who sit around on porn sites at internet cafes) So some censorware would be useful... (then again having a librarian who can just look over someone's shoulder ever twenty minutes or so can also work...) The thing is there really isn't any censorware out there that works well enough for my tastes (either it censor's too much or doesn't censor properly) so I'd say it's a bad bad idea.
Under the proposal, any school or library that did not install software to filter out pornography would lose its federal dollars intended to help buy Internet access.
If I were a parent sending my kid off to college (and I'm not, but I play a college professor when I'm not doing this computer thing, I'd rather know that money is being spent to purchase up-to-date equipment and pay qualified instructors a fair living wage. I don't care that students might be using their internet access for, among many things, surfing porn. Most college students are 18 and for many intents and purposes, considered adults. How they use their bandwidth is certainly not the goverment's businesss.
No money is provided to buy the software.
Once again, "average Joe" is going to swallow another unfunded Federal mandate. The money has to come from somewhere...what material that might benefit students or the public will not be purchased because of some vocal self-righteous fanatics? Has "average Joe" really thought this one through?
About the Indy 500 thing: You could include the NASCAR event and the Formula 1 event (this would include people from all around the world). And people, before you think this is completely offtopic, go to ronfar's page and you'll see it's about censorship too.
... the federal government outdoes itself on the 'fucking-with-the-american-public' front. well outside the bounds of any constitutional powers provided to it.
yet another reason to vote Libertarian, don't you think? how many more reasons do you need?
New Free Software Opportunity
by
herbierobinson
·
· Score: 1
Given that the Fed law doesn't provide any money to buy this software, it looks like a perfect opportunity for the free software community to provide a needed service.
Perhaps it should ship by default with all Republican Party web sites blocked...
-- An engineer who ran for Congress.
http://herbrobinson.us
I would like someone to propose that no persons rights can be taken from them regardless of age. They can still keep driving at 16.. but sorry drinking and voting will come with birth. Only the latter may cause concern, but hey why not teach them real civic responsibility. The other alternative protecting the children at all costs - without reason - is acceptable. Maybe we can stop this 'for the children' crap.
Really twisted system
by
SubtleNuance
·
· Score: 1
From the article: But the filters are included in the annual spending bill to finance operations of the departments of Labor, Education, and Health and Human Services, and it is unclear if President Clinton would veto the huge spending bill because of his objection to a small part.So if a couple gonads wants to pass a law saying "Everyone must wear red shoes" all they have to do is attach it to another law say ummm "Write checks to suppliers"? What the hell - shouldnt these few Republicrat jack-offs be bounced? Jesus, talk about screwing democracy.
Re:And who picks the sites to be blocked?
by
eudas
·
· Score: 1
how does it go? it takes a village to raise an idiot?:)
eudas
(who was raised by a village)
-- Blessed is he who expects the worst, for he shall not be disappointed.
What does censorship software have to do with appropriations? In this case, they are the same topic, but are truly unrelated. The reason it is a rider is because they are too lazy to make a bona fide bill out of it which would never pass both House and Senate. Our constitution provided the ability to add riders that are germane to the issue (a germane issue might allow a way for schools recieving funds for web access to pay for computers or ISPs or the like).
Instead we have with most riders that one party throws something controversial onto an otherwise good bill so that the party: A) gets it way, or B) gets a political boon from not getting it's way. Both of the major parties do it, it's just this time the Republicans are being the idiots (give it a day to pass the idiot hat back).
It is misuse of our legislative body to treat bills in this manner. Keep another thing in mind: When one party poo-poos another party for a bill they voted on, remember there's usually an unrelated rider to blame!
----------------------
Re:And who picks the sites to be blocked?
by
Koh-I-Noor
·
· Score: 1
I consider myself extreme left, and I wouldn'y want to see any sites blocked.
Re:Counterpoint... from the other side
by
'jeffers'
·
· Score: 1
Hrm... agreed it's not about censorship, it is about a parents right to choose if their child is exposed to this, BUT putting the libraries in a no win postition like this (spend even more $$$ of software/infrastructure or loose federal dollars) helps nobody.
-- Jeff Eidsness
Site Manager - http://thatcalendarplace.com
An odd collection of groups, including state chapters of the Christian Coalition and American Family Association, the American Civil Liberties Union and Internet industry trade organizations, is opposing the initiative. They say it is a bad way to stop youngsters from viewing online pornography at school.
Considering who is against it (the Christian Coalition for one) these senators will be hard pressed to get this one through. We should commend these organizations for being so sensible. Even when offered legislation that would promote their ideals they realized that such a tyrannical proposition would be detrimental and are condemning it.
The right and left would not team up like this unless both had something to fear from this legislation, which makes me wonder what it is. Sounds to me like both sides knows that neither would be in control of what "harmful content" gets censored. Laws like the CDA got passed because it gave the governement the power to define exactly what was "harmful to children" and what wasn't.
I'll be so glad when the day comes that all this bullshit is laid to rest. Porn doesn't hurt kids, it just offends the sensibilities of the superstitious. I think that within a couple of generations all this will simply evaporate. At least that is what I hope for. The internet offers for the first time in history the possibility of a truly free society. A society where information, knowledge, and ideas, including offensive or controversial ones, are freely and easily available to all. A time when all sides of any story are laid out on the table instead of being overtly or covertly censored by those in power on both the right and the left. I'm looking forward to this coming to pass and I'll fight anyone who tries to thwart it.
Lee Reynolds
-- Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
No deal. A (limited to certain types of spending) line-item veto bill was passed a few years ago. It was used once by President Clinton, and then challenged in the courts. The Supreme Court tossed it out as unconstitutional. It was seen as extending legsilative powers to the executive branch, and tossed out.
--
Written by a single drunk monkey in 30 minutes with a copy of MS Word 2000.
What's next, censoring the card catalogue to only give people "good" books? Or maybe we should censor the dewy decimal system so that all the porn isn't in one place in the library...
Choose your own *Censored* Adventure
by
zoomba
·
· Score: 1
Censorship, lets scream for our first ammendment rights! I hate censorship as much as anyone else, and think that it's a complete contradiction for the public education system to censor information, however I'd rather have it left to the school and the community as is being proposed.
Early last year I participated in an online video conference with Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA), where myself and a panel of fellow students were able to pick at the proposed bill. What we extracted from the senator after a great deal of questioning was that this bill is not as bad as many have made it to be. As was proposed by Santorum, and what we were able to question him on would leave the censorship up entirely to individual communities, not some company with a political list of blocked sites.
This only pertains to websites, other services many of us use online will still be left alone. Now I'm not saying this is a good bill, but it is a much better proposal compared to the extent of filtering the government has proposed in the past. This path takes the middle road. The extremists will be happy because something is being done, and the more level-headed are able to make sure that the ban list isn't made based on some political agenda.
Leave it in the hands of the communities and the individual schools you have a greater chance of only the truely offensive sites being blocked. Some will swing the way of the extremists and block everything (sadly, as the local public school here, where the video conference took place has), but there may be a few who do take this responsibly.
This is the best compromise I've yet seen in the way of censorship legislation.
"ASU? You mean Arizona State University? I run one of the computer labs there. Not only is there no cursed censorware on our systems, but we aren't allowed to stop customers from going to any sites they might want to. I think this is great. I'm not into pr0n myself, but I'll be damned if I think the government or some other "authority" has the right to tell anyone whether they can look at it. "
I wasn't complaining... "Bad EVIL" was for what they're trying to do with it... I'm glad that they're not banning access at ASU. That's what I meant.
ASU? You mean Arizona State University? I run one of the computer labs there. Not only is there no cursed censorware on our systems, but we aren't allowed to stop customers from going to any sites they might want to. I think this is great. I'm not into pr0n myself, but I'll be damned if I think the government or some other "authority" has the right to tell anyone whether they can look at it.
Lee Reynolds
-- Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
...so why don't we just gouge out our eyes since they too can be used to view child pornography?
And despite what you may think, obscenity is not illegal. Thank god! The definition of what is obscene or offensive varies from person to person. If you were to follow some strict rule as to what was obscene (and be perfectly fair about it), most if not all religious scriptures would be considered obscene.
Bill Clintons administration and Censorware
by
gwizah
·
· Score: 1
Two things,
"The Clinton administration opposes mandatory Internet filters."
and
"it is unclear if President Clinton would veto the huge spending bill because of his objection to a small part."
Okay, So Bubba doesnt like to have to leave the whitehouse to go and look for porn. I work for a telco that has to have The WORST filtering system Ive ever seen. Life stinks!
Look, you had a pretty good childhood, I bet. But when you were selling vegetables by the side of the road from your grandfather's garden, others were being raped by their fathers. Under parental-consent laws, the father who rapes his daughter can deny her the ability to end her pregnancy. (Your so-called "blessing" of childbearing is in fact a death sentence for a disproportionate number of young women, whose bodies are not yet capable of passing a foreign creature through their small pelvises.) Not only is she compelled to live in her master's house, but she must serve as his concubine. And don't ask where her mother is in this: she's cowering in fear from the last time he knocked a tooth out when she "sassily" spoke up. Just because it's not your own experience doesn't make it not others'.
I don't think that Brown vs. Board of Education belongs in this argument
Brown v. Board held in dicta that the primary role of the states in a modern era of a more powerful Federal government is in providing education to their citizens.
most teenagers are not ready for the real world as much as they think they are
No child is ready for the reality of raising her own children.
Under Stanley v. Georgia (1969) (you can look it up, since you obviously know how) Americans cannot be forbidden from owning and perusing obscenity in the privacy of their own homes. Child porn is still a different issue.
Premarital sex (fornication?) wasn't as much as a problem then; kids could get married much younger. Teenage pregnancy was expected of married teenage women.
Thank you for putting it right out in the open: the purpose of women is to make babies, and we should be grateful for that opportunity?
Could it be that we as a society think that children aren't yet able to properly conduct themselves in an increasingly complex and demanding world
But children already have the power to make babies themselves, especially with under duress by predatory behavior by adults. You would deny them their only way out?
Used to be that girls could get married before the age of fifteen. That's right, even the Virgin Mary was probably no older than 14. It was societal convention.
Indeed, it's still the same in some states like Utah, and it was and is a sick, sick time. In Victorian England, the age of consent for girls was 12 years old. TWELVE YEARS OLD. And you know what they also thought back then? Just as in other societies and parts of our own today, it was thought that the cure for sexually transmitted diseases was to have sex with a virgin. And do you know who those virgins were? Twelve-year-old girls. Fathers would coerce their daughters into contributing to the household income by prostituting themselves (not to mention the plight of orphans).
It is now the role of the state to provide education to minors (read Brown v. Board of Education), so there is no longer any need to hold them in thrall of their parents. And it is precisely that state education (in the form of library access) that is the subject of this article on slashdot. Your words have meaning, so think carefully about what sort of world you'd have us live in. One of habitual rape and unanswered pleas for help? Or one for emancipation. Our country has had many great moments of emancipation (13th amendment, 19th amendment, etc.) It is now time for another.
-- -- Anne Marie
Since when did censorware work for everyone?
by
3.1415926535
·
· Score: 1
Censorware has a history of problems. Sometimes it doesn't block sites that should be blocked, sometimes it blocks sites that shouldn't. I can pretty much guarantee that any censorware product will block a page that somebody legitimately needs to get to. While censorware in libraries is theoretically a good idea, I think it would be a disaster in practice. What would me much better, in my opinion, is to have a big sign saying "All network traffic is monitored" even if it's not. That way people won't go to sites they wouldn't show to other people, without infringing on their rights.
Ok why does the gov. always think that they should censor what we look at. Did you ever stop to think if people got together and said that the cow was ugly and stuped and should be censored. You know what we would have abuch of fluffy cows that are mute. So would the gov. stop censoring things and don't censor the cow!!!
As to why the CC and the FotF oppose this, who can say? Their reasoning has often been inscrutable to those of us outside the organizations. But this fact is instructive in pointing out the real motivation behind this bill.
The Republicans who put this bill forward are hoping that nobody will care enough about Congressional procedure to look at the causes of this bill, but that they'll blame the effects on Bill Clinton, and by extension, Al Gore.
Think about it: If El Presidente passes this piece of crap, he looks like (a) he's flip-flopped on the library filtering issue, and (b) has done something in clear opposition to the wishes of the majority of Americans. Besides that, it will have the potential effect of denying funds to libraries, and this batch of Congressional Republicans have, by and large, been hostile to public libraries specifically and an educated populace in general.
So what if the President vetoes it? He holds off funding for Labor, Education, and other favorite departments that the Republican leadership would like to eradicate. Further, they probably hope to blame him for another federal government shutdown.
Nobody in Congress wrote this bill because the people they represented want it, and nobody anywhere actually believes that this joke of a law will survive court review. A few Congressmen just wanted to give Clinton and Gore an election-year catch-22.
Whatever happened to...
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 2
Whatever happened to teachers getting off of their chairs and checking on students. Is it that hard to walk around the room and just look at the monitor. I don't know about you all but I can spy naked bodies from accross the room and I bet the teacher can to.
Human monitoring of this in my opinion would be far more effective than software. All software does is inhibit research ability. There are always tons of sights that those crappy peices of software will miss, but they always seem to pick up the valueable research sights. Teachers could esily distinguish between the two.
I really don't understand why public grade schools and libraries NEED to have internet access?
I mean, yeah, I've been on the internet since 94 or thereabouts, back when it was just the internet, and it was still largely a tool of universities, and geeks, and the large computer firms were just getting started with putting up their own web pages. There was a LOT of good stuff on line, and from what I understand, back then, most of the pr0n was on usenet anyway.
The internet of that era was a tool of learning, of knowledge.
But the internet has changed, no doubt about it. It is a totally different animal than it was. Even though almost all of the old resources are still available, the most constructive bit is the clean parts of usenet, and email. The Web itself, is a huge waste of time as far as education goes. It's all corporatized, buy this, rent that, be part of my little plan to take over the world, download my web doohickey, etc. I don't think it has any place in education or the library. Except for email. Maybe connect these guys, but low-bandwidth, and shut off the web ports. Leave the censorship to parents and home computer systems. Yeah, there's a lot of neat stuff out there, but I just don't see it as all that important to anyone but Yahoo, Amazon, Microsoft, and AOL. Putting school computers online just legitimizes the idea that public school merely indoctrinates our young into the American culture of consumerism. Gag.
-- These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Re:A clear call for open source censorware
by
jafac
·
· Score: 2
Great, open source censorware - first thing it will block is Microsoft's site, of course, then any of Microsoft's partners, or any MS Fan site, MSNBC, NBC, Intuit, (ironically) Corel, then we have to ban all of Microsoft's stooges, Dell, Gateway, Compaq, and even Apple because Microsoft "owns" them too, (according to some/. poster I bantered with last week), then pretty much any company that doesn't provide source code, hardware companies with closed specs, then any server served with IIS, any server that serves non-standards-compliant HTML, any server that serves HTML not optimized for Mozilla's special features (c'mon, work with me here), but MOST IMPORTANTLY; goatse, any site containint the text: GRITS, Natalie Portman, bird, penis, penis-bird, Ogg, Sig11, or any site using a numeral 5 instead of the letter "S".
Of course, we'll all still be able to see our boobies.
-- These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Representative (or Senator):
It has been brought to my attention that
hr4577, Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and
Education, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2001, TITLE
VI--Children's Internet Protection, contains language which
would require schools to use filtering/blocking software on their
systems.
While I applaud efforts to prevent children from accessing
inappropriate material on the internet, I strongly feel that
automated filters and blocking software is not the way to do it.
This software is often haphazard, at best, letting through much
material that would certainly be deemed "inappropriate," and at the
same time blocking legitimate material.
For instance, most filters will block sites containing information
about chicken breast recipes, breast cancer information, Anne
Sexton, or "Superbowl XXX" simply because words or subwords
may contain characters on the "blocklist."
For more real-world examples, please see
http://www.dfn.org/Alerts/contest.htm
In addition, most of these filters can be disabled by
computer-savvy children in the schools.
Filtering software may seem like an easy solution to this problem,
but it's too easy - it just doesn't work.
I urge you to oppose this part of HR4577, and educate your
colleagues about the unintended side effects of filtering software.
For more information, you may wish to read
http://www.peacefire.org/info/blocking-software-fa q.html
Public Libraries are expected to kiss up to the government to avoid losing their funding which has been shrinking all along? That's absolutely bizzarre. The libraries should turn this around and tell the federal government that they will remove *all* their computers unless their budgets for regular old fashioned books is restored to reasonable levels. Politicians are so eager to point at libraries as bastions of evil. They get to spend money to win a shallow moral victory and the libraries get screwed in the end.
Politicians point at libraries as bastions of evil? Bastions of knowledge is what they are. If they see knowledge as evil then maybe its time for a recall election if not a good old fashioned lynching.
Lee Reynolds
-- Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
...the thirteenth amendment to the Constitution prohibits slavery within the borders of the US. But can't this sort of rigorous parental control be understood as a form of slavery? Girls who have the biological power to get pregnant are denied the right to an abortion without their parents' approval in many states...
I don't think that requiring parental consent for a minor to have an abortion can be considered rigorous parental control. Parents have the right (and duty) to keep abreast of what their children are doing, and to essentially dictate how the child lives and what he/she does (within reason, of course). I find it ironic that the issue of parental responsibility as it relates to abortion is popping up once again in a censorware thread.
As far as the issue of censorware in libraries is concerned, why not assign everyone with a library card a login, and apply censorware based on that? Let the parent of a minor decide whether or not censorware should be applied to the child's account. Just because a family can't afford a computer and internet access doesn't mean that they should have to live with absurd rules forced upon them by an ignorant government (or ignorant population, as the case may be).
-- --
"Complacency is a far more dangerous attitude than outrage." -Naomi Littlebear
There is an interesting argument to be made on this point: the thirteenth amendment to the Constitution
prohibits slavery within the borders of the US. But can't this sort of rigorous parental control be understood as a
form of slavery? Girls who have the biological power to get pregnant are denied the right to an abortion without
their parents' approval in many states; they are so much chattel to be disposed of by their fathers.
How immature and selfish of you to even say such things! Parents are legally responsible for their children, no matter what their physical development. If a child breaks something, the parent is legally obligated to pay. If the child steals something, the parent can be held responsible.
Look, you and your "no-questions-asked-teenage-abortion-rights" ilk have it all backwards, I think. Actually, the problem goes way farther than that.
Used to be that girls could get married before the age of fifteen. That's right, even the Virgin Mary was probably no older than 14. It was societal convention. In that pre-industrialized world, the education afforded boys by the time they were fifteen was sufficient to make it "out there" and support a family of their own. They didn't need their parents to support them; they could actually do it themselves with what little they knew.
Boys used to either start their own farm on a parcel given to them by their parents or began a trade practice of their own as a journeyman. Apprenticeship would have been over by the time the boy entered his middle-teen years.
More importantly, boys were considered "men" legally by their middle teen years. The Jewish Bar-Mitzvah is a party that celebrates the "coming of age" of a boy. After his Bar-Mitzvah, a Jewish boy is, in the eyes of the Jewish community, a man, and he's only 13 years old. The Jewish Bat-Mitzvah is the girls' "coming of age" celebration.
Today, I think that even the brightest bulb would be hard pressed to make it with such a meager launching pad. Kids, therefore, stay at home longer today than at any other time in the past.
They're expected to increase their education through advanced schooling, and their parents are expected to care for them for an extended period of time (legally, to their eightteenth birthday). They stay in their parents care longer, and their parents are morally and, more importantly in this context, legally responsible for them longer than at any other time in the past. We extend childhood more than any other society ever has!
Premarital sex (fornication?) wasn't as much as a problem then; kids could get married much younger. Teenage pregnancy was expected of married teenage women.
As long as parents are legally responsible for their children, their wishes and desires carry more weight than the child themselves, as long as the wishes and desires are legal.
How about this: We don't let kids vote. We don't let them legally smoke or drink. They can't enter into legally binding contracts. They can't sign waivers. They are barely allowed to drive cars. They can't buy firearms. Why do you think all this is? Could it be that we as a society think that children aren't yet able to properly conduct themselves in an increasingly complex and demanding world?
If you really want kids to be liberated from their parents as pre-adolescents, the answer is easy: return to a pre-industrial agrarian society where the education collected by a thirteen year old is adequate to get along in life. That's all you need to do.
When politics, or religion, try to force their way into 'controlling' some other area of society it never is a good thing. As you say, we all suffer.
It's just too bad that at the moment the only 'people' that matter are the ones with lots of money and no brain cells. 'We don't want that responsibility!' seems to be the rallying cry. It's sad really. More and more we see the government trying to make parenting easier by removing choices from parents (or just plain removing the responsibilities that a free parent should have). And some people actually seem to enjoy this idea! What an odd world we live in.
Libraries aren't being called bastions of evil -- that's just a red herring of political forces rallying against filters (who have plenty of rational reasons for opposing them, without resorting to fear-mongering -- I should know, since I'm one of them). The real matter is much more sinister:
What is at stake here is parenting. Do the libraries have the power and right to educate children (or allow children to educate themselves) without first being sifted through parental control? Or must parents be afforded the constitutional power and right to determine what their children know and experience, because they are their children.
There is an interesting argument to be made on this point: the thirteenth amendment to the Constitution prohibits slavery within the borders of the US. But can't this sort of rigorous parental control be understood as a form of slavery? Girls who have the biological power to get pregnant are denied the right to an abortion without their parents' approval in many states; they are so much chattel to be disposed of by their fathers. It harkens back to hundreds of years of legal systems of marriage where the wife was legally indistinguishable from her husband and so couldn't initiate suits in her own name, much less seek divorce or protection from battery.
Libraries are just a convenient middleman. They don't want controversy -- they just want to pursue knowledge without consequences, consistent with ideals of science and enlightened thought. When politics starts to enter into this quest; when ethics boards get formed and regulations get heaped onto these disinterested parties, all of humankind suffers. All of us: woman, daughter, and child.
I work for a large school district in Texas. We've seen this crap coming and unfortunately implemented the Bess filter software by N2H2. They made me do it kicking and screaming. Then they put me in charge of it to rub salt into the wound. ------------------------------------------ -------------
-- "The code I write borders on black magic. Modify it at your own peril."
Any sites found by a court of competent jusridiction to meet the terms of the Act can be added to the DENY tables; obviously censorship restraint does require judicial review.
-- Lacking <sarcasm> tags,/. substitutes moderation as "Troll."
Sec 602(a)(5)(B) says that school must block all illegal pornography. Sec 602(a)(5)(H) says that if they go above and beyond that in any way, that they have to "ensure the ready availability to the public of information on such policy and on its policy".
Doesn't that mean that anything that's blocked (that's not strictly illegal) has to be disclosed? Not 100%, but close enough? --
Sorry, that's part of what I meant as well. I'm afraid I didn't insert the words.
Of course local people should be able to edit the lists - probably arranged much like bind or the MAPS - you can agree with them, or not. But the list is there. Odds are different communities could make up their own lists and make them public, and you could pick and choose which to use, or just use your own. John "Dark Paladin" Hummel
Here's what I'd like to see if this law is to become real.
I don't like censorware - not because I want to surf porn, or because I want my daughter checking out "Naughty schoolboys from lab D" - I don't like censorware for the reason that it contains a list of sites that are "bad for me", but I can't find out what sites are "bad for me" so I can argue the sites that are "good for me" - take the black-listing of the National Organization for Women for having the word breast in it, or sites banned that talk about AIDS prevention because they might say "penis". (Great - I just got Slashdot on the banned list...)
As part of a greater endeavor, I'd support a blocking/censorware project if it contained these pieces:
The program is open-source to save libraries and citizens $$$.
The list is published with a list of the site, and why the site is blocked.
The reasons why to publish the list: This way both the public and the maintainers of the list can debate what sites are blocked and why. (Most of us can agree we wouldn't want Hentai Lovin' as an approved site, but some might argue about The Misanthropic Bitch - and that debate would be healthy for both us and our children.
And having the project be Open Source would mean that Joe Public could use it at home (yes, give them binaries) and know that little Johnny wasn't going where he wasn't - without fearing that little Jenny is being denied information that they need.
As always, I'm John "Dark Paladin" Hummel. And that's my opinion.
John "Dark Paladin" Hummel
McCain, Santorum, Istook, Pickering
by
Sloppy
·
· Score: 2
Introduced in the Senate by Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Rick Santorum, R-Pa., the plan is attached to an appropriations bill that could get a final vote this week. Reps. Ernest Istook, R-Okla., and Charles Pickering, R-Miss., are behind the effort in the House.
(Thanks to CNN for actually providing the names of the oathbreakers.)
None of these four bastards should ever be allowed to serve in public office again. For that matter, they shouldn't even show their faces in public anymore.
C'mon, voting it down is just the first step. Ostracising the assholes who start this shit should be next. Legislators need to FEAR the wrath of the public whenever they attack the Constitution. Make no mistake: if you are an American, then those 4 people are your enemies.
---
-- As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Well, it's legal because congress can pass any laws they like. They are congress, after all -- they are in charge of making the laws, and it's up to the executive and judicial to enforce and rule on them.
There have been several attempts to make rules within congress that limit bills in their scope, but they've been consistently beaten. I believe that some states DO have rules within their own legislatures regarding riders and such so that you can't tack on completely new subjects to a bill.
This is also why the line-item veto has been so strongly favored -- traditionally the Republicans have supported the presidential line-item veto, because it can be used to reign in pork-barrell spending in appropriations bills, but they have strangely stopped their support of it with a Democrat in office, which is a shame. With line-item veto, Clinton could pass the bill and simply cross out the part about library filters. As it is, the government is close to another shutdown, though, so vetoing it would have a large effect...
I'm an investigator. I followed a trail there. Q.Tell me what the trail was.
-- Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
A clear call for open source censorware
by
HiThere
·
· Score: 2
This is a clear call for open source censorware. It doesn't even need to be very effective. Something that would use a list of blocked sites, and a list of words that will cause pages to be blocked might be a good place to start. Another mode should just use a list of permitted sited. These should be files in clear text, perhaps zipped or gzipped (if so, you need to include an editor, though). The idea is to start off with something basic, that would be a basically agreed upon "starting point", and to allow customization as desired (or decided upon by a vote of local supporters). This would allow each site to be as bigotted or loose as they decided to be.
I don't know much about browsers, but it sounds (to me) like something that could be put together quickly by someone who did.
Caution: Now approaching the (technological) singularity.
--
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
The solution is simple. You just have to know what the real problem is. The problem is *not* censorware. If you deny me the right to create, distribute and market censorware, then you are 100% opposed to liberty, freedom, sharing, and all the rest that slashdotters are supposedly for.
Instead, the problem is the government monopoly over education. We don't need autarchs forcing parents to send their children to state run political indoctrination centers. Privatize the schools and libraries. I want more from freedom than just free software. I want the freedom to choose my own school, and not to be taxed for a school I did not choose. Then I can choose a school based on my needs, wants and beliefs, instead having my needs, wants and beliefs determined for me by majority vote.
I could choose a school that didn't have censorware. Or if I wanted, I could choose one that did. But the choice should be mine, since it's my life, and my child's life, and not Algor's or Dubya's.
-- A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
Don't you know, THEY want to be the ones who define what gets filtered. Many of the censorware companies are tied to conservative religous organizations. Go to www.peacefire.org to get the whole story.
Lee Reynolds
-- Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
Re:I Just Can't Believe It!
by
leereyno
·
· Score: 2
The democrats are for things like the CDA which gives them the power to define exactly what is and what is not "harmful to minors." The replicans are simply getting in on the game with legislation which will give them that power. Its the same old bullshit with rival political factions working to control what information is available to the rest of us. Anyone who would try to censor what you see isn't doing it because information you find would be harmful to you, but because it would be harmful to their own position for you to see it. Obscuring the truth is a very old pastime for any political or social or religious group.
Lee Reynolds
-- Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
This is one reason why Congress attempted to grant the President the power to 'line-item veto' specific parts of legislation in 1996. The Supreme Court, however, struck it down in 1998, saying that Congress just can't hand over powers to the President through a simple law - it requires an amendment to the Constitution.
The process of using federal dollars to implement national policy at the state level is old hat, though. A couple of past examples were when the mandatory drinking age was raised to 21 and the speed limit was issued (in both cases Congress would withhold highway $$$ until states complied).
This may be a dumb question, but if your state is concerned about federal control, why doesn't your state raise its taxes and pay for 100% of its own schools' budgets? I don't mean this sarcastically, it just makes me wonder how things got the way they are in the first place.
Re:censorship is not the answer
by
interiot
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· Score: 2
Well, technically, you can do just about any illegal act you want to, you just have to face the consequences afterwards.
What bothers me about this bill is that they're trying to pre-emptively prevent people from breaking the law. That means that the usual roles of a Judge (interpretation of the law, use of discretion because of circumstances, etc...) are put in the hands of the blocked-list creators. And on top of that, they're often wrong. --
Actually, adults are NOT allowed to view obscene materials or child pornography. The legal definition of obscene doesn't include run-of-the-mill pornography.
Yes, I believe you're correct in your interpretation of (ii), but it's still almost vague about adults, and most parts of the U.S.C. like to clarify everything possible. --
See my post during that story. The "common carrier" thing is really two distinct concepts in two very separate parts of the law.
The FCC common carrier is more like "basic infrastructure such as telegraph cables or radio airwaves that should be regulated by the FCC to benifit society in general".
The DMCA/Copyright common carrier is something like "a system that blindly passes on information in such quantities that it's not practical to weed out the copyrighted works".
Close, but not the same. It was ruled that the FCC shouldn't regulate ISP's. ISP's can still pass on copyrighted info. --
Well, DMCA says that ISP's aren't required to block copyrighted material (implied: because it's impossible). It's not a huge leap to say determine that it's impractical for ISP's to block illegal content, and then that it's not practical for libraries to block illegal content unless the government is going to provide salaries for one librarian per computer so that little Johny will have his eyes covered whenever he accesses a page with illegal content on it.
But maybe that's too big of a leap, I don't know. --
So instead of the core question being "who's standards do we apply when we block porn" (since they only include material that is illegal anywhere in the US), the central question is "do the library computers count as common carriers like ISP's are"?
There's no law that requires libraries to prevent children from trading copyrighted material on the internet. There's nothing that says that libraries have to have software that pre-emptively prevents children from making death threats against the president. So why is there such a law for porn? --
Re:And who picks the sites to be blocked?
by
Weezul
·
· Score: 2
Actually, your idea is not as crazy as it sounds. The key point people need to notice is that censorware is a placebo that dose not solve the major problems people want solved. Specifically, people do not want the back ground changed to porn and do not want kids to notice someone else watching porn. Censorware blocks such a small precentage of sites that it totally fails at these goals. The real solution is based around you grandmother idea. Specifically, the threat of getting caught.
First, you need to ask yourself "dose this library have a problem?" (i.e. do lots of people currently watch porn here) There are two solutions depending on your answer:
(no) Congradulations, you have no problem at all. You should move your computers to a high traffic area with little privacy to discurage porn view, but that's about all you need to do.
(yes) Ok, you need to do a little more work. First, DO NOT INSTALL CENSORWARE. You want to catch these people.. not make them better at hiding. You need to set up a system where the most recent images from the netscape cache directories are displayed on a system which only the librarians see. Now, when a librarian notices a porn picture they can go for a walk and stop the person. The advantage here is that they will catch porn the person left in open netscape windows or on the desktop.. somehting no censorware can hope to prevent.
-- The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell
Re:"If I can't be President, you can all eat stati
by
Saige
·
· Score: 2
I've wondered if it would be a good idea to add a law so that any representative/senator who proposes a bill that gets passed, an is later found to be unconstitutional, gets a "strike" against them. Then, after enough "strikes", that person is kicked out of the office, and further banned from politics.
Maybe then some of them would think the constitution isn't just something to try and get around in whatever way they can.
Of course, it would probably just result in them repealing the Bill of Rights. (After all, there's not a chance it would get passed today.) Freedom is a great buzzword, but too much of a pain to actually ENFORCE, it seems. ---
-- "You know your god is man-made when he hates all the same people you do."
> > [...will block...] {I} material that is obscene; and (II) child pornography; and
> > (ii) [...makes sure the censorware is on while minors are using the PCs...]
> Why the (ii)? Are adults allowed to see child porn on school computers?
For that matter, "Why the (II)? Doesn't child porn fall under obscenity laws to begin with?"
Welcome to the world of politics. Where anyone who stands up in Congress and questions the intent of (i)(II) gets branded as "opposing measures to block child pornography", and anyone who questions the intent of (ii) gets branded as "exposing your kids to child pornography".
Remember, this is the "Children's Internet Protection" measure. Anyone who opposes it must be against children, and is a bad person.
The only way we'll see freedom of expression in this country is if someone introduces the text of the First Amendment as the "Protection of Big-Eyed Kids, Cute Fluffy Kittens and Frisky Puppies Act".
speaking from experience these filters block everything. we couldnt lookup std's because of course the query had the extremely dirty word "sex" in it. I can see a system for elementary schools where only approved sites are browsable, and one in middle school where "naughty" sites are blocked. but come on dudes, in highschool? if they honestly think that their little pos filter will stop us from finding what we want they are wrong. I also honestly know of any highschool student that would look up pornography on the schools computers. First of all there are way too many people around, second of all why would you do it at school? do it at home for the love of god. A bill # or text of entire legislition would be nice to point this out to my senators and mr clinton / (gore/bush).
P.S. if your school has a gay filter like my school download CGIProxy, enable encoded url's, and make a regexp to remove META tags, upload to some server and volia! unfiltered net access.
(Example: http://www.mbrez.com/anon/nph-proxy.cgi/687474703a 2f2f7777772e736c617368646f742e6f72672f") . It can't search the query for bad content, the page will not have any rsca ratings.
This is also why the line-item veto has been so strongly favored -- traditionally the Republicans have supported the presidential line-item veto, because it can be used to reign in pork-barrell spending in appropriations bills, but they have strangely stopped their support of it with a Democrat in office, which is a shame.
This is not true. Most Republicans continued to support the line-item veto after Clinton was elected. Clinton supported it for obvious reasons, but many Democrats opposed it. As I recall, it was actually passed but the Supreme Court found it unconstitutional a few years ago.
-- How to solve most of our problems: 1.Lots of nuclear plants. 2.Cure aging.
Totally off topic, but what the hell...
by
sconeu
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· Score: 2
Actually, there was some constitutionality to the 55MPH speed limit, at least on US Highways and Interstate Highways. The interstate commerce clause can come into effect then. However, the feds should not have been able to mandate any limits on state highways.
-- General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
Email is almost completely ignored, you'll have to lick a stamp or pick up the phone to get heard.
You found someone nuttier than Buchanan!
by
gad_zuki!
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· Score: 2
Congratulations! This whole seperation of church and state nonsense has gone on too long. Philips is the love child of Buchanan and Browne.
Re:And who picks the sites to be blocked?
by
gad_zuki!
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· Score: 2
As a progessive lefty I think the consensus would be not to block any religious site, while the right has an interest to keep Jesus (or whichever religion the group is part of) on top of the crowd as not to question/empty the pews.
Actually the only contemporary group I can think of that would actually want all religious sites blocked are radicals like CSICOP. Their mailing list has group attempts of letter writing to networks that do air anything that goes remotely questions scientific materialism by threating boycotts. I definatly see them as a very conservative group, not liberal in any way.
I think an extreme far lefty (anarchist-type?) would want no censorship at all, porn and drugs for everyone regardless of age.
I don't want my tax dollars going to systems that a) stop me from accessing legal(not obscene) information that may be blocked by filtering software and b) doing your job as a parent.
Re:And who picks the sites to be blocked?
by
plague3106
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· Score: 2
I think the solution would be to ignore the idiots yelling, and just let things go unblocked. Blocking things, no matter the reason, is censorship. As far as not having public schools. Well, you are very short sighted and greedy. Not everyone has as much as you and can afford the expense of a private school. We also all have a responsibility to teach our children, whether they are directly ours or not. Morals should be taught at home, no where else. I'm tired of these mindless parents that think sheltering thier kids from everything is the answer. Maybe the blocks shouldn't be thre just for that reason; to force parents to tlak to their kids about these thinks. the kids are going to see it one way or another, there isn't anything you can do about it. Shielding them from the world will do them no good. maybe once the issue comes up, parents should talk to them about it. But i guess that'd be asking too much.
Re:And who picks the sites to be blocked?
by
IHateEverybody
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· Score: 2
Here's my idea. Hire some old women about the age of your grandmother. Have them sit next to you while you're on the net. Would you go to sexwithmidgets.com with your grandmother sitting next to you? Neither would I.
It's not censorship. Just think about it. In a public area (libraries, university computer labs, etc), only go to those sites that you would go to sitting next to your grandmother.
My god that's brilliant! You should run for office. A program like this would not only solve the problem of how to protect the children from all of that evil pr0n, it would also help ease the burden on our Social Security system by acting as an employment program for the elderly.
-- Does this.sig make my butt look big?
Fight Back With Technology
by
Baldrson
·
· Score: 2
The proper solution to government control of information is to make private options explode via technology.
The Feds are taking money from public schools? Develop better Internet-delivered home schooling.
The Feds are taking money from the public libraries? Put more stuff online and make the bricks and mortar libraries obsolete.
Drive the tyrants insane with an innovative explosion of technical options before it's too late!
Damn, somebody mod that post up. That has got to be the most lucid dissection of Congressional politics I've seen in a while. My friend, you are right on the money!
The sad thing is virtually every piece of legislation in the U.S. Congress is done that way nowadays. It's just unbelivable. And the reasons for it are thus:
Congressional procedures allow bills to easily have unrelated "riders" attached to them designed to either kill the bill entirely or create a "catch-22" as in this case.
The de-facto two party system reduces every political interaction to an "us vs. them" contest, which encourages petty, underhanded tactics, like those described in reason #1.
Now, don't ask me for a solution, because I don't have one, except perhaps to vote for more independents. And I don't mean so-called "third party" candidates either, I mean true independents who have no party affiliation, and thus are less prone to item #2 listed above.
Vote Phillips on November 7 to restore a constitutionally limited gov't.
Namely a government ruled by the Christian faith. This means that if Phillips becomes President, non-Christians such as myself have a lot to fear. From http://www.phillips2000.com/issues.htm :
The Christian premises of American
jurisprudence will be honored. And there is, of course, no Constitutional barrier to the posting of the Ten Commandments in
school classrooms.
It looks like this guy wants to make all educational institutions in the United States an extension of the Christian Church. Now that's tyranny.
It gets better: I would veto all funding for so-called "AIDS education" --- which is in fact a system to promote
the propagation of homosexual conduct. I'm not gay, but I sure as hell don't want a homophobe as President. Especially a stupid one. The guy thinks that AIDS only effects gays.
--
-- And the men who hold high places must be the ones who start
To mold a new reality... closer to the heart
It's just the annual assault on the first ammendment. Five gets you ten on an internet bet that every court in the land smacks this one down just like every previous assault on the first ammendment. I'd like to thank Congress for further pissing away my tax dollars creating and defending this useless shit.
--
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Re:Counterpoint... from the other side
by
kindbud
·
· Score: 2
This topic has been raging for several years now, and it is not likely to go away. And remember: for every
person who claims it is a violation of their First Amendment rights, there is a parent who has the
constitutional right to expect that their child won't be exposed to "inappropriate material" at school or at
the library.
There is no such right enumerated in the Constitution. On the contrary, the 1st Amendment can be construed as to forclose the parent's right to censor what the child sees at school, not the other way around.
-- Edith Keeler Must Die
Re:And who picks the sites to be blocked?
by
Dirtside
·
· Score: 2
Maybe it's because I've been coding 14 hours a day for the last 8 days, but I swear to god I thought you wrote "sexwithgrandmas.com with your midget sitting next to you."
I think I need a day off.
-- "Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
The issue of how much autonomy states have on issues the federal gov't considers important enough was settled, as the major
issue, in the Civil War. The Federal gov't won.
The victory of the aggressors proved nothing to anyone except those that accept the axiom of might makes right.
-- =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
The victory of the aggressors proved nothing to anyone except those that accept the axiom of might makes right.
Those who do not accept the axiom tend to be violently killed; therefore, acceptance will provide an evolutionary advantage over those who would simply accept decrees from those in power.
What this is called is a "rider." Addendums like this are often tagged onto bills for one of two reasons:
First, suppose that the Republicans front a bill that the Democrats are rabidly against. Democrats can attach a subsection like this (a "rider") to kill support for the whole bill because no one wants the terms of the rider making it into law. So if the Democrats didn't like the bill, they could tack on a rider that says "All left-handed people will pay a tax of 1000 dollars." Which is ridiculous. So of course the whole bill gets dumped because the Republicans don't want to come off as discriminating agains left-handed people.
Riders can be used another way. Suppose now that the Democrats have a bill which EVERYBODY, including the Republicans want. Now, some Republican attaches a "rider" which contains some provisions that the Democrats would never pass. Because support for the rest of the bill is so overwhelming, it's often passed anyway because the Democrats don't want to sabotage the rest of the bill.
We all know that filters don't work. It's sad to see things this stupid from as many as four republican chair polishers.
Istook's chief of staff, John Albaugh. "We have received tremendous support from the public on this. It just seems like it's a no-brainer to the average Joe."
I agree, no brain. What are they prommising people?
The opposition does not cheer me much either. Though several inteligent opinions and concerns were raised by many diverse organizations, the democrats can only seem to muster this:
Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., is among the few legislators who have spoken against mandatory filters. His alternative proposal would require only that Internet providers distribute filtering software for free or at cost.
Doh! It don't work, so it should be free! Great logic. Those chairs must shine and shine.
Lastly, it seems that the author has forgoten about or knows something I don't know about the line item veto:
The Clinton administration opposes mandatory Internet filters. But the filters are included in the annual spending bill to finance operations of the departments of Labor, Education, and Health and Human Services, and it is unclear if President Clinton would veto the huge spending bill because of his objection to a small part.
That's it! End of debate. Four people thought this was a good idea, so now it's gonna be a law. Uhhh, what's wrong with this?
--
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
granny? eeeeeewwwwwwww. (wayyyy OT)
by
twitter
·
· Score: 2
What's the most effective contraceptive for people over 65?
Nudity.
--
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
This might benefit the fight against censorware.
by
TheMCP
·
· Score: 2
Think about it: We all know censorware doesn't work. It's only a matter of time before every state gets successfully sued over it. It will also drive a lot of legitimate users trying to do perfectly innocent things absolutely nuts. Think of the publicity.
Not to mention, of course, that we'd finally just get it over with. They're going to keep trying to do this until they do it. Maybe it's time we should let them do it and let it fail.
Re:San Diego Public Library
by
fluxrad
·
· Score: 2
If the public can't police themselves, the government has to do it, I guess.
which actually brings up the whole gist of this argument. The government is an instrument of the public. Our government is inherently flawed based on that fact alone.
I'm not worried about censorware in the schools so much as i'm worried about the human behaviour that would even cause someone to think it necessary.
FluX After 16 years, MTV has finally completed its deevolution into the shiny things network
-- "It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." -David Hume
San Diego Public Library
by
small_dick
·
· Score: 2
...I was in the main one downtown a few years back, and the staff had taped cardboard hoods over several of the 'net access machines.
Mostly, they didn't want kids seeing the homeless people surfing pr0n, which, if I had to guess, was what those machines were used for about 3/4ths of the time -- I saw pr0n on the displays maybe twice, both times when the homeless person's time limit ran out and they got up to leave, with the hardcore scene still on the display.
The library near my house makes you sign up and get a password (free). They log what you do, and urge anyone seeing something inapproporiate to report same to the front desk immediately. No adult materials allowed, and no hoods on the machines.
It's a shame, but if they don't limit access to pr0n, some kid will see it and the city will get sued.
Maybe an alternative is to have a adult area, but that opens up a whole different can of worms. The city already has/had problems with hookers in the library -- an adult area would really exacerbate the situation.
When you think about it, the libraries were never meant to be porno libraries or hooker hangouts; really a place to quetly research things.
If the public can't police themselves, the government has to do it, I guess.
--
Treatment, not tyranny. End the drug war and free our American POWs.
See my user info for links.
The Clinton administration opposes mandatory Internet filters. But the filters are included in the annual spending bill to finance operations of the departments of Labor, Education, and Health and Human Services, and it is unclear if President Clinton would veto the huge spending bill because of his objection to a small part.
Why this is the last paragraph in the article when it should be up near the top to make obvious the corruption in government is beyond me... but that's not the main point my my comment. I seem to recall something about a presidential line-item veto, where the president could (IIRC) veto a single line item on a bill. Was that just something that someone was trying to get passed recently? (Which is to say, within the last twelve or so years.) Or is it real? And if so, what would stop Clinton from using it here?
-- "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Re:Filters are faulty at best
by
shippo
·
· Score: 2
Simiilar things happen in the UK, with the county names Essex, Sussex and Middlesex, and the historic region of Wessex. Various regionally named web-sites get blocked for the same reason.
There was also was a well document issue of people from the town of Scunthorpe having difficulty with AOL.
What about playboy and penthouse?
by
azephrahel
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· Score: 2
Every public library I have ever been in has a subscription to either or both playboy and penthouse. Funded with public money. Anyway the issue isn't keep kiddies from viewing pornograpy, its about censorship. Blocking software improperly blocks many many other things than porn, even when there not supposed to. Look at peacefire.org for info on that..but then again, almost anyone reading this sotry has probably read that site at length already. IMHO the only reason that the legeslature is trying this, is because its high profile. These are the same people who probably didn't care about logging in national forests, but were up in arms over flag burning.
-- You are only young once, but you can stay immature indefinitely.
Counterpoint... from the other side
by
reimero
·
· Score: 2
In spite of the flame I know I'm going to get, here are a few things to ponder...
First, suppose John Doe enters public library and uses public library's computer to access illicit material (such as child porn, etc.). Now suppose 5-year-old kid sees John Doe John Doe's screen with said illicit images and asks his mom what that is. Mother is outraged. What is the library's legal liability?
Second, there's a position at the library called "acquisitions head." This person is responsible for making decisions about what and what not to purchase on a daily basis. It's called "selection." It's one major reason many libraries do not carry "Hustler." Censorship? Maybe. Illegal? Absolutely not. Libraries are also constrained by budget. How does this apply to the internet? That's a fuzzy area, but many libraries view the internet as part of their "content," and libraries do review content based on a mix of popularity, quality and community standards.
Finally, I am personally aware of one library's filtering standards and protocols. This library has the capacity to override blocks and will review blocked sites at patron requests. The system has worked, and is configurable and customizable, and has generally been viewed as a positive thing. It's not about censorship so much as it is about making sure inappropriate material is not made readily available to minors. Is it a perfect system? No. But it has been almost universally well received in the community and has the flexibility to allow humans and human decisions to have the final say.
This topic has been raging for several years now, and it is not likely to go away. And remember: for every person who claims it is a violation of their First Amendment rights, there is a parent who has the constitutional right to expect that their child won't be exposed to "inappropriate material" at school or at the library. There is no easy answer, but simply viewing filters as "censorware" is far too simplistic.
--
----------
Something clever
Re:And who picks the sites to be blocked?
by
elefantstn
·
· Score: 2
Here's my idea. Hire some old women about the age of your grandmother. Have them sit next to you while you're on the net. Would you go to sexwithmidgets.com with your grandmother sitting next to you? Neither would I.
No, but you might no go to find information about something like sexually transmitted diseases, either, which is of significantly greater importance than sexwithmidgets.com. The problem with censorware is not just the random blocking of completely innocuous sites, but its inability to distinguish sex for sex's sake and explicit images and text for health's sake. A page might have 'penis' and 'vagina' and 'sex' all over it, but it might also be a very important source of information.
--
If it ain't broke, you need more software.
Who controls what we think
by
CharmQuark
·
· Score: 2
I believe that a core agenda of some members of government is to restrict information. It isn't exactly censorship, as the tools they use are necessarily blunt, as much as a general attitude that an excess if information is bad. The most recent example of this behavior is the debates; the candidates did not want to voters to 'get confused' about the core issues, so left out the other candidates for President. It is also instructive to remember that G.W. Bush would have been happier if there weren't any debates at all.
This concept of To Much Information relates to the Internet in schools. The worst thing about the Internet is not that kids can see naked people, but that kids have access to a huge amount of previously hard to obtain information. If it were about naked people, we would just place the monitors so that grownups can see the screen. But it is not. It is about what we will allow our kids to know. Many groups have spent millions of dollars trying to rid our schools of information that they do not agree with. All that money wasted if the kids can now download a copy of Sex: A Users Manual.
It gets even more insidious. This bill is an unfonded federal mandate, despite that fact that many members of congress ran on the opposition to this practice. Libraries are now going to have to spend money on Censorware and support personnel. This money will come out of the book budget. Some people will count this bill as a success if it does nothing more than prevent the library from buying the latest Harry Potter book.
This bill is the latest in a continuing fight between those would want free and clear paths for disseminating information, and those who fear it. It is not only about the funding of libraries, but also the funding or visual and performing art. We can fund a sports stadium with massive amounts of public financing, but just look at the fight that goes on with the National Endowment for the Arts, a pittance in comparison.
It goes without saying that this is a bad idea. Doesn't the president have some kind of technology advisor? If so, how in-tune is this person with the ever growing arena of technical advance? ICANN got their technical man. It's time we did too. Maybe we need someone who deals just with computer/internet technology.
If paper burns at 451 degrees farenheit, at what temperature do floppy disks burn?
"Why the (ii)? Are adults allowed to see child porn on school computers?"
Note that (i) only requires schools to have selected a technology. Without the (ii), they could merely decide which technology would be an appropriate filter and, arguably, not even bother to purchase it. While clearly not in the spirit of (i), it's within the letter of (i).
So, (ii) makes it clear that, yes, the technology selected must also be implemented and enforced. Also makes sure that the admin can't say, "Huh? We gave it to the librarians to use," and the librarians can't then respond, "Huh? admin gave us this stuff, but don't know what to do with it, " eliminating a potential wall of plausible-deniability.
And, yes, I think that adults are allowed to access "obscene" material. Remember, this is a measure targeted at preventing minors from accessing the material, not adults. Of course, if said adult accessed hypothetical pr0n while children were watching, that might be a problem.
This is all speculation, and just my attempt to translate legal-ese to normal-ese. IANAL & IANN (I am not a layer and I am not normal:) -----
D. Fischer
I read online about a gentleman going to a site for the popular computer game Deus Ex, named after the legendary latin god of the machine, Deus Ex Machina. The address was http://www.deusex.org. He was at a high school library at the time, however, and the 'sex' in the URL set off an alarm with the librarian. Despite his pleas otherwise, he was kicked out of the library, PERMANENTLY.
Furthermore, the banning of certain words does nothing to prevent obscene visual or video content. All I can see such a bill accomplishing is a lot more pictures and a lot less words at porn sites, or a sudden proliferation of that annoying hybrid word 'fsuck'. ---
Not CNN? Or is it AP? Enquirer minds want to no
by
WillSeattle
·
· Score: 2
That "AP" at the beginning means it's an Associated Press story. It has nothing to do with CNN.
Oh, I thought that AP meant American Press. Just like CNN means Communist News Network and Reuters means We're Foreign And Veddy Proper.
And, even if it is AP, that means it could have been a reporter from Hoboken, NY, for all we know.
All the news that's fit to knit...
-- ---
Will in Seattle - What are you doing to fight the War?
Why Christians are against it, and you should be
by
bluGill
·
· Score: 3
Has anyone taken a look at a list of banned books lately? Consisently in the top five is the Bible. Christian's want some way to keep their kids from being exposed to evil, but not at the expense of preventing someone interested from reading their religious documents.
I've read several of the top 10 books, and in my expirence, half are worthless trash that should never have been written, and half are absolute treasures worth being required reading everywhere. Most people agree with that statement, but disagree with the which books belong to each list.
I still like Minnesota's solution to this problem: it is illegal to view poronographic material in a public place. You can see it at home if you want (I think libraries can have it in a backroom) but you cannot view it in public - which few people would anyway. This nicely side steps the issues like "Is breast cancer research porn or not?" (For most 15 year old males it is, but some have relatives affected by breast cancer it is not)
Joe Slashdot's Reaction
by
DragonHawk
·
· Score: 3
Why, this is outrageous! It infingines on my Constitutional Rights as an American! I won't stand for it! I'm going to call my Congressman! I'm going to call the ACLU! I'm going to call...
*blink*
... hey, Eric, is that a new Quake III mod you've got there?
--
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
Ok, we probably already know why this is bad, but I'd like to post an experience I've had with being at a school that chooses to implement censorware.
1. You can't get any real research done. Our censorware is controlled by idiots who block things such as this. I've also found that many pages relating to theoretical physics are blocked (and I know the content of the blocked pages because of google's cache feature, so I know for a fact that there was no good reason to block the page). I really would have no problem with censorware if it just blocked porn, but it doesn't. The censorware installed here not only censors porn, it censors political ideas. 2600.com is blocked, aclu.org is blocked, as are the web sites of many other political groups.
2. Because of our censorware people are scared to even use the internet. Every time you hit a blocked page a nice red screen with large white text appears notifying you of this. This tends to scare people, not just because it is an evil red screen, but also because the *wonderful* stigma attached to the internet.
3. Most of the stuff that *should* be blocked isn't. For example, it took weeks before the *main* back orifice 2000 site was blocked, and all the netbus sites are still accessible (yes, we do play with the censorware, what else is it good for;-) ).
4. It's worthless because of open http proxies.
I think a better solution to the 'problem' would be to *gasp* let people report abuse. It's not too terribly difficult to tell if someone surfing for porn on a terminal sitting in the middle of a library (hint: they're called EYES, use them on occasion). Perhaps the push for censorware is just a way to create a scapegoat, so people can say "See, we installed safeguards to keep you out of that" and no longer bother themselves with doing they're job and *watching* what's going on. Censorware is a quick and easy fix to a problem that really isn't that big, and could easily be fixed if we weren't so lazy here in America.
-- The best way to accelerate a windows box is at 9.8 meters per second square.
Re:And who picks the sites to be blocked?
by
Flounder
·
· Score: 3
Actually, MY grandmother ASKED to see where this internet thingy had all the dirty pictures.
SHUDDER!
Sorry, no matter how cool your grandmother is, that's just not right!
--
No boom today. Boom tomorrow. There's always a boom tomorrow. - Cmdr. Susan Ivanova
as elaborated in subsequent cases, three elements must coalesce: it must be established that
(a) the dominant theme of the material taken as a whole appeals to a prurient interest in sex;
(b) the material is patently offensive because it affronts contemporary community standards relating to the description or representation of sexual matters; and
(c) the material is utterly without redeeming social value
H.R.4577 Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2001 -- Title VI - Children's Internet Protection.
Most of the filtering software is either too permissive or not permissive enough for the Christian Coalition/AFA. The most permissive censorware doesn't block the references to homosexuality, communism, athiesm, sex, etc, that they want. The more restrictive software labels the Christian Coalition and the AFA a 'hate group' and censors them.
There doesn't seem to be a happy medium; As soon as the software spectrum shifts so that evil things like 'homosexuality' are blocked, so are they.
-- .sig: Now legally binding!
The letter I sent to my representative
by
cananian
·
· Score: 3
This is the letter I sent to my representative -- you may borrow from it, if you like, to help draft yours.
The chief of staff for Rep. Ernest Istook said his
proposed legislation to require mandatory internet
filtering in all federally funded schools and libraries
"seems like it's a no-brainer to the average Joe".
It may be, but the average Joe is wrong.
Internet filtering is not just ineffective -- see for example the
extensive reports written by the Censorware project at
http://www.censorware.org/ -- it is opposed to the most
fundamental principle of both schools and libraries: education
through free access to information. Surely we do not want to force
such critical assests as our libraries through *anyone's* sieve,
certainly not as undemocratic a sieve as most net filtering products
are (net filtering companies usually refuse to disclose even what
they are filtering to the public, much less submit their blinders to
democratic review). See the results of the censorware projects
"Foil the Filters Contest" at http://www.dfn.org/Alerts/contest.htm
for an idea of how pernicious this technology can be: every
filtering software product which Dick Armey recommends blocks
*his own web site* at the House of Representatives because it
contains the word "dick". Do we really want such blocks in every
school and library in the land?
Finally, such technological measures are destined to be ineffective
to those who really want to access pornography. The losers will be
the law-abiding citizen.
I hope that you will work to defeat this amendment
to bill HR4577 and work to convince your fellow legislators that,
despite the appearance of being a "no-brainer", this proposed
legislation is a danger to the very fabric of our democracy.
Sincerely,
C. Scott Ananian
MIT graduate student.
Use congress.org to locate and email your representative.
-- [/. is too noisy already -- who needs a.sig? ]
assholes who don't know the constitution
by
kevin805
·
· Score: 3
In my extremely arrogant opinion, idiots who throw around terms like "constitutional right" when it isn't a right guaranteed in the constitution should be packed off to China, Cuba, or some other well intentioned utopia.
What "constitutional right to expect that their child won't be exposed to inappropriate material at school or the library"? What country's constitution are we talking about? The U.S. constitution doesn't contain either of the words "school" or "library".
If you want to say how things should be, feel free. If you want to make up parts of the constitution that aren't there, expect to be made fun of.
CNN is way behind the ball on this one...Applelust had an editorial on this back in June.
The underhanded way in which Congress routinely hides laws with far-reaching impact in things like appropriations bills (when was the last time you perused one?) is thoroughly disgusting. It perverts the entire idea of a democracy.
Ignoring the obvious problems with this thing congress is attempting, I noticed something else in the article:
"[...] state chapters of the Christian Coalition and American Family Association [are] opposing the initiative".
Is it just me, or this interesting? The article reports that these groups are saying this is a "bad way" to educate children about internet usage.
Again: Huh, what? Isn't this directly against what these groups have sought to achieve in the past? Even in the same article, CNN comments on this:
"Internet filtering has been a priority of many conservative groups, including Focus on the Family, the Christian Coalition and the American
Family Association."
What's going on here? Can anyone maybe offer some insight as to what's going on with these groups to bring about such an apparent turnaround?
Are they afraid that if one extreme (pornography) gets censored, the the other extreme (conservative views) will get the same treatment? Or is this
merely them stating that, while they want sexual content filtered, they do NOT want the government enforcing it?
If it's the latter that's true, I may alter my view on these people a tad. Not enough to hop in bed with them, but it is an interesting insight.
Washington, DC (GPI) - In a move which left observers stunned, members of Congress today did something mind-numblingly stupid and short-sighted.
"I'm shocked," said one, "shocked, I say, that for momentary political advantage and the crass pursuit of power, our noble congresspeople would stoop to enacting unwise legislation."
Hey, Slashdot, how about some actual news. Such as, THE BILL NUMBER!! How else am I supposed to call my senator and complain?
The official/. mantra (I believe begun in earnest during the Hellmouth series): "It's bad, it's bad. Sit here and bitch, don't do anything about it. What would we bitch about?"
-- Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
And who picks the sites to be blocked?
by
Flounder
·
· Score: 4
At either extreme, you are going to have sites blocked that shouldn't be blocked. The extreme left would love to block any religious web sites, anti-abortion groups, the NRA, and sometimes Slashdot. The extreme right would love to see Planned Parenthood, Gun Control, Inc., the Sierra Club, and somes Slashdot.
Here's my idea. Hire some old women about the age of your grandmother. Have them sit next to you while you're on the net. Would you go to sexwithmidgets.com with your grandmother sitting next to you? Neither would I.
It's not censorship. Just think about it. In a public area (libraries, university computer labs, etc), only go to those sites that you would go to sitting next to your grandmother.
--
No boom today. Boom tomorrow. There's always a boom tomorrow. - Cmdr. Susan Ivanova
Re:And who picks the sites to be blocked?
by
Flounder
·
· Score: 4
I consider myself extreme left, and I wouldn'y want to see any sites blocked.
Well, I'm as extreme right as you can get. No, Nazi-ism is not the extreme of right wing, anymore than totalitarian-ism is the extreme of left wing.
But I don't believe what I'm going to say. I agree with you. The first amendment is in place to defend speech that others would deem offensive. Without it, what's to stop a government from eliminating it's detractors. Everybody is offended by something. Eventually, if you talk to everybody, you'll find that there's not one thing in this world that somebody isn't offended by. The government's job is not to protect people from offensive speech, it's to protect offensive speech from people.
I'm offended by Jon Katz, as are alot of other people here. That doesn't mean that he doesn't have a right to express his viewpoint. Just because it's there doesn't mean that you have to listen to it. There's another channel to watch, another radio station to listen to, another web site to visit.
--
No boom today. Boom tomorrow. There's always a boom tomorrow. - Cmdr. Susan Ivanova
Re:And who picks the sites to be blocked?
by
Snocone
·
· Score: 5
Would you go to sexwithmidgets.com with your grandmother sitting next to you?
Errrrrrrmmmmm...
Actually, MY grandmother ASKED to see where this internet thingy had all the dirty pictures.
The bill number is hr4577, Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2001, TITLE VI--Children's Internet Protection. Check thomas.loc.gov.
It's strange that it's so unspecific. Perhaps necessarily so, since no software can guarantee blocking all illegal images, unless it prevents all access.
(B) CERTIFICATION- A certification under this subparagraph is a certification that the school, school board, or other authority with responsibility for administration of the school--
(i) has selected a technology for its computers with Internet access in order to filter or block Internet access through such computers to--
(I) material that is obscene; and
(II) child pornography; and
(ii) is enforcing a policy to ensure the operation of the technology during any use of such computers by minors.
Why the (ii)? Are adults allowed to see child porn on school computers?
And does it mean "block ALL material that's obscene"? Certainly they couldn't expect that... everyone would be in violation. So do they mean "block SOME obscene images"? "Try to get as much as possible"?
Also note that Playboy doesn't count as obscene or as child porn, so this bill leaves the decision to block sites such as playboy up to the individual libraries. It just says that libraries must block images that everyone has supposedly decided is extremely offensive.
--
If all you slashdotters really do believe in the freedom of speech and do not want the federal government censoring our libraries, then do something about it.
Does it seem tyrannical to anyone else that the federal government taxes states' citizens, then threatens to withhold that tax money if the states don't go along with the federal plan?
They even do it to bypass Constitutional limits on what the Federal government can do. The states are supposed to be in charge of education, but the Fed can get away with this sort of sh*t in that area because the programs are state run and "federally funded".
If my state (Oklahoma) wants to install censorware (and it probably does), then the state legislature can pass the damned tax themselves (with voter approval)!
Slashdot Mirror
You know, if the federal government didn't take [steal] so much tax money, they wouldn't be able to usurp so much power. It seems like we always hear arguments about cutting/not cutting taxes for economic reasons, but never any mention about what income taxes have done for the feds: allow them to exercise much more power than the constitution provides for by utilizing a nonsense "interstate commerce" argument. Can you find anywhere in the U.S. Constitution that grants the congress the power to censure school libraries?
Well, here's the problem with this argument. I do want me tax dollars spent on it, and I also want the government to do my job as a parent. So, I guess its up to the elected officials to try to figure things out, afterall, thats what they're elected for.
Like a school I should not have to worry about "bad" things happening to my children at a library. I live in a small upper/middle class town in New England and just last year there were 2 cases of a man exposing himself in the public library (Which does have internet connections). Since finding this out I haven't gone back there.
Small children are routinely dropped off for book readings/story telling sessions in which they are pretty much left on there own for an hour or so except for the 1 or 2 people who are running it.
Personally I think that the amount of 'research' at the lower grade levels that is done on the internet is terrible. For those that don't know what to look for its far more the misinformation superhighway than it is the information. At least books have gone through some sort of editing process and if nothing else will teach you decent grammar. The internet has become the 'easy way out' for doing school work and the way i see it will result in nothing except creating an even lazier generation that we current have. Fear that! Feel free to moderate down to -1000
of how "For the Children" is the Root Password for the Constitution and Bill of Rights. Somehow, if you mutter that magic phrase in passing, you can ignore the Constitution, Bill of Rights, and legal precedence, pushing your own viewpoint upon everyone else. I'd like to see an end to laws like this, and now view "For the Children" as a red flag, uttered by someone announcing yet another assault upon my rights and privacy.
I am not a PoliSci student or anything like that, so as far as I know that might be ok, but from a layman's view stuff like this sounds utterly rediculous! If a new law or etc cannot be passed by standing on it's own merits, it shouldn't be passed at all.
Welcome to the desert of the real.
FINALLY! A way to get the feds out of the local school districts!
Or as they say "... and the horse you came in on."
they said that one fitlering company releases its filter list.. does anyone know which one?
i browse at -1 because they're funnier than you are.
Make a filter that just filters a few sites, preferably sites internal to your own local intranet.
Then you have filtering software on the computer. You keep the money.
Not quite! The list needs to be locally editable, as well as being open source, or, possibly, Open Source.
Caution: Now approaching the (technological) singularity.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Part of the problem is that some people find talking about breast cancer to be obscene. Anytime sex gets anywhere near the picture, a certain portion of the populace goes whacko, in one way or another. Seems like this has been true for multiple centuries, if I read my history correctly.
Caution: Now approaching the (technological) singularity.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Doesn't approach them in quality or what? I don't think all that highly of some of the books on those lists. Mr. Dahl, for example, has little in the way of literary style to recommend him, though he is easy for young children to understand.
Caution: Now approaching the (technological) singularity.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
I think you missed what I meant. The list is editable by the useing organization (or individual). If a library wanted to block a list of sites, they could. They could share blocked lists. Or they could go the other way and just allow particular sites. I don't care. My point was that I want local control.
...
I wasn't really worrying about you being able to see boobies, though what you see in blue footed birds
Caution: Now approaching the (technological) singularity.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Who defines what is moral and amoral in our society anyhow? While I may find something tasteful and artistic, someone else may see it as pornographic. I find it interesting that the US is all about personal liberties and freedoms but, in reality, its more socialist than the government would admit. Public health, public libraries, public access... all controlled, regulated, and censored by the government. Personal freedom ends where public morals begin. Is this good? Is it bad? Who am I to say... I'm just a number in the system, a peg in the hole, a cog in the wheel. You are too if you don't oppose censorshhip in public libraries.
Let the parents control what their children see. Let them be responsable for what may come from their inaction and inability to control what their children have access to. GO to the libraries and GO into the schools - see what they have in terms of monitoring and protecting the children from bad things. I agree, if a child is surfing hustler.com (or whatever), that is inapropriate for the setting and a person telling them so. But to coldly and calculatingly cut off access to information...
Finally, when does it go from censoring pornographic material to censoring religious texts and public forums. Where do you draw the line? Who decides this? If "we the people" mean anything anymore, it certainly won't be the government, and it certainly won't be a company.
Could this be a conspiracy by the companies that make that kind of software to get a lucradive "sweet" government deal? hrmm.
Verbatim
Price, Quality, Time. Pick none. What, you thought you had a choice?
fellow slashbots, which censorware product will block this wack job? plz hlp tks.
This sounds like a good idea, but unfortunately, the states' citizens are _still_ paying the federal taxes as well. So in essence, they are paying twice for the same services.
Maybe the federal government should only be able to tax the states (i.e. tax a certain percentage of the state's tax revenue).
It's interesting to note that in a country where the _states_ are the soverign powers, the federal government takes the majority in tax revenue...
"Save the whales, feed the hungry, free the mallocs" -- author unknown
202-224-3121
Is there a bill number and a text copy of the to-be-bill out there somewhere. If there isn't, can you keep us up to date so we can write to our political fronts (who really want the bill number or whatever they call it). I want the text because I really like to see what else is added in there.
--- My novel, The Mummy's Girl is now for sa
But they seem to be concentrating their efforts against the ALA directly.
Your quote is best answered by the paragraph directly following in the CNN article, which quotes Marvin Johnson of the ACLU.
--sugarman--
Perhaps what is needed is for a public group to release, possibly with a $10 shareware fee (so people will take it seriously), an Internet site blocker which blocks only one site, say "hustler.com". This way, the libraries can be in compliance with the law and still return responsibility and choice to the end-users. -Gary
-- Gary Goldberg KA3ZYW 301/249-6501 AIM:OgGreeb Digital Marketing Inc., Bowie, MD
Honestly that's the funniest damn thing I've read in weeks! I was rolling on the floor, clutching my left nut and thanking God I use a Mac and Linux!
The answer is obvious. If you were not so tied up in your media generated preconceptions, you might have noticed. The Christian Coalition is made up of individuals. As the main Christian politicaly active organization, many Christians are members. The top level of the orginization has an agenda that is not in accord to many of the members. The local chapters being somewhat autonomuse have come to there own conclusions.
A large number of Christian, including myself, believe that censorship is a great evil, causing far more harm then good. Parents need to be involved with there childrens lives. Young kids computor time can be monitored. Surfing the web can be a family activity. As our kids get older, they should know right from wrong. There is a lot of stuff that is not pleasent in the world. We need to bring up our children to be able to deal with it. My son would never go to a porn site ( yah, right, the kids 17, sure he would'nt). At some point the children need to become responcible for their own lives. We as parents might not like the decisions that they make, but we had the chance to make our mistakes, and so should they.
Most Christians do not use censorware in their home, feeling that it is unnecessary at best, and a tool of satan at worst. As I stated earlier, most like to be involved with their children instead. I can not think of anything I have enjoyed more then watching my son turn into a man, even though it sometimes hurts to see him make bad choises.
Most Christians realize that if they are doing their job, censorwere is not needed. So the only ones that are being "protected" are other peoples kids. That means that the loud minority of extreemists self proclaimed Christians clamering for censorware are real interesteds in only foisting there brand of Christian morality on others, basicly taking away there freedom of choise. This is sad because our Father, God, has made us with free will, and expects us to use it, even when it hurts Him ( just like my son visiting some stupid site). Christians, as God, kids, should try to emulate our Big Dad, and not emulate satan, whos big thing is control, and removing choice.
I will be writing to Sen. McCain right after I get home. I use to be a real fan, and supporter of him, even though he would give me dirty looks outside of "Harry and Steves", musta had somtin ta do with my a** (**** censor!) length hair and my Harley.
All the creatures will die, And all the things will be broken. That's the law of samurai. (Jubai, 1605)
If any place shouldn't be censored it's the library!
I'd rather have mandatory censorship at every house than to see the libraries censored (and once the libraries go, so will everything else).
The library should be the one place where one can find _any_ information he wishes.
--------
Life is a race condition: your success or failure depends on whether you get the work done on time.
okay, so the link I posted was only a temp link from the thomas search engine. If you would like to read Title VI of the bill, you can read it at:
http://www.enteract.com/~leklund/title6.html
Sorry for the confusion.
lukas
Zambozay! My brain must've been eatin' a sandwich!
IANAL. The way I read the text of the bill, it is the responsibility of the school to select and install software that blocks all obscene material and all child pornography.
We all know that none of the commercial filterlist software packages accomplish this. In fact, the only way to comply with this is to choose a set of known 'safe' sites, and only allow access to those sites. But few if any schools are actually going to do this, because it renders the Internet rather useless to the educational mission.
So that leaves open the possibility that schools could download and install a freely available, open source proxy server that screens out goatse.cx, but allows all other content through. Does that comply with the letter of the law? If it doesn't, then neither does installing any of the popular censorware packages.
The censorware vendors are wetting themselves at the thoughts of schools taking thousands of dollars out of their textbook budgets to buy licenses for their scam software. I hope that schools will take a stand against them by adopting a minimalist, free filtering solution.
Corby
It's Ben Franklin, not Jefferson...
See the first reference on this page.
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
Ok, I see stories and comments all the time referring to new laws, etc that are being passed by attaching them to other bills.
HOW CAN THIS POSSIBLY BE RIGHT?
I am not a PoliSci student or anything like that, so as far as I know that might be ok, but from a layman's view stuff like this sounds utterly rediculous! If a new law or etc cannot be passed by standing on it's own merits, it shouldn't be passed at all.
I agree; cutting the strings tied to federal funding might be just the thing some libraries need. But there is the point someone else makes later in this thread; a library that can't afford the censorware can't afford to lose the meager funds they do get.
Now, this isn't to say that censorware shouldn't be installed to begin with. That is a debate in and of itself. The problem here is that it doesn't fall under Congressional jurisdiction. If censorware is to be installed, it needs to be mandated by the individual institutions.
Maybe the AFA doesn't want this being done at the Federal level, and prefers local control... might easily be the case if they feel they're stricter about what should be banned than they think the Washingtonians are.
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
Every Gov't dollar is a bit more leverage. And when the dollars are finite (that is, always...), and there are questions about how to allocate money...
The only way for locals to avoid the strings of conditions that come with the money is to avoid it altogether. It's the same deal as, say, arts funding; recall the whole spat between NYC mayor Giuliani and the museum (Was it the Brooklyn MOA? Don't recall which) over controversial art in a building tied to a city lease?
They can't legally, AFAIK, mandate censorware on ALL libraries (it'd be tricky to find a clause that permits this; even 'necessary and proper' does not seem to apply, since why must it be done by the Feds and not at the state/local level...), but they can probably legally set this condition, given that this deal isn't likely a guaranteed entitlement...
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
the laws basically say something is obscene if the local community thinks its obscene. so if the local community had control over the (open) list of blocked sites/words, it sounds like a good idea. but it becomes a problem when its some proprietary software people don't understand blocking people from information on breast cancer. at which point people start acting like information about breast cancer is obscene
your comment is full of misguided fears and half truths. number one with a little help the internet provides nearly unlimited access to journals through systems like jstor. most public schools can't afford any sort of journal subscription. sure i agree elementary school kids aren't writing research papers, but if they learn how to look things up on the internet (under a teacher/librarian's supervision), they will be better prepared than i was. which brings me to my other point, to rebut your point about the internet being an 'easy way out' of school work. sure its possible, but it's also possible that students are getting off the hook when it comes to doing research and critical thinking because most schools can't afford any sort of decent store of information (encyclopedias don't count, i'm talking modern journals, etc). an optimist might expect this to create a generation that's not lazier than what 'we current have' (although whether that's true or not is debatable) but instead is more able to critically read and understand arguments and information about a wide area of subjects, allowing them to identify their interests and passions earlier in life and make meaningful contributions.
Well of course; library have all those things, what are they, oh ya, books. We wouldn't want people reading and thinking for themsleves would we? No, we want them mindlessly in front of the TV, and maybe reading the occasional Time, or TV Guide, or a tabloid. But to read a book that might get them thinking? That would be horrible, its time we burned these libraries and all their contents!
This is the most well-thought-out, well-written post I've seen on slashdot in a long time. Thank you very much.
And voila, the federal government suddenly controls something it didn't and couldn't before. So when your presidential or congressional candidate promises to help pay for your state or local program, what he's really saying is that he wants to control it.
Since when is looking at the big picture Offtopic?
In order to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe. -Carl Sagan
The House bill is number HR4577.
I think the Senate bill is S5588.
The admendment I could find is SA3635.
Here is its text and the senators' discussion of it from June Read it! Once again, everyone is over-reacting.
Since this bill provides no funding to purchase the software, I'm curious to know what the delta between that cost and the lost funding would be. If the library has the option of spending a roughly equal amount of money for either censoware or internet access (the former would get the latter paid for through funding, the latter would eliminate the need for the former), one would hope that there would be a relatively large number making the right choice. Hell, just giving them the choice in the first place would be relatively refreshing.
Ideology breeds Hypocrisy. Just how much is up to you.
But that still leaves the other question: how can you want an ignorant homophobe as President? I guess that makes you a homophobe, too!
--
And the men who hold high places must be the ones who start
To mold a new reality... closer to the heart
If the censorware blindly uses pattern-matching in the URLs (there was a article linked from Slashdot a while back giving some real-life examples of the absurdity of this), Slashdot itself may very well be censored (perhaps of "slash" being objectionable?!)
There's 10 types of people in this world, those who understand binary and those who don't.
Um, hello? The US was founded by Christians trying to escape religious persecution. These same Christians wrote an anti-establishment (of state religion) clause into the Bill of Rights.
Phillips believes in that. (It's the Constitution party for a reason.) Removing barriers to posting the Ten Commandments is nowhere near to establishing Christianity as a state religion. It's simply removing gov't from controlling education, something it has no constitutional grounds to do in the first place. The sooner you recognize that, the better off we'll be.
Your rights are safer with a God-fearing man as president than without.
Constitutionally Correct
See my response to LordNimon above. I'm not going to repeat it here.
Constitutionally Correct
Funny, because that's exactly what Christ says. However, that must be applied consistently. And if you apply it consistently, you find that He's told you "have" to do certain things. But, only if you really want to love people. You're free not to love if you so choose.
I love everybody, including the unborn. I can't let my love for woman X (expressed in being supportive of her choices) override my love for baby Y (expressed in my desire that he lives). Life is more fundamental than liberty.
In my worldview, life is precious. If you view life as precious, and advocate loving others (as you claim), the only logical and self-consistent result is that you be pro-life. I consider myself "pro-choice" too (inasmuch as liberty is good) but no one's "choice" to murder another is justifiable.
Constitutionally Correct
Real slavery is when your life means nothing, and can be disposed of at a whim without remorse. So who's the slave: a girl wanting an abortion or the unborn child inside her?
"With great power comes great responsibility." Men and women share the power to create a new life. They also share the great responsibility of raising the child that is the consequence of their actions. If you're not prepared for the consequences, refrain from the actions.
As dboyles said, parents have the right and duty to keep abreast of what their children are doing. It's called parenting.
Constitutionally Correct
Ah, another victim of revisionist history. There is a substantial amount of evidence indicating that most of the Founders were indeed Christians.
I am not homophobic. Homonauseated, perhaps.
Now a bit from the CP platform...
Constitutionally Correct
It is tyrranical. Vote Phillips on November 7 to restore a constitutionally limited gov't. You know Gore and Bush won't do it.
Constitutionally Correct
These opinions are my own. My employer is not aware of them, does not endorse them, and is not responsible for them.
The Children's Internet Protection Act, added to H.R. 4577 by Senators McCain and Santorum, and Representatives Istook and Pickering, would require that all public libraries and schools that receive federal funds for Internet access to install blocking software to restrict access to "inappropriate" material.
Filtering is not exclusive to pornographic content; it can also be used to target First Amendment protected speech. This was highlighted in the past when CyberPatrol, the largest filtering software manufacturer, ruled that the American Family Association's web site would be subject to filtering by their software program because of their long-standing opposition to homosexual activism.
There is growing concern within the conservative community regarding the use of filtering systems by schools and libraries that deliberately filter out web sites and information that promote conservative values. There have been many reported incidents of schoolteachers and administrators targeting pro-environment groups that differ with the global warming hypothesis, as well as pro-life organizations with filtering software to prevent students from hearing alternative approaches to those issues.
These precedents send a frightening message to political and social organizations that promote causes contrary to the positions held by the "politically correct" American Library Association and National Education Association. For conservative organizations to be subject to filtering for the content of their speech violates the most fundamental understanding of the First Amendment. The Children's Internet Protection Act would not only justify, but would mandate the use of these inappropriately restrictive devices.
We are also opposed to the practice of Congress mandating regulations by tying them to the use of federal money for state projects. This practice of taking money from the states, generously redistributing portions of it to other states, and then returning what is left with provisional strings attached is immoral and an abuse of power. Regardless of the good intentions this bill was drafted to achieve, this approach to federal funding is destructive to the most basic notions of federalism and must not become a normal practice.
Nothing is more effective than efforts to educate parents and children about Internet safety and how to properly use online resources. Moreover, Internet filters are an imperfect solution to this important problem. With millions and millions of web sites already online, and more added every day, children will always be able to access content we might wish they couldn't.
Education programs can help them to deal with the very real danger certain kinds of content could pose; Internet filters offer a false sense of security on this issue.
Additionally, Congress' own Commission on Online Child Protection is due to submit its own report on Internet safety for children in mid-October. That report will embody several months' extended effort on the part of the commission's nineteen members, and will provide Congress with important recommendations for future decisions regarding children's online safety. Congress should not legislate on this topic before that report has been received, lest it undermine the importance of the COPA Commission's work or make avoidable legislative mistakes.
The amendment's provision for "monitoring the online activities of minors either through supervisory or technological means" is also problematic. This language is inappropriately vague, and could be even open the door to unprecedented law enforcement access to people's online habits. Issues of technological monitoring must be dealt with far more care than is evident in the proposed legislation.
For these reasons, we encourage you to oppose the Children's Internet Protection Act, and any other efforts to dilute the potential of this powerful medium. We hope that you agree that an educational approach that empowers parents, instead of blunt, ineffective mandates, is the best way to address the issue of protecting children during their online experiences. We appreciate your concern and attention to this matter.
Sincerely,
Paul M. Weyrich
National Chairman
Coalitions for America
Lisa S. Dean
Vice President for Technology Policy
Free Congress Foundation
Grover Norquist
President
Americans for Tax Reform
Helen Blackwell
President
Virginia Eagle Forum
Karen Kerrigan
Chairman
Small Business Survival Committee
Paul Clark
Director
Coalition for Local Sovereignty
Tom DeWeese
President
American Policy Center
Rick Humphreys
State Director
Tennessee Christian Coalition
Jim Hill
American Family Association of Oregon
William Bracken
Republican Executive Committee
Lee County Florida
Cathie Adams
President
Texas Eagle Forum
Dwight Baker
Chairman
Libertarian Party of Mississippi
Dottie Feder
Vice President
Wisconsin Eagle Forum
Janine Hansen
Nevada Eagle Forum
Bettina Dobbs
President
Guardians of Education for Maine
CDT has this posted at their site as well: http://www.cdt.org/speech/filt eri ng/001011fcf.shtml
These opinions are my own. My employer is not aware of them, does not endorse them, and is not responsible for them.
Yes, I think it's disgusting. How can they do that? Is there a law somewhere that says you can tack anything you want on to another bill? To me it subverts the ideals of a democracy. Seems to me the only way the few overule the majority. If anyone has any info on how this is legal please post it.
People who bite the hand that feeds them usually lick the boot that kicks them
A mother should never be outraged when her child asks 'what is that'. She should be proud.
-Tal
Shake and shake
the ketchup bottle.
None will come,
and then a lot'll.
gad_zuki is correct. With email you get a nice auto-reply back and then they trash it.
Thank you for putting it right out in the open: the purpose of women is to make babies, and we should be grateful for that opportunity?
The poster was talking about pre-industrial times, and this comment should not be contorted to mean that in this day and age.
I believe every state has a way for the parental notification/consent (depending on state) laws to be bypassed by a court. If some teenage girl has been raped it seems that the courts would certainly bypass the partental consent, and hopefully action could be taken against the predatorial adult as well
I don't think that Brown vs. Board of Education belongs in this argument, it didn't establish the role of the states over the parents. It did however increase the responsibilities of the states, but not in the way you describe. I do not think any of our schools are ready to replace parents.
Also a point that has not yet been brought up, no minor can have any other medical procedure performed without parental consent, so why should abortions be any different.
As a final point, I am pro-choice, I don't want to erode the right a little piece at a time, but most teenagers are not ready for the real world as much as they think they are.
I used to hang out during boring study halls at the computer terminal and write games.
You KNOW if they put censorware on school computers the kids will try to crack it (and succeed.)
I can't think of a better way to get them interested in learning more about computers, so I'm all for this bill!
July of 98! OK, I live in a cave. Thanks.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
What Congress has in mind is requiring censorware be in place to block the inappropriate content that's out there. I feel that only the porn sites be blocked, and if there's an offensive word, that the word be *'d out. Although there should be freedom to access whatever you want, do keep in mind that what is offensive is deemed offensive by the offended, unless a higher power overrules the offended. I'm for this so that all the garbage that's out there stays out of the schools, and so that kids today learn some responsibility when using the Internet.
Doesn't anyone actually check the source of a story? That "AP" at the beginning means it's an Associated Press story. It has nothing to do with CNN. I see this all the freakin' time on Slashdot. A little journalism knowledge couldn't hurt, guys.
Slash has nothing to do with Slashdot.
So, when a Senator proposes a bill that he knows damn good and well is unconstitutional, what should the repercussions be? Should we settle for mere impeachment?
"Ain't no right way to do a wrong thing."
Though its always a good idea to contact your congresperson and tell them your stand on issues, its not like this is in immediate danger of being passed as is. If you go to thomas.loc.gov and read the versions of the bill, you'll find the senate version has many rider type emmendments, like a patient's bill of rights, that probably won't be included in the final version. Obviously this is anther example of how government does lots of backhanded, under the table manuvering, and another reason why you should vote for real candidates in elections instead of the dominant party stiffs, but I think people are a bit needlessly worried.
-brian
Since it will keep a few kids from damaging their youg minds by reaching Dick Armey's website.
(b) the material is patently offensive because it affronts contemporary community standards relating to the description or representation of sexual matters
The free software community's standard for delivering sexy images is PNG or JPEG, not GIF. GIF is "patently offensive" (U.S. Patent 4,558,302) to the free software community.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Another interesting point is the impact on schools or libraries that CANNOT AFFORD to go out and buy blocking software for all their internet connected computers. So potentially, schools which are already underfunded will get more federal funds cut. Answer me this: To get into Congress, do you have to play connect the dots and LOSE every time???
--
Intelligence is definitely a recessive trait.
Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2001 (Public Print)
The entire bill is here ;.
The rider in question is Title VI - Children's Internet Protection.
Now, THAT is irony.
I've looked at many lists of banned and challenged books, and the bible doesn't even appear in the top fifty. My references include:
Can you back up your assertion?
Amendment I.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Sounds like the law discussed above would abridge someone's right to free speech. Depending on the blocking software, it could possibly abridge the freedom of the press. If this law passes, you can pretty much bet that a case fighting this will go before the Supreme Court.
There are already checks and balances in place. If you added your strikeout idea what good would that do if those judging these laws can't always agree on what is and is not constitutional? Who will judge the judges then?
--
As a matter of fact, I am a lawyer. But I play an actor on TV.
By all rights, whoever pays for the service should be able to limit it as they see fit. The taxpayers pay for it, but will never agree on what or whether anything should be blocked. Solution? Don't force taxpayers pay for it in the first place.
For this reason we should not have public schools. We tax all (at least all property owners in most states) to fund public schools, when there is no way we can come to agreement on what the students should learn or be exposed to. I send my children to a particular parochial school, because I happen to approve of both the academics and morals taught there.
I had never before considered that this should apply to public libraries as well as schools.
"Rub her feet." -- L.L.
I have never used blocking software, and never will. My solution at home is discussion and supervision.
You are under the mistaken view that censorship is always bad. Censorship is evil when it the use of force to prevent the exchange of information. If I decline to pay for distributing information I find objectionable, some would call that censorship too, but I do not see it as a problem. In fact, I would normally reserve the actual word "censorship" for the former case, just to keep from diluting its effect.
Short-sighted and greedy? Because I would prefer to direct my giving as I see fit, rather than have my resources redistributed by force? Guilty, I guess.
Do you have children? I have those discussions you talk about routinely. Even so, I would prefer to "shield" my kids from some of the more vile stuff on the internet for a bit. I think that reasonable, since they are all under 10. As each child gets older, he gets exposed to more stuff, and gets continuing direction and guidance from his mother, myself, and others. We do try to exert a reasonable amount of control on who are those others, but that too will decrease gradually as the children get older.
"Rub her feet." -- L.L.
Bah, sounds like someone's stupid enough to actually believe Rush Limbaugh. News flash: the Republicans are not, and never have been, defenders of your rights (unless you believe you have a right to force your christian morals on other people, to dump your shit in my backyard, or to have my tax money pay for your company's fuckups). Up until the mid '80's, the Democrats did a moderately decent job of supporting free expression. Then, they decided to out-Republican the Republicans, and we end up with the system we've got today, where there's no substantive difference between the parties. Each is pushing basically the same Christian-supremacist corporate feudalistic agenda in slightly different words.
You want your rights protected? Vote Green. Vote Libertarian. Vote New Party. But neither of the Weasel Twins (my apologies to weasels) is going to do jack shit to protect your rights.
--
There is no sin except stupidity -- Oscar Wilde
Another day closer to redwood heaven
This has nothing to do with the first amendment. They want to block obscenity and child pornography. Obscenity and child pornography are illegal. They are not protected by the constitution. If you don't like that, you can try to fight to have obsenity and child pornography legalized, but until then, you'll have trouble fighting laws against them.
Care about freedom?
I'd rather be lucky than good.
This has nothing to do with what I think. This is the legal definition. Obscenity has been (and still is) defined by the Supreme Court as being illegal and not having constitutional protection. Material that is merely pornographic is not obscene and is protected by the first amendment.
Care about freedom?
I'd rather be lucky than good.
I posted the bill at: http://www.lisnews.com/article.php3?sid=2000101608 3332
Here's Some:
H.R.4577
Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2001 (Public Print)
-------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------
TITLE VI--CHILDREN'S INTERNET PROTECTION
SEC. 601. SHORT TITLE. This title may be cited as the `Childrens' Internet Protection Act'.
SEC. 602. REQUIREMENT FOR SCHOOLS AND LIBRARIES TO IMPLEMENT FILTERING OR BLOCKING TECHNOLOGY FOR COMPUTERS WITH INTERNET ACCESS AS CONDITION OF UNIVERSAL SERVICE DISCOUNTS. (a) SCHOOLS- Section 254(h) of the Communications Act of 1934 (47 U.S.C. 254(h)) is amended--
(1) by redesignating paragraph (5) as paragraph (7); and
(2) by inserting after paragraph (4) the following new paragraph (5):
`(5) REQUIREMENTS FOR CERTAIN SCHOOLS WITH COMPUTERS HAVING INTERNET ACCESS-
`(A) INTERNET FILTERING-
`(i) IN GENERAL- Except as provided in clause (ii), an elementary or secondary school having computers with Internet access may not receive services at discount rates under paragraph (1)(B) unless the school, school board, or other authority with responsibility for administration of the school--
`(I) submits to the Commission a certification described in subparagraph (B); and
`(II) ensures the use of such computers in accordance with the certification.
`(ii) APPLICABILITY- The prohibition in paragraph (1) shall not apply with respect to a school that receives services at discount rates under paragraph (1)(B) only for purposes other than the provision of Internet access, Internet service, or internal connections.
`(B) CERTIFICATION- A certification under this subparagraph is a certification that the school, school board, or other authority with responsibility for administration of the school--
`(i) has selected a technology for its computers with Internet access in order to filter or block Internet access through such computers to--
`(I) material that is obscene; and
`(II) child pornography; and
`(ii) is enforcing a policy to ensure the operation of the technology during any use of such computers by minors.
`(C) ADDITIONAL USE OF TECHNOLOGY- A school, school board, or other authority may also use a technology covered by a certification under subparagraph (B) to filter or block Internet access through the computers concerned to any material in addition to the material specified in that subparagraph that the school, school board, or other authority determines to be inappropriate for minors.
`(D) TIMING OF CERTIFICATIONS-
`(i) SCHOOLS WITH COMPUTERS ON EFFECTIVE DATE-
`(I) IN GENERAL- Subject to subclause (II), in the case of any school covered by this paragraph as of the effective date of this paragraph under section 602(h) of the Childrens' Internet Protection Act, the certification under subparagraph (B) shall be made not later than 30 days after such effective date.
`(II) DELAY- A certification for a school covered by subclause (I) may be made at a date that is later than is otherwise required by that subclause if State or local procurement rules or regulations or competitive bidding requirements prevent the making of the certification on the date otherwise required by that subclause. A school, school board, or other authority with responsibility for administration of the school shall notify the Commission of the applicability of this subclause to the school. Such notice shall specify the date on which the certification with respect to the school shall be effective for purposes of this clause.
`(ii) SCHOOLS ACQUIRING COMPUTERS AFTER EFFECTIVE DATE- In the case of any school that first becomes covered by this paragraph after such effective date, the certification under subparagraph (B) shall be made not later than 10 days after the date on which the school first becomes so covered.
`(iii) NO REQUIREMENT FOR ADDITIONAL CERTIFICATIONS- A school that has submitted a certification under subparagraph (B) shall not be required for purposes of this paragraph to submit an additional certification under that subparagraph with respect to any computers having Internet access that are acquired by the school after the submittal of the certification.
`(E) NONCOMPLIANCE-
`(i) FAILURE TO SUBMIT CERTIFICATION- Any school that knowingly fails to submit a certification required by this paragraph shall reimburse each telecommunications carrier that provided such school services at discount rates under paragraph (1)(B) after the effective date of this paragraph under section 602(h) of the Childrens' Internet Protection Act in an amount equal to the amount of the discount provided such school by such carrier for such services during the period beginning on such effective date and ending on the date on which the provision of such services at discount rates under paragraph (1)(B) is determined to cease under subparagraph (F).
`(ii) FAILURE TO COMPLY WITH CERTIFICATION- Any school that knowingly fails to ensure the use of its computers in accordance with a certification under subparagraph (B) shall reimburse each telecommunications carrier that provided such school services at discount rates under paragraph (1)(B) after the date of such certification in an amount equal to the amount of the discount provided such school by such carrier for such services during the period beginning on the date of such certification and ending on the date on which the provision of such services at discount rates under paragraph (1)(B) is determined to cease under subparagraph (F).
`(iii) TREATMENT OF REIMBURSEMENT- The receipt by a telecommunications carrier of any reimbursement under this subparagraph shall not affect the carrier's treatment of the discount on which such reimbursement was based in accordance with the third sentence of paragraph (1)(B).
`(F) CESSATION DATE-
"No teacher, I was looking up info for *breast cancer* for my report! Honest!"
- Amon CMB
Men believe what they want. - Caesar
Im canadian, but I would vote for Al Gore
Round the firewall,
Out the NIC,
Through the router,
Down the wire,
NOTHING BUT NET!
The purpose of women is twofold: one, to bring honor and glory to their maker; two, to be a companion. The union of man and woman is the only part of creation that wasn't good: it was very good. Women act as a compliment to men. Individually they are incomplete, as are men. To say any different is to go against nature and common sense.
Finally, to answer your question, yes, you should be grateful for the blessing that is childbearing. I will admit that since the fall, childbirth has been problematic :) , but overall I know of no mother that would want it any other way. I know of very few fathers that would not, if you caught them privately, admit a little jealousy.
You continue:
I'm sorry that you see human government as the answer to all people's problems. Haven't we seen enough failures in human government to know that it can't and won't fix everything? When was the last time you read Brave New World by Aldus Huxley? Is that the kind of world you'd want to live in? That seems to be what you're saying. I'm sorry, life is not about carnal pleasure without consequences. Yeah, sex is fun. I admit it. Sex is not, however, the pinnacle of existance.Ya know what's funny? Sex is another one of those things that is a reflection of our relationship with God. Did you know that? Our relationship with God is reflected in the marriage relationship, and sex is an integral part of that. Our relationship with God is supposed to be so close as to be similar to that with a spouse! I should also probably mention that God is a jealous husband, and demands fidelity in his bride. :)
You tell me that my words have meaning, but from my perspective you don't seem to have thought your own position through to its logical end. What group of people could better care for a child than its own parents? Who knows it better? Do you really think that a government agency would do a better job?
Government has, in the past century, done no less than everything in its power to destroy families. Can you not see the results around you? Government can't, can't, give a child a moral foundation. Not this government anyway. Morality can't be instilled in a child via an act of congress. It's not implanted by executive order. It's not fostered through judicial ruling. Morality is learned through the careful, loving instruction of parents.
And morality must be taught. I'm sure you know, if you deal with kids at all, that they don't have to be taught how to be bad. Evil comes naturally to them. They are by their very nature selfish. Kids must be taught correct behavior, and it can't be done by a government program. It's done on a one-on-one basis, parent and child.
Your supposed savior, on the other hand, does everything it can to ensure parental failure. Corporal punishment can land a parent in jail if a teacher or other offical has an political axe to grind. Parents send their children to schools, much of the time out of neccessity, where they have no control over disagreeable cirricula. (Many of my friends have turned to home schooling or are tightening their belts and sending to private schools.) The single best defense a father can have for his family is unceasingly villified in the media and by government officials. And heaven forbid that a parent doesn't tow the "party line" like the sadly misled parents that followed David Koresh (I've yet to see solid evidence of what Reno claimed to happen, please show me wrong!). The one best guide for parents is laughed at as outdated and outmoded in this "modern" age. Let me tell you a secret. It doesn't matter how many cars you own, how many degrees are on your wall, how many programming languages you know. You're the same kind of person that lived four thousand years ago. People just haven't changed.
The more I think about this, the more I think our difference in opinion stems from a difference in references. I recognize God's influence on the world, and its need for his saving grace. You, I fear, don't. Without that common reference, I see that you are trying to fill that God-shaped-void that each of us is born with with government.
Didn't mean to preach, but without acknowledging where I'm coming from it's hard to respond.
Jeff
Jeff
Jeff
Jeff
Heh. Maybe these filters can be a valuable educational tool after all...
..."
"Class, today we're going to the library to learn about irony
Did you miss the /. story a few days ago detailing that ISP's are NOT common carriers?
And I looked, and behold, the pokemon all spontaneously combusted.
Why should I be forced to subsidize your child's education through a mill levy or a tax. I am a single man, but I pay for other breeders kids to go to school. You may say it is for the betterment of society as a whole. I say overpopulation is rampant, and contributes to more pollutants in the environment. I would go further, and say making me pay for your offspring does more harm to the earth than if you would not have had them at all.
(Nowhere did you say you did or didn't have kids. You did say "and my child's life.")
The issue of how much autonomy states have on issues the federal gov't considers important enough was settled, as the major issue, in the Civil War. The Federal gov't won.
Looking for freelance Actionscript (Flash/Flex) or ColdFusion work and/or freelance developers. Email me, put Slashdot
McCain is one of the founders of this... John_McCain@McCain.senate.gov I like McCain. But he still deserves to get more email for being in the national public eye by running for president.
Looking for freelance Actionscript (Flash/Flex) or ColdFusion work and/or freelance developers. Email me, put Slashdot
Honestly though I seriously don't think people should be looking at porn sites... and certain things of that sort in the library... (And yes people will... I know of people who sit around on porn sites at internet cafes) So some censorware would be useful... (then again having a librarian who can just look over someone's shoulder ever twenty minutes or so can also work...) The thing is there really isn't any censorware out there that works well enough for my tastes (either it censor's too much or doesn't censor properly) so I'd say it's a bad bad idea.
Under the proposal, any school or library that did not install software to filter out pornography would lose its federal dollars intended to help buy Internet access.
If I were a parent sending my kid off to college (and I'm not, but I play a college professor when I'm not doing this computer thing, I'd rather know that money is being spent to purchase up-to-date equipment and pay qualified instructors a fair living wage. I don't care that students might be using their internet access for, among many things, surfing porn. Most college students are 18 and for many intents and purposes, considered adults. How they use their bandwidth is certainly not the goverment's businesss.
No money is provided to buy the software.
Once again, "average Joe" is going to swallow another unfunded Federal mandate. The money has to come from somewhere...what material that might benefit students or the public will not be purchased because of some vocal self-righteous fanatics? Has "average Joe" really thought this one through?
At least they waited until after National Banned Books Week to pull this stunt...
So support uncensored Net access.
nal 11
About the Indy 500 thing: You could include the NASCAR event and the Formula 1 event (this would include people from all around the world). And people, before you think this is completely offtopic, go to ronfar's page and you'll see it's about censorship too.
yet another reason to vote Libertarian, don't you think? how many more reasons do you need?
Given that the Fed law doesn't provide any money to buy this software, it looks like a perfect opportunity for the free software community to provide a needed service.
Perhaps it should ship by default with all Republican Party web sites blocked...
An engineer who ran for Congress. http://herbrobinson.us
A society that will trade a little liberty for a little order will lose both and deserve neither.
Thoms Jefferson.
Way to go America....
I would like someone to propose that no persons rights can be taken from them regardless of age. They can still keep driving at 16.. but sorry drinking and voting will come with birth. Only the latter may cause concern, but hey why not teach them real civic responsibility. The other alternative protecting the children at all costs - without reason - is acceptable. Maybe we can stop this 'for the children' crap.
From the article:
But the filters are included in the annual spending bill to finance operations of the departments of Labor, Education, and Health and Human Services, and it is unclear if President Clinton would veto the huge spending bill because of his objection to a small part.So if a couple gonads wants to pass a law saying "Everyone must wear red shoes" all they have to do is attach it to another law say ummm "Write checks to suppliers"? What the hell - shouldnt these few Republicrat jack-offs be bounced? Jesus, talk about screwing democracy.
how does it go? it takes a village to raise an idiot? :)
eudas
(who was raised by a village)
Blessed is he who expects the worst, for he shall not be disappointed.
Instead we have with most riders that one party throws something controversial onto an otherwise good bill so that the party: A) gets it way, or B) gets a political boon from not getting it's way. Both of the major parties do it, it's just this time the Republicans are being the idiots (give it a day to pass the idiot hat back).
It is misuse of our legislative body to treat bills in this manner. Keep another thing in mind: When one party poo-poos another party for a bill they voted on, remember there's usually an unrelated rider to blame!
----------------------
I consider myself extreme left, and I wouldn'y want to see any sites blocked.
Jeff Eidsness Site Manager - http://thatcalendarplace.com
Um... the line item veto was marked unconstitutional a few years ago.
The Supreme Court more-or-less thinks that this sort of tag-along bill making is how Congress should work.
Oh well.
I disagree only as much as I don't think most politicians think enough to be this contrived. But I could easily be wrong.
Considering who is against it (the Christian Coalition for one) these senators will be hard pressed to get this one through. We should commend these organizations for being so sensible. Even when offered legislation that would promote their ideals they realized that such a tyrannical proposition would be detrimental and are condemning it.
No deal. A (limited to certain types of spending) line-item veto bill was passed a few years ago. It was used once by President Clinton, and then challenged in the courts. The Supreme Court tossed it out as unconstitutional. It was seen as extending legsilative powers to the executive branch, and tossed out.
Written by a single drunk monkey in 30 minutes with a copy of MS Word 2000.
What's next, censoring the card catalogue to only give people "good" books? Or maybe we should censor the dewy decimal system so that all the porn isn't in one place in the library...
Early last year I participated in an online video conference with Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA), where myself and a panel of fellow students were able to pick at the proposed bill. What we extracted from the senator after a great deal of questioning was that this bill is not as bad as many have made it to be. As was proposed by Santorum, and what we were able to question him on would leave the censorship up entirely to individual communities, not some company with a political list of blocked sites.
This only pertains to websites, other services many of us use online will still be left alone. Now I'm not saying this is a good bill, but it is a much better proposal compared to the extent of filtering the government has proposed in the past. This path takes the middle road. The extremists will be happy because something is being done, and the more level-headed are able to make sure that the ban list isn't made based on some political agenda.
Leave it in the hands of the communities and the individual schools you have a greater chance of only the truely offensive sites being blocked. Some will swing the way of the extremists and block everything (sadly, as the local public school here, where the video conference took place has), but there may be a few who do take this responsibly.
This is the best compromise I've yet seen in the way of censorship legislation.
at ASU, they weren't allowed to censor the computers Specifically because they were government PCs and 1st amendment rights had to be protected...
IBM had PL/1, with syntax worse than JOSS,
And everywhere the language went, it was a total loss...
Two things, "The Clinton administration opposes mandatory Internet filters." and "it is unclear if President Clinton would veto the huge spending bill because of his objection to a small part." Okay, So Bubba doesnt like to have to leave the whitehouse to go and look for porn. I work for a telco that has to have The WORST filtering system Ive ever seen. Life stinks!
There is no spork.
I'm interested to hear about these people who are not someone's children.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine.
Look, you had a pretty good childhood, I bet. But when you were selling vegetables by the side of the road from your grandfather's garden, others were being raped by their fathers. Under parental-consent laws, the father who rapes his daughter can deny her the ability to end her pregnancy. (Your so-called "blessing" of childbearing is in fact a death sentence for a disproportionate number of young women, whose bodies are not yet capable of passing a foreign creature through their small pelvises.) Not only is she compelled to live in her master's house, but she must serve as his concubine. And don't ask where her mother is in this: she's cowering in fear from the last time he knocked a tooth out when she "sassily" spoke up. Just because it's not your own experience doesn't make it not others'.
-- Anne Marie
I don't think that Brown vs. Board of Education belongs in this argument
Brown v. Board held in dicta that the primary role of the states in a modern era of a more powerful Federal government is in providing education to their citizens.
most teenagers are not ready for the real world as much as they think they are
No child is ready for the reality of raising her own children.
-- Anne Marie
Under Stanley v. Georgia (1969) (you can look it up, since you obviously know how) Americans cannot be forbidden from owning and perusing obscenity in the privacy of their own homes. Child porn is still a different issue.
-- Anne Marie
Premarital sex (fornication?) wasn't as much as a problem then; kids could get married much younger. Teenage pregnancy was expected of married teenage women.
Thank you for putting it right out in the open: the purpose of women is to make babies, and we should be grateful for that opportunity?
Could it be that we as a society think that children aren't yet able to properly conduct themselves in an increasingly complex and demanding world
But children already have the power to make babies themselves, especially with under duress by predatory behavior by adults. You would deny them their only way out?
Used to be that girls could get married before the age of fifteen. That's right, even the Virgin Mary was probably no older than 14. It was societal convention.
Indeed, it's still the same in some states like Utah, and it was and is a sick, sick time. In Victorian England, the age of consent for girls was 12 years old. TWELVE YEARS OLD. And you know what they also thought back then? Just as in other societies and parts of our own today, it was thought that the cure for sexually transmitted diseases was to have sex with a virgin. And do you know who those virgins were? Twelve-year-old girls. Fathers would coerce their daughters into contributing to the household income by prostituting themselves (not to mention the plight of orphans).
It is now the role of the state to provide education to minors (read Brown v. Board of Education), so there is no longer any need to hold them in thrall of their parents. And it is precisely that state education (in the form of library access) that is the subject of this article on slashdot. Your words have meaning, so think carefully about what sort of world you'd have us live in. One of habitual rape and unanswered pleas for help? Or one for emancipation. Our country has had many great moments of emancipation (13th amendment, 19th amendment, etc.) It is now time for another.
-- Anne Marie
Censorware has a history of problems. Sometimes it doesn't block sites that should be blocked, sometimes it blocks sites that shouldn't. I can pretty much guarantee that any censorware product will block a page that somebody legitimately needs to get to. While censorware in libraries is theoretically a good idea, I think it would be a disaster in practice. What would me much better, in my opinion, is to have a big sign saying "All network traffic is monitored" even if it's not. That way people won't go to sites they wouldn't show to other people, without infringing on their rights.
Aaron Plattner
Ok why does the gov. always think that they should censor what we look at. Did you ever stop to think if people got together and said that the cow was ugly and stuped and should be censored. You know what we would have abuch of fluffy cows that are mute. So would the gov. stop censoring things and don't censor the cow!!!
The Republicans who put this bill forward are hoping that nobody will care enough about Congressional procedure to look at the causes of this bill, but that they'll blame the effects on Bill Clinton, and by extension, Al Gore.
Think about it: If El Presidente passes this piece of crap, he looks like (a) he's flip-flopped on the library filtering issue, and (b) has done something in clear opposition to the wishes of the majority of Americans. Besides that, it will have the potential effect of denying funds to libraries, and this batch of Congressional Republicans have, by and large, been hostile to public libraries specifically and an educated populace in general.
So what if the President vetoes it? He holds off funding for Labor, Education, and other favorite departments that the Republican leadership would like to eradicate. Further, they probably hope to blame him for another federal government shutdown.
Nobody in Congress wrote this bill because the people they represented want it, and nobody anywhere actually believes that this joke of a law will survive court review. A few Congressmen just wanted to give Clinton and Gore an election-year catch-22.
OK, - B
http://www.bradheintz.com/
- updated
Whatever happened to teachers getting off of their chairs and checking on students. Is it that hard to walk around the room and just look at the monitor. I don't know about you all but I can spy naked bodies from accross the room and I bet the teacher can to. Human monitoring of this in my opinion would be far more effective than software. All software does is inhibit research ability. There are always tons of sights that those crappy peices of software will miss, but they always seem to pick up the valueable research sights. Teachers could esily distinguish between the two.
I really don't understand why public grade schools and libraries NEED to have internet access?
I mean, yeah, I've been on the internet since 94 or thereabouts, back when it was just the internet, and it was still largely a tool of universities, and geeks, and the large computer firms were just getting started with putting up their own web pages. There was a LOT of good stuff on line, and from what I understand, back then, most of the pr0n was on usenet anyway.
The internet of that era was a tool of learning, of knowledge.
But the internet has changed, no doubt about it. It is a totally different animal than it was. Even though almost all of the old resources are still available, the most constructive bit is the clean parts of usenet, and email. The Web itself, is a huge waste of time as far as education goes. It's all corporatized, buy this, rent that, be part of my little plan to take over the world, download my web doohickey, etc. I don't think it has any place in education or the library. Except for email. Maybe connect these guys, but low-bandwidth, and shut off the web ports. Leave the censorship to parents and home computer systems. Yeah, there's a lot of neat stuff out there, but I just don't see it as all that important to anyone but Yahoo, Amazon, Microsoft, and AOL. Putting school computers online just legitimizes the idea that public school merely indoctrinates our young into the American culture of consumerism. Gag.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Great, open source censorware - first thing it will block is Microsoft's site, of course, then any of Microsoft's partners, or any MS Fan site, MSNBC, NBC, Intuit, (ironically) Corel, then we have to ban all of Microsoft's stooges, Dell, Gateway, Compaq, and even Apple because Microsoft "owns" them too, (according to some /. poster I bantered with last week), then pretty much any company that doesn't provide source code, hardware companies with closed specs, then any server served with IIS, any server that serves non-standards-compliant HTML, any server that serves HTML not optimized for Mozilla's special features (c'mon, work with me here), but MOST IMPORTANTLY; goatse, any site containint the text: GRITS, Natalie Portman, bird, penis, penis-bird, Ogg, Sig11, or any site using a numeral 5 instead of the letter "S".
Of course, we'll all still be able to see our boobies.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Representative (or Senator):
It has been brought to my attention that hr4577, Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2001, TITLE VI--Children's Internet Protection, contains language which would require schools to use filtering/blocking software on their systems.
While I applaud efforts to prevent children from accessing inappropriate material on the internet, I strongly feel that automated filters and blocking software is not the way to do it.
This software is often haphazard, at best, letting through much material that would certainly be deemed "inappropriate," and at the same time blocking legitimate material.
For instance, most filters will block sites containing information about chicken breast recipes, breast cancer information, Anne Sexton, or "Superbowl XXX" simply because words or subwords may contain characters on the "blocklist."
For more real-world examples, please see http://www.dfn.org/Alerts/contest.htm
In addition, most of these filters can be disabled by computer-savvy children in the schools.
Filtering software may seem like an easy solution to this problem, but it's too easy - it just doesn't work.
I urge you to oppose this part of HR4577, and educate your colleagues about the unintended side effects of filtering software.
For more information, you may wish to read http://www.peacefire.org/info/blocking-software-fa q.html
Sincerely,
-Eric Sandeen
---
Public Libraries are expected to kiss up to the government to avoid losing their funding which has been shrinking all along? That's absolutely bizzarre. The libraries should turn this around and tell the federal government that they will remove *all* their computers unless their budgets for regular old fashioned books is restored to reasonable levels. Politicians are so eager to point at libraries as bastions of evil. They get to spend money to win a shallow moral victory and the libraries get screwed in the end.
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
I work for a large school district in Texas. We've seen this crap coming and unfortunately implemented the Bess filter software by N2H2. They made me do it kicking and screaming. Then they put me in charge of it to rub salt into the wound.- -------------
-----------------------------------------
"The code I write borders on black magic. Modify it at your own peril."
(Thanks to CNN for actually providing the names of the oathbreakers.)
None of these four bastards should ever be allowed to serve in public office again. For that matter, they shouldn't even show their faces in public anymore.
C'mon, voting it down is just the first step. Ostracising the assholes who start this shit should be next. Legislators need to FEAR the wrath of the public whenever they attack the Constitution. Make no mistake: if you are an American, then those 4 people are your enemies.
---
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Well, it's legal because congress can pass any laws they like. They are congress, after all -- they are in charge of making the laws, and it's up to the executive and judicial to enforce and rule on them.
There have been several attempts to make rules within congress that limit bills in their scope, but they've been consistently beaten. I believe that some states DO have rules within their own legislatures regarding riders and such so that you can't tack on completely new subjects to a bill.
This is also why the line-item veto has been so strongly favored -- traditionally the Republicans have supported the presidential line-item veto, because it can be used to reign in pork-barrell spending in appropriations bills, but they have strangely stopped their support of it with a Democrat in office, which is a shame. With line-item veto, Clinton could pass the bill and simply cross out the part about library filters. As it is, the government is close to another shutdown, though, so vetoing it would have a large effect...
I'm an investigator. I followed a trail there.
Q.Tell me what the trail was.
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
This is a clear call for open source censorware. It doesn't even need to be very effective. Something that would use a list of blocked sites, and a list of words that will cause pages to be blocked might be a good place to start. Another mode should just use a list of permitted sited. These should be files in clear text, perhaps zipped or gzipped (if so, you need to include an editor, though). The idea is to start off with something basic, that would be a basically agreed upon "starting point", and to allow customization as desired (or decided upon by a vote of local supporters). This would allow each site to be as bigotted or loose as they decided to be.
I don't know much about browsers, but it sounds (to me) like something that could be put together quickly by someone who did.
Caution: Now approaching the (technological) singularity.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
The solution is simple. You just have to know what the real problem is. The problem is *not* censorware. If you deny me the right to create, distribute and market censorware, then you are 100% opposed to liberty, freedom, sharing, and all the rest that slashdotters are supposedly for.
Instead, the problem is the government monopoly over education. We don't need autarchs forcing parents to send their children to state run political indoctrination centers. Privatize the schools and libraries. I want more from freedom than just free software. I want the freedom to choose my own school, and not to be taxed for a school I did not choose. Then I can choose a school based on my needs, wants and beliefs, instead having my needs, wants and beliefs determined for me by majority vote.
I could choose a school that didn't have censorware. Or if I wanted, I could choose one that did. But the choice should be mine, since it's my life, and my child's life, and not Algor's or Dubya's.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
Don't you know, THEY want to be the ones who define what gets filtered. Many of the censorware companies are tied to conservative religous organizations. Go to www.peacefire.org to get the whole story.
Lee Reynolds
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
The democrats are for things like the CDA which gives them the power to define exactly what is and what is not "harmful to minors." The replicans are simply getting in on the game with legislation which will give them that power. Its the same old bullshit with rival political factions working to control what information is available to the rest of us. Anyone who would try to censor what you see isn't doing it because information you find would be harmful to you, but because it would be harmful to their own position for you to see it. Obscuring the truth is a very old pastime for any political or social or religious group.
Lee Reynolds
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
This is one reason why Congress attempted to grant the President the power to 'line-item veto' specific parts of legislation in 1996. The Supreme Court, however, struck it down in 1998, saying that Congress just can't hand over powers to the President through a simple law - it requires an amendment to the Constitution.
The process of using federal dollars to implement national policy at the state level is old hat, though. A couple of past examples were when the mandatory drinking age was raised to 21 and the speed limit was issued (in both cases Congress would withhold highway $$$ until states complied).
This may be a dumb question, but if your state is concerned about federal control, why doesn't your state raise its taxes and pay for 100% of its own schools' budgets? I don't mean this sarcastically, it just makes me wonder how things got the way they are in the first place.
What bothers me about this bill is that they're trying to pre-emptively prevent people from breaking the law. That means that the usual roles of a Judge (interpretation of the law, use of discretion because of circumstances, etc...) are put in the hands of the blocked-list creators. And on top of that, they're often wrong.
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Yes, I believe you're correct in your interpretation of (ii), but it's still almost vague about adults, and most parts of the U.S.C. like to clarify everything possible.
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The FCC common carrier is more like "basic infrastructure such as telegraph cables or radio airwaves that should be regulated by the FCC to benifit society in general".
The DMCA/Copyright common carrier is something like "a system that blindly passes on information in such quantities that it's not practical to weed out the copyrighted works".
Close, but not the same. It was ruled that the FCC shouldn't regulate ISP's. ISP's can still pass on copyrighted info.
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But maybe that's too big of a leap, I don't know.
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As I read the bill, it says nothing about looking at playboy.com in the library.
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There's no law that requires libraries to prevent children from trading copyrighted material on the internet. There's nothing that says that libraries have to have software that pre-emptively prevents children from making death threats against the president. So why is there such a law for porn?
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Actually, your idea is not as crazy as it sounds. The key point people need to notice is that censorware is a placebo that dose not solve the major problems people want solved. Specifically, people do not want the back ground changed to porn and do not want kids to notice someone else watching porn. Censorware blocks such a small precentage of sites that it totally fails at these goals. The real solution is based around you grandmother idea. Specifically, the threat of getting caught.
First, you need to ask yourself "dose this library have a problem?" (i.e. do lots of people currently watch porn here) There are two solutions depending on your answer:
(no) Congradulations, you have no problem at all. You should move your computers to a high traffic area with little privacy to discurage porn view, but that's about all you need to do.
(yes) Ok, you need to do a little more work. First, DO NOT INSTALL CENSORWARE. You want to catch these people.. not make them better at hiding. You need to set up a system where the most recent images from the netscape cache directories are displayed on a system which only the librarians see. Now, when a librarian notices a porn picture they can go for a walk and stop the person. The advantage here is that they will catch porn the person left in open netscape windows or on the desktop.. somehting no censorware can hope to prevent.
The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell
I've wondered if it would be a good idea to add a law so that any representative/senator who proposes a bill that gets passed, an is later found to be unconstitutional, gets a "strike" against them. Then, after enough "strikes", that person is kicked out of the office, and further banned from politics.
Maybe then some of them would think the constitution isn't just something to try and get around in whatever way they can.
Of course, it would probably just result in them repealing the Bill of Rights. (After all, there's not a chance it would get passed today.) Freedom is a great buzzword, but too much of a pain to actually ENFORCE, it seems.
---
"You know your god is man-made when he hates all the same people you do."
> > (ii) [...makes sure the censorware is on while minors are using the PCs...]
> Why the (ii)? Are adults allowed to see child porn on school computers?
For that matter, "Why the (II)? Doesn't child porn fall under obscenity laws to begin with?"
Welcome to the world of politics. Where anyone who stands up in Congress and questions the intent of (i)(II) gets branded as "opposing measures to block child pornography", and anyone who questions the intent of (ii) gets branded as "exposing your kids to child pornography".
Remember, this is the "Children's Internet Protection" measure. Anyone who opposes it must be against children, and is a bad person.
The only way we'll see freedom of expression in this country is if someone introduces the text of the First Amendment as the "Protection of Big-Eyed Kids, Cute Fluffy Kittens and Frisky Puppies Act".
speaking from experience these filters block everything. we couldnt lookup std's because of course the query had the extremely dirty word "sex" in it. I can see a system for elementary schools where only approved sites are browsable, and one in middle school where "naughty" sites are blocked. but come on dudes, in highschool? if they honestly think that their little pos filter will stop us from finding what we want they are wrong. I also honestly know of any highschool student that would look up pornography on the schools computers. First of all there are way too many people around, second of all why would you do it at school? do it at home for the love of god. A bill # or text of entire legislition would be nice to point this out to my senators and mr clinton / (gore/bush).
a 2f2f7777772e736c617368646f742e6f72672f") . It can't search the query for bad content, the page will not have any rsca ratings.
P.S. if your school has a gay filter like my school download CGIProxy, enable encoded url's, and make a regexp to remove META tags, upload to some server and volia! unfiltered net access.
(Example: http://www.mbrez.com/anon/nph-proxy.cgi/687474703
This is not true. Most Republicans continued to support the line-item veto after Clinton was elected. Clinton supported it for obvious reasons, but many Democrats opposed it. As I recall, it was actually passed but the Supreme Court found it unconstitutional a few years ago.
How to solve most of our problems: 1.Lots of nuclear plants. 2.Cure aging.
Actually, there was some constitutionality to the 55MPH speed limit, at least on US Highways and Interstate Highways. The interstate commerce clause can come into effect then. However, the feds should not have been able to mandate any limits on state highways.
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
Email is almost completely ignored, you'll have to lick a stamp or pick up the phone to get heard.
Congratulations! This whole seperation of church and state nonsense has gone on too long. Philips is the love child of Buchanan and Browne.
As a progessive lefty I think the consensus would be not to block any religious site, while the right has an interest to keep Jesus (or whichever religion the group is part of) on top of the crowd as not to question/empty the pews.
Actually the only contemporary group I can think of that would actually want all religious sites blocked are radicals like CSICOP. Their mailing list has group attempts of letter writing to networks that do air anything that goes remotely questions scientific materialism by threating boycotts. I definatly see them as a very conservative group, not liberal in any way.
I think an extreme far lefty (anarchist-type?) would want no censorship at all, porn and drugs for everyone regardless of age.
I don't want my tax dollars going to systems that a) stop me from accessing legal(not obscene) information that may be blocked by filtering software and b) doing your job as a parent.
I think the solution would be to ignore the idiots yelling, and just let things go unblocked. Blocking things, no matter the reason, is censorship. As far as not having public schools. Well, you are very short sighted and greedy. Not everyone has as much as you and can afford the expense of a private school. We also all have a responsibility to teach our children, whether they are directly ours or not. Morals should be taught at home, no where else. I'm tired of these mindless parents that think sheltering thier kids from everything is the answer. Maybe the blocks shouldn't be thre just for that reason; to force parents to tlak to their kids about these thinks. the kids are going to see it one way or another, there isn't anything you can do about it. Shielding them from the world will do them no good. maybe once the issue comes up, parents should talk to them about it. But i guess that'd be asking too much.
Here's my idea. Hire some old women about the age of your grandmother. Have them sit next to you while you're on the net. Would you go to sexwithmidgets.com with your grandmother sitting next to you? Neither would I.
It's not censorship. Just think about it. In a public area (libraries, university computer labs, etc), only go to those sites that you would go to sitting next to your grandmother.
My god that's brilliant! You should run for office. A program like this would not only solve the problem of how to protect the children from all of that evil pr0n, it would also help ease the burden on our Social Security system by acting as an employment program for the elderly.
Does this
The Feds are taking money from public schools? Develop better Internet-delivered home schooling.
The Feds are taking money from the public libraries? Put more stuff online and make the bricks and mortar libraries obsolete.
Drive the tyrants insane with an innovative explosion of technical options before it's too late!
Seastead this.
The sad thing is virtually every piece of legislation in the U.S. Congress is done that way nowadays. It's just unbelivable. And the reasons for it are thus:
Now, don't ask me for a solution, because I don't have one, except perhaps to vote for more independents. And I don't mean so-called "third party" candidates either, I mean true independents who have no party affiliation, and thus are less prone to item #2 listed above.
Free Hans!
Namely a government ruled by the Christian faith. This means that if Phillips becomes President, non-Christians such as myself have a lot to fear. From http://www.phillips2000.com/issues.htm :
The Christian premises of American jurisprudence will be honored. And there is, of course, no Constitutional barrier to the posting of the Ten Commandments in school classrooms.
It looks like this guy wants to make all educational institutions in the United States an extension of the Christian Church. Now that's tyranny.
It gets better: I would veto all funding for so-called "AIDS education" --- which is in fact a system to promote the propagation of homosexual conduct. I'm not gay, but I sure as hell don't want a homophobe as President. Especially a stupid one. The guy thinks that AIDS only effects gays.
--
And the men who hold high places must be the ones who start
To mold a new reality... closer to the heart
It's just the annual assault on the first ammendment. Five gets you ten on an internet bet that every court in the land smacks this one down just like every previous assault on the first ammendment. I'd like to thank Congress for further pissing away my tax dollars creating and defending this useless shit.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
There is no such right enumerated in the Constitution. On the contrary, the 1st Amendment can be construed as to forclose the parent's right to censor what the child sees at school, not the other way around.
Edith Keeler Must Die
I think I need a day off.
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
The victory of the aggressors proved nothing to anyone except those that accept the axiom of might makes right.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
First, suppose that the Republicans front a bill that the Democrats are rabidly against. Democrats can attach a subsection like this (a "rider") to kill support for the whole bill because no one wants the terms of the rider making it into law. So if the Democrats didn't like the bill, they could tack on a rider that says "All left-handed people will pay a tax of 1000 dollars." Which is ridiculous. So of course the whole bill gets dumped because the Republicans don't want to come off as discriminating agains left-handed people.
Riders can be used another way. Suppose now that the Democrats have a bill which EVERYBODY, including the Republicans want. Now, some Republican attaches a "rider" which contains some provisions that the Democrats would never pass. Because support for the rest of the bill is so overwhelming, it's often passed anyway because the Democrats don't want to sabotage the rest of the bill.
Hope that clears things up.
"We apologize for the inconvenience."
Istook's chief of staff, John Albaugh. "We have received tremendous support from the public on this. It just seems like it's a no-brainer to the average Joe."
I agree, no brain. What are they prommising people?
The opposition does not cheer me much either. Though several inteligent opinions and concerns were raised by many diverse organizations, the democrats can only seem to muster this:
Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., is among the few legislators who have spoken against mandatory filters. His alternative proposal would require only that Internet providers distribute filtering software for free or at cost.
Doh! It don't work, so it should be free! Great logic. Those chairs must shine and shine.
Lastly, it seems that the author has forgoten about or knows something I don't know about the line item veto:
The Clinton administration opposes mandatory Internet filters. But the filters are included in the annual spending bill to finance operations of the departments of Labor, Education, and Health and Human Services, and it is unclear if President Clinton would veto the huge spending bill because of his objection to a small part.
That's it! End of debate. Four people thought this was a good idea, so now it's gonna be a law. Uhhh, what's wrong with this?
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Nudity.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Not to mention, of course, that we'd finally just get it over with. They're going to keep trying to do this until they do it. Maybe it's time we should let them do it and let it fail.
If the public can't police themselves, the government has to do it, I guess.
which actually brings up the whole gist of this argument. The government is an instrument of the public. Our government is inherently flawed based on that fact alone.
I'm not worried about censorware in the schools so much as i'm worried about the human behaviour that would even cause someone to think it necessary.
FluX
After 16 years, MTV has finally completed its deevolution into the shiny things network
"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." -David Hume
...I was in the main one downtown a few years back, and the staff had taped cardboard hoods over several of the 'net access machines.
Mostly, they didn't want kids seeing the homeless people surfing pr0n, which, if I had to guess, was what those machines were used for about 3/4ths of the time -- I saw pr0n on the displays maybe twice, both times when the homeless person's time limit ran out and they got up to leave, with the hardcore scene still on the display.
The library near my house makes you sign up and get a password (free). They log what you do, and urge anyone seeing something inapproporiate to report same to the front desk immediately. No adult materials allowed, and no hoods on the machines.
It's a shame, but if they don't limit access to pr0n, some kid will see it and the city will get sued.
Maybe an alternative is to have a adult area, but that opens up a whole different can of worms. The city already has/had problems with hookers in the library -- an adult area would really exacerbate the situation.
When you think about it, the libraries were never meant to be porno libraries or hooker hangouts; really a place to quetly research things.
If the public can't police themselves, the government has to do it, I guess.
Treatment, not tyranny. End the drug war and free our American POWs.
See my user info for links.
Why this is the last paragraph in the article when it should be up near the top to make obvious the corruption in government is beyond me... but that's not the main point my my comment. I seem to recall something about a presidential line-item veto, where the president could (IIRC) veto a single line item on a bill. Was that just something that someone was trying to get passed recently? (Which is to say, within the last twelve or so years.) Or is it real? And if so, what would stop Clinton from using it here?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
There was also was a well document issue of people from the town of Scunthorpe having difficulty with AOL.
Every public library I have ever been in has a subscription to either or both playboy and penthouse. Funded with public money. Anyway the issue isn't keep kiddies from viewing pornograpy, its about censorship. Blocking software improperly blocks many many other things than porn, even when there not supposed to. Look at peacefire.org for info on that..but then again, almost anyone reading this sotry has probably read that site at length already. IMHO the only reason that the legeslature is trying this, is because its high profile. These are the same people who probably didn't care about logging in national forests, but were up in arms over flag burning.
You are only young once, but you can stay immature indefinitely.
First, suppose John Doe enters public library and uses public library's computer to access illicit material (such as child porn, etc.). Now suppose 5-year-old kid sees John Doe John Doe's screen with said illicit images and asks his mom what that is. Mother is outraged. What is the library's legal liability?
Second, there's a position at the library called "acquisitions head." This person is responsible for making decisions about what and what not to purchase on a daily basis. It's called "selection." It's one major reason many libraries do not carry "Hustler." Censorship? Maybe. Illegal? Absolutely not. Libraries are also constrained by budget. How does this apply to the internet? That's a fuzzy area, but many libraries view the internet as part of their "content," and libraries do review content based on a mix of popularity, quality and community standards.
Finally, I am personally aware of one library's filtering standards and protocols. This library has the capacity to override blocks and will review blocked sites at patron requests. The system has worked, and is configurable and customizable, and has generally been viewed as a positive thing. It's not about censorship so much as it is about making sure inappropriate material is not made readily available to minors. Is it a perfect system? No. But it has been almost universally well received in the community and has the flexibility to allow humans and human decisions to have the final say.
This topic has been raging for several years now, and it is not likely to go away. And remember: for every person who claims it is a violation of their First Amendment rights, there is a parent who has the constitutional right to expect that their child won't be exposed to "inappropriate material" at school or at the library. There is no easy answer, but simply viewing filters as "censorware" is far too simplistic.
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Something cleverNo, but you might no go to find information about something like sexually transmitted diseases, either, which is of significantly greater importance than sexwithmidgets.com. The problem with censorware is not just the random blocking of completely innocuous sites, but its inability to distinguish sex for sex's sake and explicit images and text for health's sake. A page might have 'penis' and 'vagina' and 'sex' all over it, but it might also be a very important source of information.
If it ain't broke, you need more software.
This concept of To Much Information relates to the Internet in schools. The worst thing about the Internet is not that kids can see naked people, but that kids have access to a huge amount of previously hard to obtain information. If it were about naked people, we would just place the monitors so that grownups can see the screen. But it is not. It is about what we will allow our kids to know. Many groups have spent millions of dollars trying to rid our schools of information that they do not agree with. All that money wasted if the kids can now download a copy of Sex: A Users Manual.
It gets even more insidious. This bill is an unfonded federal mandate, despite that fact that many members of congress ran on the opposition to this practice. Libraries are now going to have to spend money on Censorware and support personnel. This money will come out of the book budget. Some people will count this bill as a success if it does nothing more than prevent the library from buying the latest Harry Potter book.
This bill is the latest in a continuing fight between those would want free and clear paths for disseminating information, and those who fear it. It is not only about the funding of libraries, but also the funding or visual and performing art. We can fund a sports stadium with massive amounts of public financing, but just look at the fight that goes on with the National Endowment for the Arts, a pittance in comparison.
It goes without saying that this is a bad idea. Doesn't the president have some kind of technology advisor? If so, how in-tune is this person with the ever growing arena of technical advance? ICANN got their technical man. It's time we did too. Maybe we need someone who deals just with computer/internet technology.
If paper burns at 451 degrees farenheit, at what temperature do floppy disks burn?
"Why the (ii)? Are adults allowed to see child porn on school computers?"
:)
Note that (i) only requires schools to have selected a technology. Without the (ii), they could merely decide which technology would be an appropriate filter and, arguably, not even bother to purchase it. While clearly not in the spirit of (i), it's within the letter of (i).
So, (ii) makes it clear that, yes, the technology selected must also be implemented and enforced. Also makes sure that the admin can't say, "Huh? We gave it to the librarians to use," and the librarians can't then respond, "Huh? admin gave us this stuff, but don't know what to do with it, " eliminating a potential wall of plausible-deniability.
And, yes, I think that adults are allowed to access "obscene" material. Remember, this is a measure targeted at preventing minors from accessing the material, not adults. Of course, if said adult accessed hypothetical pr0n while children were watching, that might be a problem.
This is all speculation, and just my attempt to translate legal-ese to normal-ese. IANAL & IANN (I am not a layer and I am not normal
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D. Fischer
ShoutingMan.com
I read online about a gentleman going to a site for the popular computer game Deus Ex, named after the legendary latin god of the machine, Deus Ex Machina. The address was http://www.deusex.org. He was at a high school library at the time, however, and the 'sex' in the URL set off an alarm with the librarian. Despite his pleas otherwise, he was kicked out of the library, PERMANENTLY.
Furthermore, the banning of certain words does nothing to prevent obscene visual or video content. All I can see such a bill accomplishing is a lot more pictures and a lot less words at porn sites, or a sudden proliferation of that annoying hybrid word 'fsuck'.
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That "AP" at the beginning means it's an Associated Press story. It has nothing to do with CNN.
...
Oh, I thought that AP meant American Press. Just like CNN means Communist News Network and Reuters means We're Foreign And Veddy Proper.
And, even if it is AP, that means it could have been a reporter from Hoboken, NY, for all we know.
All the news that's fit to knit
--- Will in Seattle - What are you doing to fight the War?
Has anyone taken a look at a list of banned books lately? Consisently in the top five is the Bible. Christian's want some way to keep their kids from being exposed to evil, but not at the expense of preventing someone interested from reading their religious documents.
I've read several of the top 10 books, and in my expirence, half are worthless trash that should never have been written, and half are absolute treasures worth being required reading everywhere. Most people agree with that statement, but disagree with the which books belong to each list.
I still like Minnesota's solution to this problem: it is illegal to view poronographic material in a public place. You can see it at home if you want (I think libraries can have it in a backroom) but you cannot view it in public - which few people would anyway. This nicely side steps the issues like "Is breast cancer research porn or not?" (For most 15 year old males it is, but some have relatives affected by breast cancer it is not)
Why, this is outrageous! It infingines on my Constitutional Rights as an American! I won't stand for it! I'm going to call my Congressman! I'm going to call the ACLU! I'm going to call ...
*blink*
... hey, Eric, is that a new Quake III mod you've got there?
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
The phone number for the congressional switchboard is:
202-224-3121
Now use your powers for good and call your Senators and Representatives.
Has anyone taken a look at a list of banned books lately? Consisently in the top five is the Bible.
Not surprising considering we have murder, genocide, (incestuious) rape, etc. That's just in Genesis.
Ok, we probably already know why this is bad, but I'd like to post an experience I've had with being at a school that chooses to implement censorware.
;-) ).
1. You can't get any real research done. Our censorware is controlled by idiots who block things such as this. I've also found that many pages relating to theoretical physics are blocked (and I know the content of the blocked pages because of google's cache feature, so I know for a fact that there was no good reason to block the page). I really would have no problem with censorware if it just blocked porn, but it doesn't. The censorware installed here not only censors porn, it censors political ideas. 2600.com is blocked, aclu.org is blocked, as are the web sites of many other political groups.
2. Because of our censorware people are scared to even use the internet. Every time you hit a blocked page a nice red screen with large white text appears notifying you of this. This tends to scare people, not just because it is an evil red screen, but also because the *wonderful* stigma attached to the internet.
3. Most of the stuff that *should* be blocked isn't. For example, it took weeks before the *main* back orifice 2000 site was blocked, and all the netbus sites are still accessible (yes, we do play with the censorware, what else is it good for
4. It's worthless because of open http proxies.
I think a better solution to the 'problem' would be to *gasp* let people report abuse. It's not too terribly difficult to tell if someone surfing for porn on a terminal sitting in the middle of a library (hint: they're called EYES, use them on occasion). Perhaps the push for censorware is just a way to create a scapegoat, so people can say "See, we installed safeguards to keep you out of that" and no longer bother themselves with doing they're job and *watching* what's going on. Censorware is a quick and easy fix to a problem that really isn't that big, and could easily be fixed if we weren't so lazy here in America.
The best way to accelerate a windows box is at 9.8 meters per second square.
SHUDDER!
Sorry, no matter how cool your grandmother is, that's just not right!
No boom today. Boom tomorrow. There's always a boom tomorrow. - Cmdr. Susan Ivanova
(a) the dominant theme of the material taken as a whole appeals to a prurient interest in sex;
(b) the material is patently offensive because it affronts contemporary community standards relating to the description or representation of sexual matters; and
(c) the material is utterly without redeeming social value
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be sure to include the bill information:
H.R.4577 Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2001 -- Title VI - Children's Internet Protection.
The text of Title VI is here
lukas
Zambozay! My brain must've been eatin' a sandwich!
Bingo..
Most of the filtering software is either too permissive or not permissive enough for the Christian Coalition/AFA. The most permissive censorware doesn't block the references to homosexuality, communism, athiesm, sex, etc, that they want. The more restrictive software labels the Christian Coalition and the AFA a 'hate group' and censors them.
There doesn't seem to be a happy medium; As soon as the software spectrum shifts so that evil things like 'homosexuality' are blocked, so are they.
.sig: Now legally binding!
[
In my extremely arrogant opinion, idiots who throw around terms like "constitutional right" when it isn't a right guaranteed in the constitution should be packed off to China, Cuba, or some other well intentioned utopia.
What "constitutional right to expect that their child won't be exposed to inappropriate material at school or the library"? What country's constitution are we talking about? The U.S. constitution doesn't contain either of the words "school" or "library".
If you want to say how things should be, feel free. If you want to make up parts of the constitution that aren't there, expect to be made fun of.
The underhanded way in which Congress routinely hides laws with far-reaching impact in things like appropriations bills (when was the last time you perused one?) is thoroughly disgusting. It perverts the entire idea of a democracy.
Folks, this is the US Government mandating censorship. This is unconstitutional and specifically prohibited by law.
--
It's rare that you're presented with a knob whose only two positions are Make History and Flee Your Glorious Destiny.
"[...] state chapters of the Christian Coalition and American Family Association [are] opposing the initiative".
Is it just me, or this interesting? The article reports that these groups are saying this is a "bad way" to educate children about internet usage.
Again: Huh, what? Isn't this directly against what these groups have sought to achieve in the past? Even in the same article, CNN comments on this:
"Internet filtering has been a priority of many conservative groups, including Focus on the Family, the Christian Coalition and the American Family Association."
What's going on here? Can anyone maybe offer some insight as to what's going on with these groups to bring about such an apparent turnaround?
Are they afraid that if one extreme (pornography) gets censored, the the other extreme (conservative views) will get the same treatment? Or is this merely them stating that, while they want sexual content filtered, they do NOT want the government enforcing it?
If it's the latter that's true, I may alter my view on these people a tad. Not enough to hop in bed with them, but it is an interesting insight.
If it's the former.. heh.. no comment. :)
"I'm shocked," said one, "shocked, I say, that for momentary political advantage and the crass pursuit of power, our noble congresspeople would stoop to enacting unwise legislation."
Quiquid latine dictum sit altum viditur
Hey, Slashdot, how about some actual news. Such as, THE BILL NUMBER!! How else am I supposed to call my senator and complain?
/. mantra (I believe begun in earnest during the Hellmouth series): "It's bad, it's bad. Sit here and bitch, don't do anything about it. What would we bitch about?"
The official
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
Here's my idea. Hire some old women about the age of your grandmother. Have them sit next to you while you're on the net. Would you go to sexwithmidgets.com with your grandmother sitting next to you? Neither would I.
It's not censorship. Just think about it. In a public area (libraries, university computer labs, etc), only go to those sites that you would go to sitting next to your grandmother.
No boom today. Boom tomorrow. There's always a boom tomorrow. - Cmdr. Susan Ivanova
It's strange that it's so unspecific. Perhaps necessarily so, since no software can guarantee blocking all illegal images, unless it prevents all access.
- (B) CERTIFICATION- A certification under this subparagraph is a certification that the school, school board, or other authority with responsibility for administration of the school--
Why the (ii)? Are adults allowed to see child porn on school computers?- (i) has selected a technology for its computers with Internet access in order to filter or block Internet access through such computers to--
(I) material that is obscene; and
(ii) is enforcing a policy to ensure the operation of the technology during any use of such computers by minors.(II) child pornography; and
And does it mean "block ALL material that's obscene"? Certainly they couldn't expect that... everyone would be in violation. So do they mean "block SOME obscene images"? "Try to get as much as possible"?
Also note that Playboy doesn't count as obscene or as child porn, so this bill leaves the decision to block sites such as playboy up to the individual libraries. It just says that libraries must block images that everyone has supposedly decided is extremely offensive.
--
- Step 1 - Find out who your representative is in the House of Representatives
- Step 2 - call them, write them, email them -- whatever it takes to let them know that you are against censorware in our libraries.
If you send an email, includes links to censorware.org and the winner's of the foil the filter contest.--
lukas
Zambozay! My brain must've been eatin' a sandwich!
Maybe we could get a provision included that any censorware that is used to satisfy this law must make public a list of sites blocked, and why.
They even do it to bypass Constitutional limits on what the Federal government can do. The states are supposed to be in charge of education, but the Fed can get away with this sort of sh*t in that area because the programs are state run and "federally funded".
If my state (Oklahoma) wants to install censorware (and it probably does), then the state legislature can pass the damned tax themselves (with voter approval)!
My mom is not a Karma whore!