Slashdot Mirror
Supreme Court Rejects Free-Speech Challenge
zookie writes "According to this Reuters article, the U.S. Supreme Court has essentially upheld a Virginia law that says public employees can't access sexually explicit material from state computers. The challenge to the law was from several professors saying that the law prevented them from doing their research. I'm curious what Slashdot readers think about the effects of this ruling from the highest court in the land -- does this bode poorly for future challenges to laws censoring the Internet?" Keep in mind that Virginia already has the usual abilities to fire someone goofing off at work - the only thing this law affects is employees who have legitimate reasons to view sexually explicit art, poetry, etc. as a part of their job. If you have a sexual disorder and plan on going to a Virginia university hospital, perhaps you should reconsider - your doctor is barred by law from researching your disorder online. The first decision in the case, that was favorable to the ACLU et al., is available.
I do not think this is totally true. Are all Virginia University's owned by the state? I'm sure some are private. Even if they receive some state funding that does not mean they are owned by the state. FUD is a bad thing.
rwm
First Kansas decides that Darwin is a figment of our imaginations. Now this is Virginia. I could understand if they didn't want students surfing porn on lab computers (I might not agree with it, but I can understand it). But how can they expect their higher-education system to be taken seriously with such Draconian laws? I've definitely had classes (as I'm sure most people have) that would have been implacted by this nonsense.
The decision that upheld the Virginia law (by the 4th Circuit) (which the Supreme Court declined to review) is available at:h tml.
http://www.law.emory.edu/4circuit/feb99/981481.p.
There, the 4th Circuit states:
"But, the Act does not prohibit all access by state employees to such materials, for a state agency head may give permission for a state employee to access such information on computers owned or leased by the Commonwealth if the agency head deems such access to be required in connection with a bona fide research project or other undertaking."
So it looks like research hospitals are still allowed to access materials, as long as they get authorization.
From the article:
[Virginia Attorney General Mark Earley] said state employees did not have a First Amendment right to disregard the law and decide for themselves whether sexually explicit material was required for their professional, employment-related research and writing needs.
Is he saying what I think he's saying? Does it have to be enumerated in the constitution for this guy to believe that people can decide for themselves what they need to access for their work? I hope he was simply misquoted, because that statement is bad in more ways than I can count.
I can't find a link to the opinion or the dissenting opinion, but this was probably decided on the basis of State's Rights. It has been upheld many, many times in the past that states and local communities have the right to make legislation affecting morality and ethics. This is why Nevada can have legal brothels and most other states cannot.
I'm certain that the argument here is that since the professors are 'employees of the state', then the state gets full and free reign over what they consider is moral and ethical behavior on the job.
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
Sexually explicit is defined as any depiction or description of ``sexual excitement,'' ``sexual conduct,'' or ``a lewd exhibition of nudity.''
Sexual excitement,conduct or a LEWD exhibition of nudity.
I don't really see proctology being exciting, sexual or lewd.
Nor are STD's, pregnancy, or any of the other countless legitmate things we can look up on the 'net that have some minor connection to sex.
Be realistic, guys. PLEASE.
Now, as for, oh, the study of adult art, or porn through the ages (Digression - why, oh, why do you spell it pr0n? )
Professors or other state employees must get written permission from their agency heads before accessing sexually explicit material.
There ya go. No longer a problem, and its in the article that is linked from slashdot.
I can't see a hospital DENYING permission for a doctor to look up penile dysfunction on the web. And while I can see a university refusing to let a professor look up porn, its probably because he's being contraversial. And then he can look it up From Home. Just like the rest of us.
Poor little no puppy toe!
http://quiz.ravenblack.net/blood.pl?3357354385
The Supreme Court is always very choosy about what they review. If they had actually upheld the decision, that would be binding on all the courts in the land. As it stands, other circuit courts are free to decide similar cases differently. That's a big difference that saying the law was "essentially upheld" glosses over. It's never safe to infer anything from a decline to review except that the particular case is settled, no matter how tempting it is for the pundits to sound off.
From reading the article, it appears that the Supreme Court declined to review the case. This does not mean that the Supreme Court agrees with the lower court. The Supreme Court declines to hear (denies certiori) most of the cases that are appealed to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court can only hear a limited number of cases every year, and there are many reasons why they may decline to hear a case.
If Virginia doesn't want to pay for that research -- or, more aptly, thinks that that research is not worth the price of allowing pornographic material on their computers -- that is our privilege. If you don't like it, vote.
--
-- Slashdot sucks.
If you're at work, shouldn't you be working? Even if you're on a break, do you need to surf p0rn? They're your employer, what's wrong with them stopping what they don't want you to do? If you want to surf for p0rn during work, work for someone else. I'm sure if there was a reason you needed to see sexually explicit stuff, such as when researching sexual disorders, you would be granted that right. For example, I'm sure the doctors at MCV, a top medical institution that's in Richmond, are researching all kinds of sexually explicit information.
:)
BTW, also consider this, Virginia, except for the NoVa area, is a very conservative state. However, I fail to see how this correlates to the backward-thinking folks in Kansas in re: of evolution that one poster referred to. Virginia has one of the best education systems in America. Non-Americans, bring on the America sucks at education trolls!
Nosce te Ipsum
There's a pretty narrow definition of pornography, which is why "Gray's Anatomy" and other reference books that depict the naughty bits of the human body will still be considered legit in Virginia, so I'm not going to consider this to be a huge blow for free speech. The status quo is more or less being maintained.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
This might be relevant if doctors needed to "research" your disorder on porn sites. As it is, this strikes me as Just Another Slashdot Editor Overreaction (tm). Aside from the fact that I'm quite sure that doctors have plenty of off-line material at hand, I'm not sure that www.sexualdisorderfetish.com is the best place to gather information anyway.
Why michael chose to put in a jab at the law over doctors, rather than a legitimate gripe about professors (perhaps) being unable research/writing on pornography or some other sexually explicit topic, is beyond me.
Virginia may be able to fire people who goof off, but that doesn't help them in sexual harrassment cases where someone was looking at porn. Unless they have an official policy against viewing "sexually explicit content" they can be held liable if someone does. It's a simple matter of having to cover your own ass.
"Information wants to be expensive" - Stewart Brand, the same guy who said "Information wants to be free"
It really isn't much. The Supremes just declined to hear the case. They decline cases all the time because of the large number that reach them.
More importantly, the Virginia case was brought by state employees, not state citizens. Certainly governments can control their employees with means they cannot use on the general population. They give some pay raises, others not.
It would be more interesting if this were a case of citizens who wanted to surf/post pr0n at their local library. In my mind, that would be a clearer case of 1st Amendment free-speech rights.
aside from the complaints of people who want to look at art with 'obscene' stuff there are some other more practical problems. psychiatrists couldn't research any sex fetishes they might find. what if there is a serial killer on the lose who is a necrophiliac? theoretically police could get information on similar crimes in other states via the internet, but i guess they have other means of getting this information. it does say lewd exhibition of nudity, so theoretically doctors ought to be ok, except for psyciatrists reading about coprophiliacs. also you couldn't do any legitimate research into sex at all. i think you could do research on animal mating because the law seems to provide access to materials depicting bestiality which according to the dictionary is human-lower animal sex, even though i suppose there are people out there who like to watch elephants hump. anyway this isn't really that big of a tread on the first amendment rights of state employees seeing as how the first amendment really doesn't apply as much as people might think.
> ... access from state computers
.. hey, it makes a good case for working from home! Lucky them! ;)
I dont know how many doctors/researchers you know, but most I know own a computer and access at home.
There's nothing that prevents them from using their home computer. And
Seriously tho, while it shows a lack of trust between employer and employee, surely if other companies are allowed to do it, so can the government (which, for all intents and purposes, is a business with a bad bottom line).
If something has never been said/seen/heard before, best stop to think about why that is.
"Old man yells at systemd"
How recursively ironic is that? This alone should be enough to strike down this law. I guess the defense won't be using state computers to defend their position.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
Nothing to see here, move along.
sulli
RTFJ.
This is a state where:
... I mean, take a persons ability to get their ya-ya's off at work? Hell, I could give up my 3 Guinness lunch, but give up my one-wank-coffee break?!?!
There is a state law prohibiting "corrupt practices of bribery by any person other than candidates."
If one is not married, it is illegal for him to have sexual relations.
You may not have oral or anal sex.
Citizens must honk their horn while passing other cars.
Children are not to go trick-or-treating on Halloween.
It is illegal to tickle women.
Now, granted that there are some whoppers here in my home state of Massachusetts, but
Ceci n'est pas une sig.
does it bother anyone else that because of the fact that this country was founded by puritans (that fun loving bunch of party animals) the sinister menace of SEX is considered the most evil of all things? i mean forget war forget the fact that our public school system sucks forget all the problems we have and just make sure that no one ever sees any naked people EVER! give me a break!
newbie has been railed by intel*[MS]*
This has nothing to do with libraries. This law actually makes sense.
I've worked in ObGyn, and will tell you that there is a distinct difference between medical resources and pornography resources. The professors may be stretching things a little too far, unless they are researching the effects of pornography. Their research has to be approved by the University anyway, so they would be allowed to look at the stuff if it was for an approved project.
There should be no legitimate complaint here.
Virginia isn't for lovers anymore?
sulli
RTFJ.
I do contracted network security work for the state of Virginia. And yes... I have to look at sexually explicit material to verify "slackers" at work from time to time.
Most of the porn is blocked at the firewalls, but you'd be suprised (perhaps not) at how "hard" people will "work" to get at their porn while on the high bandwidth at work.
Am I breaking the law by trying to enforce it? Hell I'd almost like to get fired for the big brother tactics my job sometimes requires me to take.
http://windows.scares.us
I just can't understand the problem that so many people and their institutions seem to be having with nudity and sexual material. What's the big issue here?
Nude is what we all are under our clothes, even when we're walking down the high street. What does it mattter how much skin is showing? Why does the context matter at all?
As for sex, it's the most hilariously ridiculous act practiced by an otherwise rationally acting homo sapiens, as squishy bits rub together and froth and bubble while hormones bring our otherwise rationally thinking synapses into a natural drug-induced frenzy. The only extraordinary thing about sex is that we're not all catatonic from laughter while pumping and squeeezing away with everything we've got.
But what's the big deal about viewing such materials at work? Wasting time while being paid for being productive is understandably frowned on, but this is something different. What gives? Is the world mad?
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
...is another man's research. I did read the article. Here's what it says:
"Sexually explicit is defined as any depiction or description of 'sexual excitement,' `sexual conduct,' or `a lewd exhibition of nudity.'"
I can see how that would pose problems for all sorts of people attempting to access material for legitimate academic work. Literature and art, for example, often have enough sexual content to qualify under those rules.
And then what about researching sexuality and pornography? What if one wanted to write a paper about sexuality and the Internet?
Sexuality is as legitimate a subject for academia as anything else. It's absolutely ridiculous that college professors should have to ask their department heads to sign permission slips before they read anything explicit. It's just as ridiculous that they should have to get permission before giving academic assignments which deal with sexual matters to adult students.
As a former computer lab monitor, I'm all for nobody looking at porn in the lab, but this decision goes beyond that.
What difference does it make if they are surfing cartoonnetwork.com or playboy.com or slashdot for that matter? They are still wasting time.
I do not have a signature
Virginia Governor Jim Gilmore, the one who signed this into law, may well be the Attorney General by the end of Bush's term. There is a lot of well-credited speculation that Bush plans to put Ashcroft on the Supreme Court once a spot opens up, and by then, Gilmore's term in Virginia (we have a one-term limit) will be up. For those of you who are unaware, Gilmore is an ass. While I like Ashcroft's stance on crypto, there are a lot of other issues where he's simply draconian. As moderate as Bush seems, many of the people around him, the ones who will tell him what to do, are rather far right. If this election said anything, it's that America is fairly balanced in opinion. These folks won't represent the will of the people. They will represent their own interests.
Congressional elections are two years away. Let's get to work.
WARNING: there is a trojan on your
Essentially, this is no different than my Catholic school blocking access to porn sites. My school has every right to do this. If I don't like it, I can go to a different school. (Which will probably have the same policy, but I digress.) The issue at hand is no different, except that it is a statewide thing, and is all governmentally...
Essentially, I interpret this no differently than what you'll see at a workplace. The employer is telling you how you may and may not use their resources. Personally, I'd rather see this in my contract with them, rather than state law, but it shouldn't really matter if you're not a government employee.
What does concern me is the rising trend of judges making decisions that are made with no knowledge of technology at all. In my opinion, the Internet should be free from all legislation. Now, personally, this isn't entirely what I'd want. I'd much rather see laws passed against spammers, pop-up ads, and such. But if you know anything about computers (which most Slashdot people do; that's why I think most people will at least partially share my view), you will know that, except for rare cases, the "client" initiates contact. Now, in a DoS attack or something, yes, it's initated by the "server" (or some other foreign party). I once argued a bit with a teacher about this -- when a little kid tries to write to the White House and types in "www.whitehouse.com", I do not believe that the staff at WhiteHouse.com should be held responsible. Why? No, I'm not some freak obsessed with porn. So why? Let's see a little review of what's going on.
So how are the people owning the site responsible? Technically, the "client" requested them!
Sorry, I guess I got a little off-topic, but I feel this point needs to be made. I have no doubt that many /. readers support what I'm saying, but perhaps a judge or someone will read this? And get a clue? Also, one last comment. Users are connecting to a network of computers voluntarily. They are not in any way *forced* to be put on the Internet. (As much as AOL may bug you with their CD's, you can always play frisbee. You aren't obligated to use them...) If I allow strangers to walk into my house, and you see something that offends you, can you sue me? Well, given the current state of the legal system, maybe you can. But I don't think you should be able to.
________________________________________________
suwain_2
Now, if the State of Virginia has an automated porn sweeper and scoured the networks and drives for people breaking the rules and then immediately and automatically firing them, I'd be much more concerned. In reality though, this law will only be enforced on people who are doing things that they legitimately shouldn't be doing. Do you think a professor doing legitimate research on the history of prostitution is going to get busted? No!
---
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
I personally think that if evolution is taught in schools, it should be taught as a theory in an objective philosophy class as it contains an inherent world view.
.. you got me. But it seems these days you never know!
Biological evolution is change in the gene pool over time. That's it. That this happens is a matter of fact, not fancy. Any "inherent world view" that it contains is something that you have fabricated or have been force-fed by religious handlers. Biological evolution and its logical results (natural selection and common descent) say nothing about the meaning or purpose of life. They are processes; nothing more and nothing less.
Atheists who claim that evolution proves there is no God do so groundlessly. Fundamentalists who claim that evolution is incompatible with and an attack on their religion do so groundlessly. Biological evolution is as important to modern biology as atomic theory is to modern chemistry, and to suggest that it ought to be taught as philosophy is (at best) a joke or (more likely) a rather clever troll.
In the case of the latter, congratulations
We're going down, in a spiral to the ground
[D]oes this bode poorly for future challenges to laws censoring the Internet?
I would have to say, "No." It neither bodes favorably nor badly. The Supreme Court didn't pass on any legal question at all -- they simply refused certiorari (to review the case). They neither upheld nor overturned they law -- they just refused to take it up. This is a very different thing altogether.
Now, reading the statute, it provides only that, "[e]xcept to the extent required in conjunction with a bona fide, agency-approved research project or other agency approved undertaking, no agency employee shall utilize agency-owned or agency-leased computer equipment to access, download, print or store any information infrastructure files or services having sexually explicit content."
In other words, it is just an acceptable use provision for government agency employees.
No doubt, this is a stupid law, and it is bad public policy. But is it unconstitutional? Without the benefit of reviewing the briefs and record below, I am loathe to jump to such conclusions.
The SC has not ruled on censorship. It gives the state the right to do what ever it wants to its property. Just like you (should) have the right to do what ever you want to your property as long as it doesn't infringe on the rights of others.
If it does so happen that it is necessary to view porn on the net, just ask permission. I can see how that conversation might go:
Government Underling: may i look at porn on the net?
Government (paid) Boss: like i care.
This is what you get for having state funded colleges anyway. As a college student I know how it works.
Badly!
After several hundred years.
the babylonians, killed children as a part of worship, society collapsed
After several THOUSAND years! This "morality as a bastion of civilization" idea isn't exactly fast-acting.
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"