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ACLU And Libraries Challenge CIPA
In a nutshell: a few years ago, Congress got the bright idea that libraries and schools ought to have internet connections and computers. You may be aware that for many years, there has been a tax levied on telephone service which goes to the "universal service" fund - this money is supposed to be used to fund telephone service in remote areas of the United States, to ensure that all U.S. citizens have access to a telephone. Alaska is a major beneficiary.
The universal service fund was the natural place to tap to provide funds for discounted internet access to libraries and schools, and it was. Under the new programs, schools and libraries could receives funds to purchase computers and ongoing discounts on internet access charges. The new program was called "E-Rate", and about $5.5 billion has been spent so far, and up to $2.25 billion may be spent each year. My phone bill says that I am being taxed $0.43/month/line for universal service - I'm not certain if this is constant across the United States or not. You can check your local school or library to see if they are receiving funding here.
However, the Federal Government giveth and the Federal Government taketh away. For several years running, conservatives in Congress attempted to add language which would require recipients of this funding to censor their internet access. So, internet=GOOD, uncensored internet=BAD. Senator John McCain spearheaded the drive to impose internet censorship in any institution which accepted the funds or discounts. In December 2000, the language was added to the 2001 omnibus spending bill, which was ten inches thick when Congress finally voted to approve it - thick enough that no one on earth could claim to know what actually was in the spending bill and what was not.
Although there were attempts to make the bill apply only to terminals used by minors, the final bill applies to all terminals used by anyone. The institutions receiving funding are required to block access to (at a minimum) obscene materal, child pornography, and material harmful to minors (when minors are using the terminals). Given the technical limitations of the software, it's impossible for blocking to be limited to those areas listed. Some schools and libraries will choose to reject the funding and find some other way to budget for internet access. Some will accept the funding and the conditions. Talk to your library and find out.
And here we are. The plaintiffs -- libraries and library associations, library patrons, and people who publish content likely to be blocked -- are asserting that Congress has violated several Constitutional rights with the passage of this law. Read the last few pages of either complaint for an explicit listing of their claims. These are hard claims to make - the court system has often upheld Congress' power to put conditions on funding, since after all, the libraries do have the option of declining the funds - perhaps eliminating their internet access - and in that case, they wouldn't be bound by the law's requirement to censor their internet access. Funding for the interstate highway system has been tied to a national speed limit and to a national drinking age, for example.
In other words, this legal challenge is no slam dunk. This is more like a shot from half court with Michael Jordan in your face. The remedy with the greatest chance of success is pushing Congress to reverse itself and make the E-rate funds restriction-free.
The real solution is the removal of the tax. I'm with the Libertarians on this one.
I agree with the Libertarians on quite a few things as well. Too bad their candidates always come off as crackpots. They need to find someone a tad more moderate to get in and start things moving in the right direction. This all or nothing, all at once approach won't work. Their candidates even scare me, and I'm inclined to agree with them fairly often.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
I want my kids to stop downloading porn and get back to playing quake and learning how to shoot people properly, like every red blooded american ought to.
Yes, and the government decided to allocate it in a wildly stupid way because McCain et al are too stupid to understand the technology they want to regulate.
The real solution is the removal of the tax. I'm with the Libertarians on this one. There are some things of national need which are best run by the government and funded via taxes. For example, I put roads, schools, police, firefighters, military, and maybe utilities in this category. (complete aside: the one part of California which isn't subject to rolling blackouts is the City of Los Angeles. That's because LA owns its own power generation capacity) Internet access for libraries is not one of those things.
How much would it really cost to provide a dial-up connection to every library in the country? This doesn't require any sort of central planning or administration. Just walk into your nearest library with your checkbook and the phone number for a local ISP. Heck, I bet the ISP would provide service at a discount in exchange for the publicity...
-jon
Remember Amalek.
If you want poor areas to have Internet access in libraries, but you don't want stupid government censorship, raise the money yourself and give it to these schools!
It's not like charity _has_ to come from the federal government...
-jon
Remember Amalek.
The idea is, primarily, to smooth the differences between rich and poor neighborhoods. My neighborhood could easily afford to put computers in the libraries, but not every one can. If the federal government is going to be involved this is a good reason for them to be. The differences in income in this country are largely due to differences in education. Differences in education are largely due to differences in affluence. Therefore, smoothing access to educational resources will ultimately (on a generational scale anyway) lead to a smoothing of class differences.
The problem is that the bill has been turned into a censorship bill and the right to refuse has been taken away from those who most need the help. My neighborhood could easily tell Dubya to go spank it, but the neighborhoods who need the help simply cannot do that.
Once you take away the choice, the censorship is all you are left with. Hopefully this thing will be stuck down and the money used to provide internet access instead of thought police.
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"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." Well, it was a nice thought...
Re-read that, and re-read the article. Congress isn't saying you're not free to browse whatever you want. All they're saying is that they will offer funds to libraries if the libraries censor the internet. You're still perfectly free to enjoy pr0n in your home. Even further, you're even perfectly free to donate to your local library to install a pr0n-loaded computer accessible to minors. There's nothing whatsoever that's being made illegal here.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not for this particular budget restriction. However, it has nothing to do with free speech. Congress can dole out our tax dollars in any way, shape, or form it wants to, and the only thing we can do about it is to write our Congressperson.
What's your damage, Heather?
Consdering that it's unconstitutional for the federal government to regulate libraries and schools in the first place, why is it supprising that they are regulating it in an unconstitutional way?
They're not regulating schools or libraries. They're offering funding to libraries for internet access if they install filters. That's all. They're not saying the libraries can't spend their own money (or the community's money, however you want to look at it) and install pr0n-laden computers accessible to minors.
This is no different than Congress saying, "Ok, Texas, you can have half-a-billion bucks for highway renovations this year, but you have to use it on interstates, and you have to restrict the speed on those interstates to 65 mph." Get it? They're enforcing arbitrary rules for our own safety (they think) as a condition of receiving the money.
Now, if Texas had a ton of money, they could maintain their own highways and ignore the speed limit. In fact, Montana did just this for a while. However, most states find it easier to accept the burdens in exchange for the bucks. It's not an additional regulation - the states have to choose to take the money.
Thankfully, internet access costs a lot less than highways. You can organize fund-raising drives for your local library to get filter-free internet access, and your library would actually thank you for it. So you ARE doing this, right? Or are you just sitting around whining?
What's your damage, Heather?
Michael's comment about the ability of Congress to tie conditions to funding programs is off-base in this situation. Congress can use funding restrictions to get around the Commerce Clause; it cannot use them to get around the First Amendment.
The Commerce Clause says (effectively) that Congress can only legislate on matters involving interstate commerce. A national drinking age is not a matter of interstate commerce; it's a state policy decision that Congress is not constitutionally competent to regulate. So Congress used "legislative bribery" to force states to adopt a national drinking age. Since there is no constititional "right to drink", however, this doesn't offend the Constitution because Congress is entitled to determine how to spend federal money.
However, there is a Constitutionally-protected right of free speech. Furthermore, this right acts to limit not only Congress but also the states and other entities which are acting as governmental agencies (including public schools and public libraries). The First Amendment will no more countenance "legislative bribery" that restricts speech than it will a direct regulation that does the same.
As proof, I offer a case handed down earlier this term, in which the Supreme Court invalidated a regulation that requires lawyers who receive funding from the Legal Service Organization to refrain from representing clients who were challenging the legality or constitutionality of welfare reform laws. The Supreme Court held that this restriction violated the free speech rights of both the lawyers receiving the funding and their clients. I don't see how the instant matter is any different.
Computers cannot be offended: it's not the censorware computer program that is doing the filtering of offensive material.
If it's not the censorware, it's the proponents of the censorware, that chooses what to hide from you. What political slant or prejudices are you entrusting with the filter?
Government-mandated filtering via a commercial product means a private company becomes a government bureacracy: think of the complexity of ensuring several million, if not billions, of websites are blocked or allowed according to government-mandated standards.
If a government sets the standards for what to filter, then the government opens itself for lawsuits. Millions of lawsuits where website creators feels they are being censored unfairly.
If the government requires censorship before they distribute funds, that's government sponsored censorship. That, by itself, is against your argument and against the First Amendment.
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It's an accepted method of pushing your agenda, and both parties do it. As long as the goverment is giving you money, be it controlled by demicans or republicrats, you're going to have to answer to them.
The solution? Vote Libertarian. The only way to be sure your money will go for what you feel is right is to not give it to the government. Any other way is to submit to the will of whatever bozo happens to be in charge.
Think about it. The Republican party wants you to do whatever you want with your money, as long as it's not "immoral". The Democrats want you to be able to do whatever you want, except use your money for what you feel is right. The Libertarians want to take the Government off your back socially and fiscally.
Libraries need to stop taking government funds. Otherwise we fight a new battle each time some power-hungry politician comes in with an agenda to push (which is every 2 years in the congress, 4 years in the whitehouse).
Karma: Bored. (Thinking about resurrecting the "Anyone else is an imposter" joke.)
Ah yes, my favorite moment is always the one when people are asked to stick out their neck for something they say they believe in.
I often get the feeling that the people on Slashdot like to bitch and moan, without actually stepping up and doing something about it. I don't mean to be preachy, but you can whine about things forever. But the coolest people on earth are those who step up for what they believe in.
To the point, if you think that the government shouldn't be able to tell these libraries to install crappy censorship software, help out. Honestly, it wouldn't cost you much money. You could order DSL for the library, and buy a router/hub for as many computers to share the connection as needed.
And guess what, in the end you actually will get something out of it - the knowledge that you kicked some ass and did something about it.