Slashdot Mirror
CIPA Trial Comes to a Close
Cossie writes "As the latest major case on library/internet censorship comes to a close, CNET News has an article up summarizing the court battle over the CIPA (Children's Internet Protection Act). It's a decent summary of the case, including several quotes by judges commenting on the case." See our story from when the suit was filed describing the issues at stake.
The problem- Private Emails were illegal too under the act.
It was a crime to use offensive words in email, including political email.
The law might have gotten further if it was not too fascist.
But the US passed a workaround by joining the hate-speech laws the EU adopted and used a TREATY to enjoin the usa citizens... now extraditable to EU for Nazi Speech or White Pride Speech!
A Treaty overrides Constitution evidently.
Thus the locale law becomes moot.
So slashdot doesn't like the US Gov't to have supreme control over the internet to censor it. Slashdot wants the people, themselves, to do censoring if necessary, where everyone has their own choice.
To change the wording around:
The slashdot population doesn't like the slashdot editors to have supreme control over slashdot to censor it. Slashdot population wants themselves to have control (like the FAQ says), where each person has their own system (not editors with unlimited mod points).
Posting anonymously, cause michael will have a hayday with this one...
I'm sorry? Since when do we see ads popping up saying "Hey kiddies! Come look at naked ladies!"
It just doesn't make sense to me
Randal Graves says: I'm a firm believer in the philosophy of a ruling class... Especially since I rule.
From Atty. Rupa Bhattacharyya's arguments in court: "Even if you assume that libraries have a right to provide unfettered access to the Internet, they don't have a right to do so with a federal subsidy," she added. "The crux of this matter is whether or not Congress has the power to decide how to use its money."
And she's right, but probably not the way she thinks. The answer to her question is that Congress cannot use its powers in a manner that violates the Constitution--including the First Amendment.
!#@%*)anks for hanging up the phone, dear.
- "The law's terms, if you will, are a sham."
- "Every witness has testified that the statute can't be applied according to its own terms,"
- "What right does the government have to require this kind of filtering system?"
Our local library put the internet terminals in the middle of the library where anyone could see what you were looking at. Should this be considered a violation of free speech because even a minority of the local populace could intimidate you into not visiting sites you would otherwise want to. Should the library be forced to provide rooms for internet access where you could browse in private?
Ahhh yess, the obligatory sigh oh, did you say sig?
So this law is deeply flawed and should be thrown out. It appears that is the sentiment here and I would have to agree.
But, would anyone else agree that there is a problem here that needs to be addressed somehow? Should kids (or adults for that matter) be able to view whatever the hell they want on a public PC in a public library? I would love to hear some of the big brains here suggest alternative solutions.
Sadly, all that I can think of is good old fashioned human supervision.
"Even if you assume that libraries have a right to provide unfettered access to the Internet, they don't have a right to do so with a federal subsidy," she added. "The crux of this matter is whether or not Congress has the power to decide how to use its money."
It's not IT'S money it's OUR money. Amazing how often our representatives seem to lose sight of that.
My poetry site welcomes the unusual.
Trying to protect children from pornography on the net is futile, for two reasons.
First, it's stupid to target the net when you can get more/better porno in cable. Even mainstream channels like Cinemax are now offering softcore, and nobody is talking about banning it. And, yes, I'm pretty sure more kids have access to cable TV than to internet.
Two, there isn't that much porn out there. Yes, there are plenty of teasers, but it's REALLY hard these days to get to actual porn wothout paying for it. Porn sites are businesses, and kids don't get in without paying (and paying is pretty hard for a kid).
So, I say all these people need to chill out a bit. Try to be a good parent, and get used to the idea that your kid WILL actually see some porn, somewhere, somehow. I did. You probably did too. Did it cause us any harm? Of course not.
"We were so busy trying to give our children all the things we never had, we forgot to give them all the things we did have".- Someone, I don't remember who. But he was right.
A ruling that makes sense from the judiciary! Pop the champaigne! With all the legislation that's been introduced (CBDTPA) and passed (DMCA), I'm starting to loose a little faith in the legislative process. Whoop whoop: checks and balances.
Seriously, I've not read about anyone looking to challange the DMCA in court. I've heard about defences being mounted against it, but no one has (to my knowledge) challanged the law, even though it seems that there could be a constitutional claim against it, if only under the area of copyright. I assume the EFF, ACLU, etc have looked into this? Is anyone planning on mounting a challange in the courts? If not, does anyone have any pointers to reasons why?
To borrow from some post I read yesterday: if we're serious about Online Rights, we need to start taking up the political tactics of other more successful movements (e.g. the gun lobby), and cast the debate in our terms. For instance, we're not technology advocates or content pirates, we're Pro-Information Liberty, or some such thing. The Online Rights movement needs some better branding.
We also need to be more active (e.g. on the offensive) in the judiciary realm of the government so as to get more rulings like this one.
Howard Dean for president
What the first amendment is really about is enabling communication that may be unpopular with government authorities.
Government authorities are always trying to get around this by taking the absurd position that the freedom to hear has nothing to do with the freedom to speak:
"There is no constitutional right to immediate, anonymous access to speech, for free, in a public library," Justice Department Attorney Rupa Bhattacharyya said in a spirited defense
Of course there is no constitutional right to free public Internet access. But once it is there, it is not up to a government official to decide what kind of content is acceptable in communications between individuals. The analogy to selecting books is flawed. The government in this case must spend public funds to obtain the books, and of course should be selective. A better analogy would be a requirement that books have pages ripped out of them that might contain information that might be offensive to some people.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
NO. There is a HUGE difference between "providing" and "not forbidding".
It's the difference between "requiring all DVD's to be unencrypted and lacking region codes" and "not throwing people in jail for bypassing these restrictions in a reasonable and fair manner".
Hacker Public Radio is our Friend
It's not a question of whether or not they should supply it - it's whether they're ALLOWED to supply it. If this kind of filtering was applied to books, libraries would be banned from offering books by Chaucer, Henry Miller etc etc...
I think a much better solution than this legislation is for libraries to not allow children access to the internet at all without parental supervision. It should be the parents' responsibility to decide what is and isn't appropriate for their child to see, not the libraries' or the federal government's. Stop blaming the libraries, asking for impossible legislation, etc., and take the time to supervise your children.
Libraries could still provide computers for use by unsupervised children that are not connected to the internet, or that are firewalled to only provide limited set of services such as e-mail.
-- jason
Some of them do - like Playboy - which according to the last place I worked (rulespace.com) was adult material.
Often the definition of what porn is - is very broad. For instance should books on sex be banned? Again check your local shelves you might be suprised.
We can probably skip the discussion on what these filters tend to actually filter. Just I think its funny when my dad (who is a certified librarian at a public school) tried to visit the American Library Association but was stopped by "web sense". Their filter also used to block "entertainment" until my father pointed out that people do enjoy reading - since the school was using the metaphor for a long time that the internet could replace the library.
Censorware - changing the debate from "filtering" (Technology)8
By Seth Finkelstein
http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2002/3/25/8925/0608
New sig for today: My proposal to Slashdot for CIPA article
who is the guy that is in the slashdot censor icon?
slashdot: where everyone yells sarcastic metaphors to themselves to understand the issue
As a conservative Christian myself, I'd say you're right on the money, except that even censorware for small children isn't terribly effective. There's an awful lot of stuff that isn't necessarily porn that is still inappropriate for small children; rather than installing censorware and hoping that does the job, I'd just say that the younger the children are, the more important parental involvement is. That means more than just glancing over their shoulders every few minutes; it means actually spending time with them while they use the net.
The net is NOT like existing sources of information. If you take your kids to the video store, you can see what part of the video store they're in. If you take your kids to the library, you can see where they're at. When your kids surf the net, you can't necessarily see what part of the net they're using. The net puts all the information of the world right there in your PC. All of it, good, bad, and ugly. This is convenient but requires a lot more vigilance on the part of parents.
I think in a generation we'll have a much better handle on this, but right now it's so new parents are struggling to adapt.
People are never as simple as their stereotypes. This applies equally to Christians, Muslims, and Emacs-lovers.
"There is no constitutional right to immediate, anonymous access to speech, for free, in a public library," Justice Department Attorney Rupa Bhattacharyya said...
As wiser /. readers than I have pointed out recently, something doesn't need to be in the Constitution to make it a right. The Constitution explicitly says that the Bill of Rights is an incomplete list, and that any and all rights and powers not explicitly enumerated in the Constitution are reserved for the jurisdiction of the States.
Note how it begins, "All legislative powers herein granted..." That means anything not explicitly mentioned is not granted to the federal government. Again, those wiser than myself also cite the 9th and 10th Amendments:
Article [IX.]
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
Article [X.]
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
Therefore, our Constitutional rights, by construction, include rights not named in the Constitution. :-)
I've become involved in setting up a media center in the library of an elementary school. The school has internet access but does not provide said access to the student population. There is some desire, however, to allow access to specific sites that the teachers feel complement topics being presented in the classroom.
What I have proposed is to block *ALL* general access to the internet except for those site that the teachers have added to an Access Control List. These lists may be dynamically updated and may be limited to very specific durations.
The idea is that the students will not have unfettered access to the internet. They will only be *shown* content that the teacher feels is relevant to what is being taught.
While this approach may not be appropriate for a public library we feel that it is for a public school setting. We feel that it sidesteps the issue of the 1st amendment because we are not limiting the general publics access. Furthermore the school has no obligation to provide students access to the internet. In fact the access is being provided to the teachers.
No information is harmful to it's consumers in and of itself. If someone, even a child seeks out information, even pr0n, they want to view the info. If a kid who is not interested in sex sees a nekkid lady/dude, they will giggle that they are nekkid and move on - they probably clicked the wrong button to get there anyway. If a teenager who is interested in pr0n for sex why not let them see what there is to see! ( I remember bbs's were my sole source of nekkid ladies when I was 13-15 and now that I'm in my mid 20s I know it didn't hurt me at all )
Anyone who has seen Dances with Wolves knows that in the olden days the natives used to boink in the same TeePee with the rest of their family. Kids couldn't avoid seeing sex going on! And as glad as I am that I never had to see my old man and maw going at it, sex is just a fact of life like eating working dying and being born.
Of course it would suck if every site I wanted to look at, like google for instance had graphic advertizements for Gay Pr0n, and children shouldn't have pr0n shoved in their face either. On the other hand, how much more obscenely annoying is an advertizement for pr0n than an advertizement for Coca-Cola in the middle of your favorite TV show?
Eat at Joe's.
It does regulate the decency of the mail; sending "obscene" materials through the mail is an offense.
However, that tends to be subject to local community standards. If memory serves, there was a Tennessee postmaster who found out about a non-TN couple mailing out bestiality videos. He ordered some for evidence, then initiated prosecution.
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
to some extent. Go look for books on the work of Mapplethorpe (a fairly well renowned photographer). Much of what you see in tho could be considered porn but could also be considered art.
There was a big fuss in the UK since at one point the police decided this was an obscene work and raided libraries to confiscate it.
I trust libraries to make material that has some value available, regardless of some blanket regulation on how much flesh they can show.
ABSOLUTELY!!!
In fact I have noticed that school libraries have gone downhill since net access was added to them. The internet is NOT a library!
Librarians CHOOSE which books to put on the shelf. Is that censorship?
Librarians also keep track of the books you borrow. Is that a privacy violation?
--Jeff
ipv6 is my vpn
It's strange, this should be so straighforward - and it isn't. IMO, the judges may have missed the point. Or, maybe I did. I dunno.
I have about 50 boxes in this company. We own them; we decide, without question, what will and will not happen on each. No user has the right to do anything but what we intend... after all, they're our boxes, not the user's.
I don't see libraries as being any different. If they wish to provide a box for people to use, the library is well within it's scope of authority to attach any TOS it wants. Period. After all, the library owns the box, it's THEIRS. "The Arbitrary Public" has about as much authority over the use of these boxes as they do a police car. God help the idiot who thinks he's entitled to drive one of those somewhere, he'd get a Darwin award for sure, and noone would disagree.
I have real difficulty arguing otherwise... I have a couple machines at home, and they are MINE. Not my wife's, not my kids, not some jerk walking in off the street, and NOT the property of some anonymous, arbitrary vendor. I am a strong defender of curtilage regarding my boxes; they are mine, they exist to suit my purposes exclusively, and only I will dictate what they do. What some people call UCE, I'm the type of guy who calls it a packet stream that results in an unwanted impact on the state of my systems; in other words, it's theft of service and intrusion. Meanwhile, all of these "3rd party rights" do nothing but dilute my scope of authority over those boxes.
help me i've cloned myself and can't remember which one I am
The Children's Internet Protection Act (CIPA), which supporters view as the government's best shot yet at reining in online smut, requires public libraries to install filtering software on all computers or lose federal technology funding.
Kinda ironic acronym for Children's Internet Protection Act, fighting for censorship of porn. I mean, if I had something like this in Poland, I wouldn't be able to read about CIPA!
I think that if you want to censor offensive informations, you shouldn't choose a name which is itself offensive in different language, unless you want to be censored as well...
Children's Internet Protection Act - it's the funniest thing I read today! Thank you CIPA, you made my day!
~shiny
WILL HACK FOR $$$
Wait, whose money? Perhaps I have the wrong idea about government, but every other quote I've seen like this one at least calls it the taxpayer's money. Or maybe I've had my head in the sand for a while.