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.
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.
Since when do we see ads popping up saying "Hey kiddies! Come look at naked ladies!"
They may not see popups but they may see porn-spam to web based e-mail used only in libraries. Not to mention results in search engines, and clever traps used to lure kids into chat rooms and porn sites.
ASCII tastes bad dude.
Binary it is then.
- "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?"
"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.
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.
The obvious flaw in this analogy is that libraries (and other public bodies) are funded by the public, for the public, where slashdot is a privately run company.
If they want to use the mod system any way they like that's entirely their prerogative.
That's the silliest thing I've ever heard. Kids have no money. Porn sites run by getting customers to pay money. Thus porn sites have no interest in showing kids porn. Any traps out there on the net to lure people to porn are designed for ADULTS, because adults are the ones that can then pay these people to look at naked people.
As far as chat rooms are concerned, it's pretty much kids doing their own exploring, they hardly have to be lured. Usually this is because the kids don't have parents or schools that satisfy their curiosity in regard to sex, so who can you blame there?
Unbreakable toys can be used to break other toys.
I am glad your first posted comment is a good one...
A central tenet of professional education in Library Science is that public libraries have a mission to provide information to anyone who asks in a non-judgemental way.
This is exactly why I don't think any kind of governmental control over library internet access would work. Regardless of intent or implementation, it would only serve to undermine the very purpose of a public information store (library). It seems that in it's zeal to "protect" the public from harmful information, it instead is "protecting" us from ourselves.
ASCII tastes bad dude.
Binary it is then.
This is interesting, i wasn't aware that pictures of people bumping uglies was particularly addictive. Oh but wait, that's sex, something that most people will become addicted to once they're exposed. Let's just cut off all their genetalia so that we don't have to worry about this new plague to assault our young. Heaven knows it caused enough trouble for your parents.
The fact of the matter is, you can only look at so many pictures of naked people before you realize that they basically all involve the same parts, just in different proportions.
Also, credit card fraud is expensive. It's not a matter of some vast porn industry conspiracy to "hook" people on this imaginary addiction. Porn sites scrape by when they make cash. Getting credit card companies on your case for trying to use stolen credit card numbers means that they go bankrupt. I somehow doubt most porn site operators are selfless enough to "take one for the team" to get kids hooked on porn at their expense.
Don't be an idiot and think before you post.
Unbreakable toys can be used to break other toys.
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.
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 $$$
There are always going to be people who get addicted to things that they shouldn't be. However, this does not mean that the government should then be required to prevent anybody from accessing something that a few people find addictive.
I agree.
Sex is healthy.
I agree.
However it is neither the governments job to censor it, nor is it the government's job to try to protect us from something that is harmless to the vast majority.
I agree.
Somebody else's lack of control is not an excuse for somebody to censor me.
They why isn't there naked weathergirls on TV in the US? Just because we don't agree with the law doesn't make it wrong. What makes it (legally) wrong is that in a court's opinion it says it's wrong regardless of our personal views.
If you are of the opinion that such an act is justified then I really have no regard for how many weeks of though you've put into your opinion.
Close mindedness will never allow you or I to see another viewpoint. This self-limitation can only close off new ideas and thoughts which leads to and end of wisdom and learning. You and I can disagree on every single point of consideration. However, that does not preclude us from understanding each other's point of view. I understand that you think it's silly for someone to get addicted to porn. I think it's silly for someone to get addicted to nicotine. That does not mean I disregard smoking or chewing or people who do so.
People trying to censor what I can and can't see tends to get me more than a little mad.
Any limitation of personal freedoms is difficult to swallow for Americans and people in general. Personally, I feel competent enough to make my own decisions regarding right and wrong. Having morals dictated to me by government is not good. I have religion for that. However, having a government designed to protect me from drunk drivers is good. So there are some valid arguments for both sides of this fence.
ASCII tastes bad dude.
Binary it is then.