Slashdot Mirror
Senate Bill to Subsidize Anti-Censorware Research
Senators Wyden (D-Ore.) and Kyl (R-Ariz.) introduced the
Global Internet Freedom Act
earlier this month, setting aside $60 million over two years "to develop and deploy technologies to defeat Internet jamming and censorship." Of course they don't mean libraries and schools in this country -- they're talking about countries like China, as Kyl et al. explain in a
National Review article
a few days ago. I guess it wasn't confusing enough to
(1) subsidize censorware
and
(2) criminalize researching it
-- we also need to (3) subsidize researching it. How about forbidding American corporations from trading censorware goods or services to these "repressive governments," wouldn't that be a good start?
Update: 10/30 03:37 GMT by J : Here's the
Wired story
from early this month on the version that was introduced in the House.
(Sen. Wyden also teamed up last month with Sen. Cox (R-Calif.) on a little bitty resolution standing up for your fair use rights before the tank parade of the DMCA.)
I've been following censorware/anti-censorware issues for awhile now, both here in the UK and over in the United States.
The inherent problem lies in the fact that your Senate and Congress members strongly disagree on this whole topic, thusly ensuring several competing acts, some for censorware, and the others totally against such information-reducing software methods.
Unfortunately, it seems many of the more prominent members are in favor of censorware. For example, Senator John McCain from Arizona has proposed a bill that will force schools to implement filtering in order to receive a federal communications subsidy. This bill has raised awareness of the censorware situation, because many free speech advocates oppose it.
Department of Physics and Atmospheric Science, Dalhousie University, Halifax, N.S., Canada, B3H 3J5
Why should it matter if we sell them censorware or not? The people of China are hardly what one would think of as stupid... if we stopped selling them software they'd write it themselves. Developing ways to get around already established censoring techniques is more important than just not giving them the tools with which to censor
If you refuse to deal with someone, you can retain a semblance of ethical purity, it is true. But if they don't *need* your business in order to survive, the embargo doesn't accomplish anything in real terms to effect positive change. Companies and nations that have no ethical qualms about dealing with countries that censor their internet will continue to do business with them, and then you run the risk of being the isolationist odd-man out.
Besides, with the amount of censorship that is allowed to happen in this country, it'd be fairly hypocritical if we refused to deal with other nations that practiced censorship.
We're #17!!
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
The Library of Congress explicitely stated that "Compilations consisting of lists of Web sites blocked by filtering software applications" was an exception to the DMCA.
Presumably this extends to the restriction on tools as well, and the researcher in question just wants the courts to explicitely clarify this.
although you'd have to be a really sleazy person to argue it
Unfortunately, because it would only take one person, the chances of this happening is almost certain. In fact, this has been happening in pr0n for years, just not in this context.
There needs to be a way to fully protect children from the evils of the 'Net without hindering consenting adults as it were. Myself, I'm a proponent of having a pr0n top level domain that parents could just block or something like that. That makes it easy for parents, and easy for the pr0n industry and their clients. The only catch to all this is that the government would need to place restrictions on where and how the sites could be blocked.
A tough line to draw, as it always has been and will continue to be in this arena.
Ben
It seems on one hand they want to stop countries from censoring but when you look at it.. doesn;t our own fbi and cia do internet censorshp?
I seem to recall several websites shut down because the fbi did not like thme..I am talk about those sites shut before any court judgemnt not after..
Don't Tread on OpenSource
Forbid American Corporations?
What a stupid idea. This is just the sort of failed concept that was tried with all other sorts of technologies, be it NC Lathes (sold to the Russians by Toshiba), strong crypto (is the US the only country with good mathematicians) or chemical weapons technologies (sold to Iraq by German companies).
With the Chinese graduating twice as many engineers as the US, what makes you think they can't do this themselves??
... that the US government tries to censor the Net at home, if they're funding research like this. The fruits of this research will spread around the world at the speed of electrons. I can easily see a situation in, say, 2006 where a) the US has developed compact, easily distributed anti-censorware tools and got them into China, b) China has realized the futility of trying to control people's Net usage when such tools are available and given up, and c) US Net usage suffers from increasing restrictions that do nothing to slow down the h4x0rz but makes everyone else's life more difficult than it has to be. And then what? Why, then, the friendly folks in China start e-mailing innocuously named files ("vacation_pics_from_Beijing.zip") to their friends and relatives in the US, and ...
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Actually Sen. Wyden seems to have a good handle on practicality WRT the Internet. He co-sponsored the CANSPAM (Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing) bill, the Online Privacy Protection Act which would limit the way web sites and online services collect and disseminate personal information about individuals without their consent, and an encryption bill that allowed the export of 64- and 128-bit software.
I'm not going to comment on Sen. Kyl.
In the release statement of Freenet 0.5 on Slashdot yesterday it was noted that the project needs money. Am I the only one wondering about this coincedence? Since Filesharing is possible over Freenet (among many other anti-censorship uses) it will probabely get nothing.
... who also happens to be somewhat of a Libertarian!
I'm not interested in enlisting the aid of the U.S. or any other Government in "protecting your soul" from pornography. I'm interested in protecting my soul and the souls of my children from it, as is my responsibility as a parent. I would also like to see the children of America's church youth groups protected from it.
If you're an adult, and you want to look at the stuff on your time, with your resources and your money, FINE! I might have a debate with you as to why it's bad for your soul to look at it, and why it's bad for society in general, but I won't have the Government Morality Police with me when I do it.
Having said that, I don't think it's anyone's right to demand tax-payer subsidies so he can exercise his perversion in full view of children at the tax-funded public libraries! If a person purchased "Hustler" and gave a copy to my minor child, he'd end up in prison in 10 seconds flat! Why is it, then, when someone put the same material on the web, it all of a sudden becomes free speech that should be protected for everyone, including children? I'm not saying you are making that argument, but when libraries fight filtering software, what else are they saying but that they are not bound by the law to keep pornography from children, and that all citizens have a right to view it, no matter who is watching, at tax payer expense?
I use "Dan's Guardian" http://www.dansguardian.org on a locked-down proxy server to help shield my kids from pornography. Therefore, I am exercising my right and responsibility as a parent.
dochood
I am a christian and I enjoy porn.
Underneath your clothes, you are naked. If you take your clothes off, are you displaying the fruits of evil or good? If god created man, and god's creations are perfect, then the human body is perfect.
When people have sex, it is to procreate. God made it enjoyable. Therefore, having sex is perfect in god's eyes.
Watching perfection (naked people having sex) must be okay because:
1) The naked body is not a sin
2) Sex is not a sin
3) Therefore watching naked bodies have sex is not a sin.
Don't you realize your view is a complete conundrum?
Or do you have the sick view that God is "testing" you? If God knows everything, he doesn't need to test you.
Earthly organizations try to control sex and human reproduction because it gives them power. Its not for God's power or glory, he already has that.
Think. THINK. Don't just believe what some guy in the pulpit tells you what is right or wrong.
So is the government attempting to limit access to porn in government run-libraries, and protect children using the library from the molestors it attracts (see story below) really no different from helping Chinese dissidents find out what's really going on in the world?
INTERNET ACCESS DRAWS PORN ADDICTS TO LIBRARIES
It was a mother's nightmare: A Colorado woman and her 7-year-old daughter visited a public library in suburban Denver. The mother briefly left her daughter in the children's room, but when she returned, she found her daughter sitting in front of a computer, an image depicting male frontal nudity on the screen and a strange man sitting beside her. The girl later told her mother that the man had exposed himself.
This incident is recorded, along with some 500 other disturbing accounts, in a new exposé of online pornography in public libraries. The report's author, David Burt, said his goal is "to expose the myth that abuse of pornography in America's public libraries is a 'practically nonexistent' problem." Burt, himself a librarian, released his study in March during a press conference for a new bill that would require libraries to protect children from accessing Internet pornography on public-use computers.
Rep. Robert Franks, R-N.J., and Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., are co-sponsors of the Children's Internet Protection Act (H.R. 368). The bill specifically requires public schools and libraries that receive federal subsidies for Internet access to use either a "clean" Internet Service Provider or install and maintain effective software filtering.
The American Library Association (ALA) stands firmly against the bill and has argued that the issue of viewing porn in public libraries has been exaggerated. According to ALA President Ann Symons, "The whole issue of protecting children has been blown way out of proportion by the media and those who seek to promote their own agendas."
Burt's exposé, however, documents 503 incidents of patrons accessing porn in public libraries. (His 94-page report is available at http://www.filteringfacts.org/da-main.htm.) Nearly half the incidents cited involve children and 20 involve child pornography. Among the worst examples are adults deliberately exposing children to pornography, one incident of molestation, and several attempted molestations.
Burt said the library-filtering bill is a better response to the problem than the ALA's suggestion that libraries simply cover up the problem by installing "privacy screens" on Internet computers--devices that critics say will turn public computers into private peep shows.
--Steve Watters
Brian_Ellenberger writes:
...and yet you did not attempt to classify the two websites (1, 2) that I asked about. Please tell me if these qualify as "pornographic" in your book.
"It would only be hypocricy if we were trying to allow porn into China while trying to block it here."
Porn and political speech are obviously not identical, and I am not trying to say they are, but I don't see them as being distinct enough to warrant encouraging one and censoring the other. Either you let people express an opinion or you do not. When you begin to draw distinctions based on something as vague and morpheous as "morality" then I itch. And I call this hypocricy.
Brian_Ellenberger continues:
"From Merriam-Webster: "the depiction of erotic behavior (as in pictures or writing) intended to cause sexual excitement""
Whoa.
I wrote an email to my girlfriend this morning telling her that the second she walked in the door I was going to kiss her. It was "writing" that was "intended to cause sexual excitement." Gee, I'd better not post that email to the internet. God help any 10 year-old who stumbles across it in the school library! We really do need to shield our kids from this crap, I agree.
And you're taking the position that the hinge upon which something is either pornographic or not is INTENT?? Then I guess goatse.cx doesn't qualify, does it? I doubt the person taking the picture said, "I'm gonna take this picture because it's gonna turn a lot of people on!"
Is it still pornographic if I take a picture of a tree with the intent of turning someone on? How do you suggest we filter that one out?
"Intent." Jumping Jesus on a greased up pogo stick. Ever hear of the phrase "mind police?"
Brian_Ellenberger continues:
"So breast reconstructive surgery does not fall under this definition but playboy.com does. It really is not that hard. Really, there are only a very small number of cases that will fall into the gray area."
Brian_Ellenberger continues:
"And no, pornography does not "shift with the political tide". Like I said, we have had regulation on this sort of stuff for many years. New York by Gaslight [amazon.com] has some interesting stuff of police in the mid to late 1800's dealing with busting up strip clubs trying to pose as art."
Yes, and they've also busted moms for taking pics of their babies, nude, in the tub. In other words, pornography is in the eye of the beholder. Beholders get elected. Beholders get unelected. To say that guidelines for what qualifies as pornographic does not change with the political tide because it is enshrined in law is stupid and naive because it pretends that laws are not interpreted. Gun ownership by individuals was a non-issue under the same laws that it is now being reconsidered under because of [*gasp] political climate.
And I called your idea stupid, not you, so don't cry "ad hominem."
Brian_Ellenberger continues:
"You can right now view porn in the comfort of your own home. The Chinese cannot read political dissent in the comfort of their own home. That is the difference."
It's a distinction. An irrelevant one, but yes, it's a distinction.
Brian_Ellenberger continues:
"Noone is seriously trying to ban porn from the Internet. However, a library is a public taxpayer funded place and hence operates under a different set of rules because we all own it. Hence democratic government dictates how the people want to run what is their property. You want a library with free porn? Its a free country, start your own."
I'm a taxpayer. I already have.
When I fund an institution that provides access to information, I have a reasonable expectation that the information be there. I don't believe -- nor have you provided an argument for outside of simply asserting one -- that people have a reasonable expectation to not have information at an informational institution. After all, if they don't want the info, they can just not seek it out. This proves quite clearly that the goal is not protecting anyone (oh, and by the way, when the "for the children" excuse is trotted out, get real suspicious.). I don't need to be protected. And if I feel my daughter needs it, I can be a parent. Oh, perish the thought!
Brian_Ellenberger continues:
"Anyway, my point was instead of worrying so much about the right to read porn in a public place, why not worry more about your right to exercise political speech. That is far more imporant than arguing over porn."
No, it's not. You cannot give up some bit of freedom as irrelevant. It is a toehold for those who wish to oppress. Do you REALLY think I have an itch to surf upskirts.com at my local branch? You, unwittingly, are giving this one up under the assumption that there are bigger fish to fry. There aren't. This is as fundamental as it gets. What qualifies as pornography, regardless of what abstract, nonsensical definition you pull out of a dictionary, is a matter of opinion. And again, an issue you utterly ignored, is that the Chinese consider your idea of freedom as way, way past obscene so your notion of free speech being accessable by all as 'good' and porn being accessable by all as 'bad' is 100% cultural in addition to relative and subjective.
Oh, I swore I wasn't gonna say it, but what the hell...
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - Benjamin Franklin
Do not zip over that sentence. Read it. Then read it again. If you allow "Decency Laws" to exist, then someone who seeks to keep a free people away from information simply needs to find a way to label it as "obscene." You've just made life a whole lot easier for them, haven't you? That's why I like the ACLU -- they don't give a !@#$ whose freedom is being trampled. They understand this core concept, that you cannot give an inch, else you've lost it all.
My
Limekiller
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Emphasis mine, kid can't read but can (mis)spell disney?
Good story though