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.)

Comments

oh, good solution

[The AtomicPunk]

No better way to preserve freedom than to FORBID American corporations to sell a product ...

Let's build a house of porn next to where you live

[Brian_Ellenberger]

Putting the Internet rhetoric aside for a second, let me ask you a question. How would you like a hard-core pornography store opened up next to where you live? Or better yet, what percentage of Americans would like hard-core pornography stores opened up where they live? Probably not very many people considering current zoning laws. You don't have to be an "evil right-wing Christian" to dislike the idea either. The regulation of porn was judged constitutional years ago.

So it is not a stretch of the imagination to think that people would not want a hard-core pornography store in their public library. I want to be able to use the library and have my kids use the library. I don't want a bunch of seedy people who could give a crap viewing porn on the library computers and jacking-off under their coats. Especially since I am paying for those computers!

Which is a second point to make in this case. The taxpayers pay for those computers. Therefore the taxpayers through their elected officials should have some say in how those computers are used. I'm sick of these librarians acting as if they solely own the library. If you want porn, buy your own computer and view porn there.

Of course censorware is not perfect. Far from it. But it will improve in research, and until then you can just a librarian assistant walk around every now and then and/or have a librarian available to take complaints.

Brian Ellenberger

however, my good man

[EEgopher]

groupthink is of course abominable, but don't you think a bill such as this could be a tremendous help to counter those "scary" national-security provisions?
Hell, that dark-skinned neighbor of yours might be jailed for making a phone call in Arabic, but at least you would be able to access www.ihatefinancialplanning.com from Guam, Saipan, and the Arcane Dictatorship of the North Pole!