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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.)
This is just a few congressmen trying to CYA. Sixty million sounds like a lot of money to you and me, but to a government employee, its just a drop in the bucket.
So long and thanks for all the fish . . . !!!
The contradiction comes from the fact that our government-- especially Congress-- is not a single-headed entity, but a multi-headed entitiy pulling in lots of different directions. As a result, lots of contradictory noises will get made.
Indeed, the more often it acts like a single-headed entity pulling in one direction, the scarier it is. We come in danger of "groupthink", and worrying things like expression divergent opinions become labelled as "unpatriotic", and scary laws like the DMCA (which passed without dissent) or parts of the US PATRIOT act (I'm thinking the library stuff here) getting passed.
-Rob
It's about time that the government steps in to protect us from the corporations and right-wing Christians who'd like to own our souls and shield us from all the "evil" pornography (fourth ring of hell reserved for Slashdotters?). I am a hard-core capitalist, but even I can recognize a market failure when I see one. Just as overfishing once lead to mass unemployment and starvation in the Northeast US, the greed of a few supercorporations (the likes of which were never conceived of by the founders of our nation) and the fiery rhetoric of a few rabid Christians have turned us into slaves of exploitative technology. And people are too stupid to provide a good market for anti-censorware products, so we're screwed. This research should set things right again.
Karma: Good (despite my invention of the Karma: sig)
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
I'm just wondering what happens to the companies that invest in the child protection software?
Could the whole anti-censorware thing catch up the innocents? What is to stop a pr0n company from saying that it's a form of censorship to block the site (although you'd have to be a really sleazy person to argue it).
Be you Admins? nay, we are but lusers!
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.
Remember Petswarehouse? How about a bill to protect U.S. Citizens from companies that sue people for saying things they don't like?
Judge: So who ordered you to perform this research ?
PhD: Err... the US Goverment
Judge: Are you aware that this breaks the DMCA ?
PhD: Not really, I mean the goverment asked me to do this, they wouldn't ask me to break the law would they ?
Judge: US Goverment did you ask this PhD student to break the law ?
US Goverment: I've never heard anything so ridiculous when would we ever do that ?
Judge: Nixon ?
USG: Apart from then
Judge: Iran-Contra ?
USG: Apart from then
USG: Anyway the Goverment never got convicted then, so that means we have a precedent...
Judge: Good point, Mr PhD Student I sentence you to 10 years in prison for violating the DMCA and 5 years for mis-use of federal funds.
PhD: ?!
USG: Nice touch.
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
The Vatican has one of the world's great collections of erotica (for research purposes), and you would be very hard pressed to find a more moral, less sinful group of men in the world.
A. Rightmann
A absolutely love the fact that we, as a country can, with a straight face, seek to prevent our own citizens from seeing certain things and at the same time subsidize methods to defeat such techniques in other countries ...all while maintaining a straight face.
But then, I guess if we can subsidize murder in other countries when it suits us and then have the chutzpah to call the same done to us as "terrorism," this shouldn't actually come as a shock, should it?
My
Limekiller
How about an interview with a normal everyday user in China (i.e. the chinese version of the average /. reader) asking what it is like to be a computer user/nerd over there
How about forbidding American corporations from trading censorware goods or services to these "repressive governments," wouldn't that be a good start?
That will work just about as well as forbidding the export of cryptography to rogue nations. It's assuming those governments are not capable of finding somebody that will either ignore the ban or just find somebody within their own ranks to write the software for them.
Geez, they could just have students write censoring proxy servers as projects and use the best one to censor the whole nation.
(1) ...These constitutional provisions guarantee the rights of Americans to communicate and associate with one another without restriction, including unfettered communication and association via the Internet.
They're talking about Americans and the U.S. Consitution, not Chinese and North Koreans, in the bill's very first point. A sign that the authors know what they're about, here?
(8) Since the 1940s, the United States has deployed anti-jamming technologies to make Voice of America and other United States Government sponsored broadcasting available to people in nations with governments that seek to block news and information.
The precedent: Because we've had this sort of arms race, jamming and anti-jamming technologies, over the Voice of America, we should also in principle try to disable jamming technologies on the Web? But apparently only when we're trying to reach the communists with our messages of freedom and light?
The Voice of America is a broadcast message. Big difference between broadcast and point-to-point media: you can control the VoA's programming, but the reason the internet is "powerful engine for democratization and the free exchange of ideas" -- that's the bill talking again -- is because it isn't a controlled state broadcast, it's a bunch of individuals making choices. That's not some detail about the mechanics of the Web, it's what the Web is. If congress simultaneously puts censorware in schools and passes legislation to defeat it abroad, they just don't get how that cuts both ways.
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
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
(e) LIMITATION ON AUTHORITY- Nothing in this Act shall be interpreted to authorize any action by the United States to interfere with foreign national censorship for the purpose of protecting minors from harm, preserving public morality, or assisting with legitimate law enforcement aims.
"Preserving public morality." The United States Congress's definition of morality. Because if they mean the foreign countries' definitions of morality, that would counter the entire bill. "Legitimate law enforcement." The United States definition of legitimate law enforcement, which these days is being contested by the public. To China, restricting internet access is a legitimate act of law enforcement. As to morals, I don't know what the Chinese government is thinking, but I would think part of their objection to free internet access is their thought that democracy is immoral. Of course the Chinese government is also afraid of what democratic ideas would do to their careers. But I'm afraid this will be interpreted as yet another abuse by the US of its power in the world.
Developers: We can use your help.
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??
How about forbidding American corporations from trading censorware goods or services to these "repressive governments," wouldn't that be a good start?
You want to make the world a more free place by banning stuff? Thats wrong.
We are going to get freedom by making encryption freely avalible. Not by banning filtering systems.
... 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.
What's the big deal? Since this country has been founded we have both regulated porn and encouraged free speech, especially political free speech. You are seeking to make things like political speech=porn, which the Supreme Court already rejected years ago.
Also we are not "preventing our own citizens" from viewing porn (as if we are banning it altogether) but saying that you cannot view porn in a taxpayer funded library. You want to get off on porn, do it in your own house. But you have no right to demand it on everyone's dollar.
If your truely worried about speech, why not worry about something truly substantial like the Unconstitutional Campaign Finance Reform that harms political speech.
Brian Ellenberger
The zoning laws etc. make no special distinction between a porn empire, and a second-hand bookstore, and indeed both kinds exist freely in the cities. Many shops carry pornographic magazines, just like they carry magazines about movie/music stars fine arts, and photography, without anyone trying classify the stuff into "obscene" and "decent". Those who don't want to purchase them are free not to. Those few who take offense on happening to see a bit of bare skin are tolerated with an amused smile, and mostly ignored, just like those who object to people eating meat or wearing furs.
In Murphy We Turst
How about forbidding American corporations from trading censorware goods or services to these "repressive governments," wouldn't that be a good start?
Sure. Let's fight repression with repression. It'll be like a war for peace.
-no broken link
Point being that Cisco built the National Firewall of China?
That is a good start. Then immediately thereafter, the senior corporate officers of Cisco and Yahoo, along with the technical staff who were "only following orders" should be delivered to the Hague for trial.
One CPU cycle wasted on digital restrictions management is ONE TOO MANY.
Interstate highways hmm well they were designed for defense originally, so they would fall under that. Both interstates and ATC well, can you say interstate commerce? There is promote the general welfare, which ATC defnitely falls under. Imagine if all of the states had to cooperate for air regulations! It wouldn't happen. That's why you have a federal government, to govern things the affect every state basically at the same time.
However, subsidizing research? Private companies and private individuals can do research on something if they want (or at least they should be able to, half of anything anyone would want to research is illegal to research) why do they need the government to use its police power to take money from individuals and other companies and give to them to do it?
Derek Greene
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Troll.
Karma: Bored. (Thinking about resurrecting the "Anyone else is an imposter" joke.)
Contradictions in government are nothing new. Does anyone else find it amusing that the government spends a lot of money to (1) Discourage people from smoking and (2) Subsidise tabacco farmers?
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.
Brian_Ellenberger writes:
...trying to ...equate political speech with porn? What??
s e-you'd-be-doing-<insert-thing-here>-instead argument.
"What's the big deal? Since this country has been founded we have both regulated porn and encouraged free speech, especially political free speech. You are seeking to make things like political speech=porn, which the Supreme Court already rejected years ago."
I'm
"Also we are not "preventing our own citizens" from viewing porn (as if we are banning it altogether) but saying that you cannot view porn in a taxpayer funded library. You want to get off on porn, do it in your own house. But you have no right to demand it on everyone's dollar."
The hell I don't.
What qualifies as porn? How about Jock Sturges? Does his work qualify? Does this page make the cut? How about a website on breast reconstructive surgery for post-mastectomy patients?
And I wouldn't be doing my argument justice if I didn't bring up the thorny but oh-so-necessary "who decides?" question. I guess the most pragmatic answer is 'the politicians' but is obscenity constant -- is a thing offensive by its very nature -- or does it shift with the political tide? Do we want what we can and cannot see be dictated by those who want to get re-elected? Are you prepared to have Fallwell make this decision for you? You can bet your ass that the aformentioned mastesctomy website qualifies in his book.
Finally, why is it that only your idea of offensive is truly offensive? To the Chinese, our entire view on individual freedom easily qualifies as offensive and probably more harmful to society than even the most strident Republican we have in office views Mr Goatsex.
The issue here is not mere pornography. The issue is the tacit assumption and enforcement of the notion that people should be entitled to say what they want BUT other people should not necessarily be able to hear it. The only way for you to get around this is by taking the position that photography does not qualify as speech. Good luck.
"If your truely [sic] worried about speech, why not worry about something truly substantial like the Unconstitutional Campaign Finance Reform that harms political speech. "
Ah, the you-must-not-really-be-genuine-in-your-concern-el
My
Limekiller
LawMeme points out a glaring loophole in the bill.
... 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.
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."
$60 million huh? Sorry, that's not nearly enough to buy a law legalizing napster.
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
Is this any different from what the US demands of its ISPs? IIRC, the USAPATRIOT act gives the feds the ability to do all of these things should they believe that it would be "relevant to an ongoing investigation". They aren't even required to show probable cause that the victim is committing, or plans to commit a crime - only that the information would be useful to an "ongoing investigation..."
At least the Chinese are honest - they don't put up any pretenses about being a free country.
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
No kidding? Steve Ballmer and Bill Gates are rabid Christians?
Most Congressmen still don't understand what the DMCA means in terms of restricting technological research. For them, the debate was framed entirely within the context of fighting online piracy, and as far as most of them are concerned, the DMCA fought online piracy very well.
So now a couple politicians realize that countries like China are using censorware to restrict the inherent freedoms of their citizens--freedoms which the US believes every man has, not just its own citizens--and they want to fund research to help political dissidents get around censorware. I'm willing to bet they have no idea that the DMCA, which they approved, prevents exactly this kind of research from being done in the US.
If anything, this sort of legislative contradiction is A Good Thing. It may help Congress understand why the DMCA is fundamentally flawed, in both conception and implementation.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
You have to know your kids and know what they are and are not able to comprehend. This applies to a lot more than sexual content; for example, I've spent quite a bit of time talking to my kids about advertising and what is and isn't true.
Sure, a little nudity won't hurt them, but there's some pretty nasty stuff out there that they're definitely not ready to deal with. Heck, there's some stuff out there that *I'm* not ready to deal with ;-)
A lot of this has to do with how you ultimately want your kids to understand sex. I think that your laissez-faire attitude is likely to lead them to see it the way it's generally pushed on us by society, as an overhyped, somewhat dirty but casual expression of physical desire. That may be okay with you, and your kids are your business, but it's not okay with me. I see sex as something very important and something that must be kept carefully within the bounds of marriage.
As such, my goal is to keep them away from the "common" view of sex until they're ready to understand it's true nature and importance. After they're able to learn that, then we'll discuss the twisted view of sex that is pushed on us by popular culture. To that end, my 9 year-old knows far more about sex than his peers, and, in my opinion, has a more mature attitude about it than most young adults. My 7 year-old isn't quite there yet.
The idea that children are fragile eggs that will break if shown the wrong picture or words is a fairly recent one;
The idea that pre-schoolers and third graders might have access to explicit images of sex, much less the very extreme and violent type of sex you can find easily on the net, is even newer.
In short: I think your attitude comes from excessive casualness about a very important subject. Sex and sexual choices can and probably will have a *huge* impact on the course of your children's lives, and you've decided you don't really need to keep a hand on the rudder.
(Note: I don't make a habit of criticizing others' parenting, but if you want to share your opinion with me, I'll return the favor. Maybe we can both learn something.)
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