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Supreme Court to Hear CIPA Case
Ruger writes "The Supreme Court of the United States will "decide if public libraries can be forced to install software blocking sexually explicit Web sites," according to this article from the Associated Press. US lawmakers have passed three laws to 'protect' children from Internet pornography, but the Court struck down the first and blocked the second from taking effect. 'A three-judge federal panel ruled the Children's Internet Protection Act violates the First Amendment because the filtering programs also block sites on politics, health, science and other non-pornographic topics.'" Our previous story on this ongoing case will bring you up to speed on the issues.
Those who's interest it is in finding ANY chink in the 1st amendment to allow them to censor the Internet will keep trying. This is their third attempt...
They are now down to "we must protect the children". Will the court buy it? Hopefully not. Legislation should NOT be used to do the work of respobsible parents.
As an adult, I should have unfettered access. A child's protection is not sufficient cause to violate MY 1st amendment rights. It is the parent's responsibility to filter for the child, not society's.
Corporatism != Free Market
Will the librarian turn off the controls at the legitimate request of an adult or child. If so, there's no debate and no abridgement of free access.
Otherwise, I see absolutely no harm in having tools that slow down teenagers from leaving goatse.cx sitting on library computers as a "joke" that my 5 year old daughter has to walk through.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
Does anyone else think it would be funny if a guy walked into the library... and started 'doing-his-bidniz'?
Why else would you look at porn? If you don't get to get your jollies from it... its just torture to look at.
www.punkmafia.com
"I am insane, and you are my insanity"
--Bruce Willis, 12 Monkeys
... they'll probably end up blocking some legitimate sites in the process. Besides, if some kid really wants to get access to porn, they'll generally find a way to do it - they don't need a library.
You can go here and take action against this now!
if they overtun the need for filters, maybe than can mandate plastic keyboard covers!!!
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
I don't think so. And yet this will still undoubtedly incite all the usual comments about censorship, pr0n, and beowulf clusters.
Perhaps more useful:
SIPA - Slashdot Internet Protection Act (protecting old web servers from being Slashdotted)
not to be confused with
SIPA - Slashdot Information Protection Act (protecting Slashdotters from trolls and redundant, uninteresting, or obvious posts, like this one.)
I personally think that machines that are in the view of everyone should have porn filters. I eman it's pretty sad for people to get their kicks in the librarys anyways. That should be looked at in the privacy on someone's home. Anyways having experience in working at schools and their libraries, some kids don't "intend" on going to porn sites but accidently do. Anyone remember the whitehouse.com, nasa.com instead of .gov porn sites? Anyone get locked into looking at those sites because of the tricks the sites use to keep you there? Thos can be disturbing for a child to innocently stumble upon.
If libraries do leave the computers unfiltered they should at the very least not be in public view. Perhaps in one of those study rooms.
Just my 2 cents.
http://www.bookforce.net
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the existing nanny software restricts many non-Porno sites & is expensive and difficult to administer.
So the upshot will be that many libraries will have to cancel internet access altogether if forced to comply.
Now if the law included a nationwide site license for the nanny software & money to libraries for set up & support, then it would be a simpler decision between do we support porn in the library or not.
However, the decision the USSC is facing is more along the lines of do we allow libraries to provide internet access or not.
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It's not just a question of parenting and observation of your child's activities anymore; adult content isn't something you have to go looking for anymore. It lands in my inbox every day, thanks to spammers. Must I forbid my children from using the computer at all? That's not a good solution either.
I, for one, would rather see them focusing efforts on keeping the adult sites from using "push" marketing tactics and pass enforcable laws against the spammers.
He was the very expert we needed for all of these anti-porno vs. free speech debates.
...that tries to convince you it's "for the children."
It seems to be a convenient way to suppretitiously legislate morality-based attacks on personal liberty.
vk.
5 to 4 in favor of blocking.
It seems the court likes to dance in 5/4 time, generally speaking.
Scalia being the tempo change near the coda.
There are people of legal age that attend highschool (18 in my neck of the woods) yet no one is bawling for the right to look at porn in schools. how is this any different?
If you can't see the value in jet powered ants you should turn in your nerd card. - Dunbal (464142)
the bush administration should not be wasting our tax dollars on seeking an appeal to the lower court ruling by escalating this case to the supreme court. CIPA is OBVIOUSLY flawed and the supreme court will quickly affirm the lower court ruling. instead of wasting our tax dollars and the justices time they should be thinking of better ways to combat this issue (ie use the money to educate parents and/or children).
lets hope for a favorable conclusion to the eldred case.
smd4985
Then the problem with that is that it is up to the librarian to decide what is legitimate. That brings the librarian's personal values into the mix, they should be irrelevant.
"I'll have a Guinness, no wait, make that a Coors Light" -Grad student I work with, who shall remain anonymous...
It keeps bound editions of Hustler and Playboy. It stores them in the Rare Book Collection to prevent them from being stolen, defaced or mutilated, according to this letter from Christian Heritage Tours (Google takes you to the oddest places sometimes).
The cesnsorship wont stop the problem you just described. AS a matter of fact, it will make it worse. I have no problem with reaonable requests to not leave goatsex open on the computer when i log off. Fair enough. But when im told I have to ask permisson to TURN OFF filtering on machines that destroy my first amendment rights, on equipment MY TAX MONEY paid for, fuck you. I will do my damndest to remove that software and reset the background picture to nude pictures of earnet borgnine.
How bout a simple check box when you log on?
I am an adult, therefore i wish to turn off censorship on this machine. yes/no. Yeah, youll have 13 year olds looking at neekid women. SO what? By the time their old enough to be interested in it, theyre old enough to look at it.
(No, im not a parent. Keep your kids out of the library if they cant behave themselves)
All Troll + "offtopic" mods are meta moderated as "Unfair", because you abused the system.
going to come from?
Maybe you haven't noticed, but most libraries are overworked and underfunded as it is.
Requiring them to purchase & maintain new software will likely lead to many canceling Internet Access altogether.
As far as your five year old, isn't she a little young to be wandering around the library by herself?
I agree with you, but I'd even take the step a bit farther, although I'll admit some ignorance on my part (never having used a library-based computer)...and also to play devil's advocate. Namely... do libraries even NEED computers? Isn't the role of a library to be a repository of information in physical form? (i.e. books, magazines, newspapers, and the like)? Do the computers somehow enhance this ability? Or is it simply a case of the library simply being a default location to set up free computers for personal use? If so, isn't this possibly stretching the role of libraries into a place where they may not necessarily need to be, thus burdening the lowly taxpayer with additional costs?
It seems to be following the same chain of logic that is leading public schools into roles they were not originally intended for (babysitters, daycare, whatever...) and therefore doing nothing to help their original role (i.e. teaching kids) but increasing the tax burden on the local population.
Wow, I hope I didn't stray too far off track.
You gonna allow Lolita? How bout What is it, fanny hill? Romance novels? Sex ed books? The karma sutra? The joy of sex? Our bodies Our selves?
Frankly, i have no problem with them adding pornography to the libraries, because I am unwilling to draw that line for someone else.
All Troll + "offtopic" mods are meta moderated as "Unfair", because you abused the system.
free nude xxx teen hardcore.
guess what? most filtering agents would now ban this slashdot page.
filters just don't work that well. I've seen a few spam blockers, but I wouldn't bet my life on them.
Looking for Book Reviews? Check out Literary Escapism.
I guess I don't know why this is such a big deal. Why can't a library enforce its usage policy with a filter. This argument appears earlier, but you don't see a library having a "porn day" where they show porno's all day long. How is blocking access to pornographic sites any different? It doesn't infringe on free speech because you can find your own way to look at porn... just not at a library.
www.superdorf.com
My kids, while in the library doing research on whatever, also use the computers there. If you haven't noticed, they are a useful tool.
Also, a LOT of kids have no PC at home. The library is one place they can go to get some stuff done. The price of 2 or 3 PC's in a branch lib is minimal compared to the overall library costs.
The problem with these filters isn't what they let through, but what they block. (In addition to them being federally mandated as opposed to the library's own choice.)
Seriously, these filters are really stupid. At my local library, you get the choice when you sit down to use filtered or un-filtered. For kicks, I chose filtered, then tried to find a book I wanted in the library's own catalog. My request was blocked because the book was titled "The First Sex," a book about how women are about to take over the world.
And considering the open, relatively unsupervised nature of most libraries, is that really where you want to leave your kids alone?
"Well I have 4 childrenaged 17 to 6. I also DO NOT want the government, federal or otherwise restricting my daughters access to any information. PERIOD. that is MY job as a semi- responsible parent.
Whatever happened to personal responsibility in this country (USA)? Can't parents take responsibility for their kids? Or are they to busy being soccer moms and dads and scout leaders and whatever else they can think of to get the kid out of their hair and into some activity where the parent doesn't have to deal with the kid."
No BS!
I posted the nude pix of his 17 yr old and 6 yr old daughters to the web from a library but now I can't view them!
I agree that it's my duty to filter what my child sees. However the one place that should be a safe place to drop the kid off is the library.
What the hell? Your second sentence is completely at odds with your first one! First you accept responsiblity for filtering the data your child gets. Then you follow that up with a claim that you should be able to shirk your responsibilities by dropping the little tyke off at the library.
Do we really want to discourage children spending time at a place where they can learn?
There is so much wrong with that sentence ... where to start. No one is talking about discouraging children from going to the library. Hell, if kids think they can look at nude pictures, they'll probably beg to go to the library. So the problem isn't on their end, it's with you. You're choosing to discourage them because of your personal beliefs. Second, they will be learning at the library it's just that you're afraid of them having access to material that you don't like. It sounds kind of funny but when a child sees some dirty picture, they are learning that such material exists. Filters or no filters, they will continue to learn at the library.
Parents have little enough time - forcing them to spend what they have watching what their kids see at a place that should be a safe haven is going to discourage discovery and learning on the behalf of the kids.
Hey, the library is not a babysitting service. You're going to have to make a choice here. What's more important: monitoring what your children see or your free time. Don't give us this "safe haven" crap. A library is full of information. If you don't want you kids to have access to certain kinds of information, then be prepared to take the responsibility yourself.
GMD
watch this
"Parents should not be afraid to send their children to the library, either because they might be exposed to such materials or because the library's free, filterless computers might attract people with a propensity to victimize children," wrote Texas Attorney General John Cornyn, who was elected to the U.S. Senate last week.
when my child is on the internet I monitor what she surfs. why should this be different at the library. maybe the issue is parents want to "send their children" instead of taking a part in it.
We need to focus on raising our children not finding others to do it. Porn stopping software stops all sorts of things other then porn. and who is who to tell me what is acceptable and what is not? I'll raise my kid thank you very much. and in doing so I want her to have access to as much information as she needs to fullfill her life. the focus should not be on what our kids see but how we teach them to deal with it. This is the real world people. there are uncomfortable situations everywhere. I don't believe we should stick goat sex up on a wide screen or anything like that. but let me be responcible for my own child.
This is a bizarre problem in the US. Why is there so much porn spam?
John Dvorak actually published an article today regarding this sam subject. One good quote is The porn purveyors have taken my freedom to choose away from me. Push technology now pushes porn at me whether I like it or not.
he goes on, but you can read the entire article here
I agree that this is way out of control.
-- -- Warning. Do not stare directly at the sun.
OT warning!
/.ers seem to be so conservative/libertarian when it comes to technology oriented "rights", yet at the same time turn into socialists ("liberal" is so overused and not truly indicative of their true intent) when taking cheap shots at the American government. I guess they forget that when the socialists were in power for 8 years, any military technology was for sale to the highest bidder. For some reason it's wrong to get rid of a threatening regime (Saddam), but ok to sell to another (China). Of course some ./ers do have valid points in some instances, and I'm not trying to flame, I just find the dichotomy interesting.
What I find funny about any YRO articles is that american
Are there any clear definition? I am not sure what is offensive.
I can stil understand peoples' arguements against such legislation, but in this context do not see it as a free-speach issue, just a funding issue. The libraries do not have the right to demand new computers at any cost.
"It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance." - Thomas Sowell
My school and this tech school I go to both have Cyber Patrol installed on the proxy and they are extremely easy to bypass. If a site is blocked just remove the www, or use nslookup to go directly to the ip address. This works most of the time. The filter only blocks one way to the site.
I wouldn't be supprised if other filters have the same problem.
Hacker Media
The rare books analogy doesn't fly. There, they are protecting the books. Here, they are blocking non-present third parties (the kids) from possible access to the information.
And the ladders blocking is to prevent liability from people falling.
Okay, seriously now, look at how bungled up is the internet naming business right now. Would an internet censorship authority be likely to function better?
Quoting Heinlein, in "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress", "What I fear most are affirmative actions of sober and well intentioned men, granting the government power to do something that appears to need doing."
Has anyone EVER seen someone looking up porn in a library? I certainly haven't. My local library's 8Eö>2_Jals are in plain view of the entire upstairs floor. Someone would have to be awful gutsy to display their moral decadence so blatantly in public.
Secondly, they need to at least get the language right. Children do not look up porn; immature teenage boys do. You don't just randomly stumble into porn sites.
On the other hand, I have no problem with libraries filtering their content as long as they use open source software like DansGuardian and ONLY use it to block porn sites. I've set this up for clients and it works nearly flawlessly.
I worked in a library for about (2) years. We had completely unfiltered internet access. I can't recall a single time that we had a problem with pornography on the terminals. Granted ther may have been a few, but some people like to cause trouble. I have to believe that the majority of the population has enough common sense and decency to not view porn around kids.
There is one thing though that I dont understand about our society? Maybe someone can give me some insight? Why is sex and nudity looked down upon, while violence is generally ignored. Dont get me wrong, I love both of them equally, well more the former than the latter. Its just a little confusing. Take BMX XXX for example. Sony opted to cover all of the nipples, to censor the game. Yet in grand theft Auto Vice City, I can dig a chainsaw into a cops chest, and dance in the resulting pool of blood. Shouldnt there be a balance?
Wouldnt the images of http://www.rotten.com be more disturbing to a child than seeing some playful lesbians?
"shouldn't" and "are not allowed to" are worlds apart.
That because the filtering software (pick a version, any version) can't discriminate properly--and thus this is the reason you get blocked sites that shouldn't be blocked--that CIPA's requirement for filtering software is absolutely unconstitutional.
"If you cannot prove it works, then it's broken." -- My (Fudgefactor7's) first law of software.
Ergo, it's broken.
This is not about forcing blocks at ISPs or on your PC. It's mainly about libraries. Should public funds go to distributing porn?
the filtering programs also block sites on politics, health, science and other non-pornographic topics
Anybody reading slashdot should know that this is pure spin. Think about it: any filtering software has customizable exception lists for authorized personel. Can't get to www.libraries.ex? Ask the librarian to unblock it.
It's the parent's responsibility. Ultimately, yes. But it's not irresponsible to let your child go to the library. It's the librarian's responsibility to help people find information. Despite what the ALA and ACLU say, porn is not information. Nor is it "art" or "speech".
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The only time I've seen filtering software effective was for blocking husbands from accessing porn.
"Junior, can you help me uninstall this netnanny program your mother put on here."
Kinda reminds me of the old joke about how children were the only ones who could figure out child-proof locks
Why do we ned to have internet access for children? If they are not deemed old enought by the parents to navigate the interned sans censure, Hand them a book to read probably better. If they need computer skills make an effort to put the books that is in the libraries on to the net and give them access to that portion via a closed Library network, Using Intennet protocol obviously.
Learning an issue? We can hire a lot of reading teachers for what we spend on feel good libraries.
Help fight continental drift.
I hear so much about free speech violations but very little better ideas. I'm all for this. This is not censorship in the classic sense. Why should my tax dollars be funding access to porn? That's rediculous. I'll agree that the filters need work, but someone should be taking the time to build a better filter as opposed to pissing and moaning that this is inhibiting free speech. It's already done in the streets. Children are "filtered" from the market based on their inability to enter porn extablishments. The same should be included on the Net (and has as best they can) and definitely in the libraries. >
A three-judge federal panel ruled the Children's Internet Protection Act violates the First Amendment because the filtering programs also block sites on politics, health, science and other non-pornographic topics. Not to mention the pornographic sites...
Are you worried about teenagers leaving copies of Hustler magazine for your daughter to find, or is it just "internet pr0n" that worries you?
Just what the hell do you think a library is? It's a community resource of information. It's publicly funded point so that all citizens can have free access to information. And some of that information is legitimate, protected adult information. But these filters usually designate this stuff as forbidden. And that is an infringement.
I agree with this post.
Instead of phrasing it as "software blocking sexually explicit sites", try this out and run it by your congressperson: "software possibly blocking some, but not all, sexually explicit sites, as well as other content accidentially or intentionally blocked by the software developer." Tell them its not worth spending your tax money on this.
If nothing else, tell them to require that the software developers list all sites blocked by their software, to ensure that the software is actually doing its job. "After all, if the sites are actually blocked, its not like some little boy will use the list to see things he shouldn't" you can say.
Tell your congressperson that there needs to be a process to review sites that are incorrectly blocked and remove them from the list in a timely manner, with penalties for failing to do so. As well as adding sites that were forgotton.
Finally tell your congressperson that if any software vendor refuses these requirements, they don't have the public's best interests in mind, and if the congressperson votes for a measure without these requirements, neither does he/she.
Personally, I don't think censorship is right. If you let your children on the internet without supervision, you should be responsible for whatever psychiatric bills result.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
The Bush administration argued libraries are not required to have X-rated movies and pornographic magazines and shouldn't have to offer access to pornography on their computers.
Yes, but libraries are also not required not to have X-rated movies and pornographic magazines. I have been to a few libraries that have subscriptions to Playboy and erotica on the shelves. Hell, my college library had the last 15 years of Playboy archived on microfilm. If libraries are going to use filters (which I oppose), it should be decided on the local level. The Federal goverment doesn't ban pornographic or erotic books from being in libraries so why should it be allowed to mandate what can be accessed via the Internet from their facilities.
When violence rules the world outside / And the headlines make me want to cry / It's not the time to just keep quiet
In the vast majority of libraries that I have been in there are several sections in the library. One of those sections in almost every case is the children's section. Why not have a set of computers in each section for internet access. Have a person physically monitor (in other words be present) while the children are surfing the internet.
We already separate children's books from adult books, why not the computers as well?
In every library I've been in, there is a children's book section. And whenever there are computers, there's always more than one.
Why not put special "Children's Access" computers in the children's section?
If we keep the majority of books away from children (when I was a child I remember being barred from entering the "Adult" section of the library, until I told them I couldn't find Ronald Clark's biography of Albert Einstein where I had already been looking, so they let me go in there that day), then it makes sense to keep them from the worst areas of the Internet. But this should only apply to the children's area!
Once they reach teen-age, kids should be allowed to use the unfiltered computers (and be told they will be banned from the library altogether if they are caught downloading pornography, unless they can show that it was an accidental "pop-up" or something that momentarily displayed an ad for pr0n.)
I don't see why this idea hasn't been considered.
If resources are limited in a particular library, then when someone wants to use a computer, they should be given a card with a password on it; and this password allows them to log in to the computer. Children under the age of 13 would be given a different password; and it would log them in with the filters running.
Linux of course would be ideal for this, but I don't know if there are filtering programs written for Linux. But Windows XP has pretty good separate logins, this should be pretty easy to do.
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The reality is that adults should, and do, have different rights and privileges ( and responsibilities ). This includes pornography or other material that is under question here.
While I'm 1000% against censorship, I don't see a problem restricting access in *public* access areas to **underage** people.
Now, if you show you are over legal age, or the legal guardian of the minor beside you, then the restrictions/filtering should drop away and YOU make the decisions of what to present. This is called parenting.
And of course this does not apply at all in private settings.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Why don't they crack down on all the email porn that is sent out? Its amazing the amount of porn spam that is sent to various email address with photos in it. I think a child is more likey to see that than go looking for it on the net.
.xxx tld that all porn must be limited to?
Or perhaps finally creating the
THEN you could set up your parental controls to filter out the porn and not legitimate traffic. Hell.. think of all the money the registrars can make confiscating urls and reselling them?
"I drank what?" - Socrates
its a constitutionally protected right to browse bestiality porno in a public place?
What kind of sick wierdos were the framers ofthe US constitution??
8-|
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
I was reading this thread at my library, and then when I tried to reload and see the new messages, your comment caused the filter to block out the page, and I had to drive over to the coffee shop and pay for the Internet cafe! How could you be so selfish?
"The Bush administration argued libraries are not required to have X-rated movies and pornographic magazines and shouldn't have to offer access to pornography on their computers."
The key phrases here are not required and shouldn't have to. Following this logic, libraries are not required to not have pornographic magazines and therefore shouldn't have to deny access to pornography on their computers.
Why legislate when communities and libraries are perfectly capable of handling this without violating the First Amendment on their own? How? Here's a few suggestions:
"We must protect the children!" Please. I'm tired of your children and your inability and unwillingness to watch them determining how I can lead my life.
That's why several states no longer allow smoking sections in most restaurants or other public areas.
Have you read the Moderation Guidelines Addendum?
You know, there would be a lot less of this niggling and policy crap (and rights being trampled, etc.) if some smart people mandated the creation of the .xxx domain extension. Easy to identify, easy to filter, easy to block. I guess it's not so easy to enforce. How could you enforce companies to use the new domain extension and abandon their old one by law with many countries having different pornography laws? Credit card companies could be mandated to refuse to pay for porn access from companies outside of this .xxx domain. You're a .com smutt dealer? Sorry, you're not getting paid!
Well anyways, David Coursey once talked about this idea (though most likely not his original idea) being one of the more simple approaches to tackle the censorship of Internet porn.
Something to think about methinks!
And while standing in the non-fiction sex section of the library might be a bit embarrassing, it's also vague enough not to be an abridgement. Putting up big signs in the section like "Spanking" and "Watersports" and forcing people to stand under them to access that information would be designed to embarrass/dissuade/block and would be an abridgement.
What happens when this legislation is upheld and libraries are forced to use filtering software and the porn STILL GETS THROUGH? Will the libraries then be held responsible? or maybe it should be the court's place to punish the software companies for supplying software that _breaks the law_.
The largest problem I see with the internet in libraries is the popup traps so many web pages use now. If i accidently turn up a pr0n site through my browsing will I be able to correct my mistake by clicking on the X before no one notices, or will my screen be filled with so many popups that the librarian will have to assist me?
Popup blockers would be a much better service to have installed on the library computers. Filterware is just technology that doesn't work.
A library card number could be required to search certain terms, the simple traceablity factor would keep most people from searching obvious sexual sites. This is especially true if a notification screen is displayed asking if you want to continue.
YOU ARE ABOUT TO SEARCH ON "XXX" ARE YOU SURE YOU WANT TO DO THIS (library cardholders name), WHAT WITH THE LIBRARIAN LOOKING OVER YOUR SHOULDER AND ALL?
Yes embarassment, it works. So here we have a filter that serves as a warning to children, but does not limit content. It keeps honest people honest, and it should be noted that nothing will make dishonest people honest.
It should be noted that if all library computers were kept in open view of the librarian this wouldn't be much problem.
No complaining about anonymity on public systems either. If you want privacy, do it in your own home.
Karma: Censored (mostly affected by decency laws)
I question the notion that the first amendment's protection of your right to free speech also encompasses my obligation to listen to you. Protection of a pornographer's right to free speech does not encompass putting minors in a position where they have access to that pornographer's products. If a library blocks access to a website, that website remains freely available elsewhere. The site's authors have lost no rights. It is directly analogous to a library deciding not to stock a particular book. The free speech rights of the author are not violated by that decision because those rights do not include compelling someone to purchase the book against their will.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
I ask Congress something they've been asked many times before, and will likely be asked many times again: What part of shall make no law don't you understand?
It's not for Congress to determine whether a proposed law is uncostitutional. Although it should be their responsibility to not waste time/money on lost causes (blatantly unconstitutional laws), it's the function of the Supreme Court's to determine the validity of their laws. I still prefer that distinction wrt the seperation of powers.
Their job is to write laws. It bugs me, but that's how their performance is judged for re-election. If there are no new laws, then that can be easily translated to the voters as inactivity. No politician can afford that.
Back to the topic:
If this attempt gets struck down, then the issue will definitely re-appear. This may be the third try, however even if there is no chance for a future bill to be passed on the subject, the appeal of looking like your fighting the good fight will keep this issue alive in Congress.
This is not my sig.
I agree, this line which many try to draw called pronography is not so clear as they would like listeners to believe.
"DRM is a mandatory buggy whip in every car." MadAhab (40080)
Requiring them to purchase & maintain new software will likely lead to many canceling Internet Access altogether.
I agree that requiring them to implement filtering is a bad idea, but I don't think we should prohibit them from enacting filtering if that's what the local community wants. Arguably the best approach is a separate bank of systems, one for children, another for adults (or children that have the permission of their parents).
Funding issues are local issues. Take them up with your local government.
As far as your five year old, isn't she a little young to be wandering around the library by herself?
I disagree.. I think a library should be the type of place we encourage our kids to explore on their own. If it's the human body they're curious about, and they just don't want to admit it, I would just rather them find a book on biology than a stack of porn.
If I felt that my child was mature enough to have access to areas of the library that had more mature topics, the library should be willing to honor my request that my child have access to that information. Print or Internet.
Work here has websense, and while not 100% it seems to block a lot of stuff. Yes I was curious and tested it one day, and found it very hard to get passed.
If you request that the filter be disabled, you are in effect stating that you will access material that may be deemed inappropriate by the library staff and the community in general. The only way to exonerate yourself is to divulge your purpose and the subject matter for which you are searching. If you do not, then it is reasonable to assume that your good name will be put in jeopardy. Since you may not wish to suggest to the library staff that you could potentially be gay, have testicular cancer, or be interested in providing homeschooling for your daughter, you are effectively blocked from accessing the material. All three topics have been blocked by filters in the past.
As for leaving explicit images on public computers, a change to library policy would be a more appropriate solution. CIPA was not designed to impede teenage pranksters. It was designed to block US citizens from accessing material deemed inappropriate from public libraries in direct violation of the First Amendment right to Free Speech.
-HopeOS
Teenagers looking into subjects like homosexuality, sexually transmitted diseases, spouse/child-abuse, drug addiction, co-dependency, alcoholism, and date rape might have a difficult time if Mom and Dad are required to be present.
-Hope
Why not a compromise? Have a few computers set off to the side with some good filtering. Children can use those without a parent/gaurding. Then have some computers with no filtering where children under 18 would have to be accompanied by an adult/parent/gaurdian in order to use. Make it mandatory that for every filtered access computer you must have one unfiltered one. Or some such deal.
you're wrong.
.H97
Hustler Erotica, Heterosexual HQ450
Sorry, but that's just not the way it works. My wife works for the local city library and people are constantly looking at hard core porn there. Their solution? Bury the moniters in the desk so that only the person using the workstation can see the screen.
Libraries don't want to know what you are looking at. Most don't even keep any records of who uses them anymore. What they don't know they can't be compelled to tell the FBI under the Patriot Act.
School libraries might have different policies, but municipal public libraries, for the most part, are not interested in knowing what you do on their internet terminals.
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
I'm sorry, but there ARE people trying to get more porn into libraries, including some of us librarians. There is simply no legitimate reason for a library to not collect pornography like any other genre. Libraries wouldn't be in this filterig pickle if they had done the right thing many years ago and collected porn.
More porn in the stacks!
f you don't like smoking, don't go to restaurants that have smoking sections. It's a free market system. Vote with your dollars and quit whining about it.
I'm sorry; I don't have hundreds of thousands of dollars to invest in starting my own restaurant if all the restaurants within a five-mile radius have a popular smoking section.
Will I retire or break 10K?
I still had ready access to "harmful material" via the magazines that various other students stole from their parents' drawers, schoolground talk, and (admittedly to a lesser extent than today) TV.
Is it really arguable that children are exposing themselves to such material any more via library internet than through any other incidental medium?
Yes, the internet is a ready source of explicit material. However, having the computers in a semi-public is a deterrent to most youngsters of average intelligence. If not, then chances are it won't be long before somebody spots them and wonders why they are browsing "Persian Kitty's Adult Homepage" (a friend did once end up on this site legitimately, while checking pk.com instead of pkware.com for pkzip, but that's another story).
The cry of "what about the children" has been used too often, so it's getting to be a case of the "boy who cried wolf", or in this case, porn. Blocking the educational value of sites on sexuality,etc - perhaps for those who have truly legitimate medical questions - and others indeed be counterproductive for the library as a resource for knowledge.
With all due respect, a child in a library is not much safer than a child in a public bus station. I think you need to seriously re-think what you are saying. Clearly there must be a better alternative.
When a kid wants access to the Internet at a library, an account should be created for that kid that, by default, blocks any questionable sites. If that kid's parents want the blocking turned off, then, by golly, they can tell the library to turn it off for their kid's account, without affecting any other accounts.
Is there no blocking software that the libraries can use that allow this flexibility? If not, somebody should write it, sell it to the libraries, and put this utterly ridiculous issue to rest. This would put the power squarely in the hands of the individual parents, leaving the porn-surfing adults to freely persue their jollies.
To access pornography in this fashion requires delibrate action. You've already drawn the line by telling your daughter what is and is not acceptable. If she violates that, then you have a different problem. The library is not be required to police your child's access to information regardless of the content. That is your job.
I'm sure some people think that they're children should be taken away. Some people's ways of raising a kid is different from yours or mine. None of them are wrong unless they lead to the death of your kid, someone elses kid or pregancy of another. If either of them happen I'd say your a bad parent.
But in this case, why should the smokers feel any different?
Because even if all restaurants are smoke-free, it's still possible to go to a restaurant and smoke. They just have to be separated by two minutes. But if all restaurants have one section, the smoking section, a non-smoker can't go to a restaurant without breathing.
Separate ventilation for the smoking section and for the rest of the restaurant satisfies both sides of the debate.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Here's a list of the sites that were blocked by default that I had to unblock manually:
Some of these sites involve themselves in gay/lesbian issues (particulary in regards to the other BSA the Boy Scouts of America), and may have been incorrectly blocked by keywords for "gay" or more likely "lesbian", but I've scoured the index page source for places like "Access Atlanta" and couldn't find anything that could be construed as remotely offensive, even in a substring.
People who back such laws as this and oppose the recent ruling concerning the "under God" portion of the "Pledge of Allegience" are at odds with America's diverse morality and (non)spirituality. To include a reference to God in the Pledge begs the question "Which God?" or "Whose?". Likewise when legislating morality the question becomes "Whose morals?".
Because nearly every commercial filtering system is protected by "trade secrets" it becomes impossible to expect and answer to the above questions, and illegal to discover them on your own.
Are expected to purchase software that controls our childrens access to information without knowing what it's really doing? Absolutely, and if this law is upheld it'd be illegal to choose otherwise.
Don't entirely know what it blocks and doesn't. Don't know why. Blocking software companies won't tell us. Illegal to find out. Illegal to not install. Likely illegal to circumvent.
Orwellian. Yep.
As an aside:
"Protecting children" is a convenient way to get government to move, and it's a red herring. No American politician is going to come out and say "I'm anti-children" or "I think children should look at porn and the taxpayers should foot the bill.". Evoking "protecting children" is just a carrot (or whip if you'd rather) for people who have an agenda to wave in front of legislators.
"Protecting children" also sells tires, and Volvos, and antibacterial soap, and milk, and private schools, and cell phones, and guns...
-dameron
Too bad you didn't have a way to pull them out of DARE. The only thing I noticed during DARE was that all it did was 1) teach kids how to use drugs, 2) teach them what fun they could have with each, and 3) give them a T-shirt to use while using drugs to triple the irony. And yes, I did happen to notice that a few years or so later when all the kids who were going to do drugs were doing them, they were the only ones who actually wore their DARE shirts.
In SOVIET RUSSIA... erm...NSA AMERICA, the Internet logs onto YOU!
The problem of isn't that they want to stop children from accessing pornography. That is fine with me. The problem is when it steps on other toes and wastes good money. First of all, these programs are by their very nature inneffective. Either they block based on keywords, which becomes overrestrictive. Any program blocking sites with the words porn, sex, or anal, would block slashdot today, any site about identifieng an animals gender (sexing it), and sites relating to proctology. None of these sites are harmful to children (well, they might not like to now about the very probably prostate exams they'll be facing in the next 60 years). However, the other programs underprotect, they block by blacklisting sites. This also doesn't work because the web changes too fast to blocklist all sites. In fact, the legitimate, credit-card requiring sites will be the easiest ones to block. It is "Joe Bob's kewl BOOBS!" that will be hard to catch because the site is only open for an hour and half every morning before his bandwidth runs out. All in all, you look at a lot of library money being drained for programs that do nothing but deny adults their rights as well as block children from porn, or just plain don't work.
Hear me out!
As everyone knows, most kids who go to Catholic school end up rebelling against the system in larger numbers than kids who go to traditional, secular, public schools. Walk into any private high school in this country and count the number of people wearing black and sporting skateboards on their backs. Walk into the public school down the block and see the difference.
Therefore, the best way to create a more open and accepting society is to put more kids in catholic schools, filter their access to the internet, keep them indoors after 9 pm, don't let them date until they're 18, yada, yada, yada. By the time the Conservatives realize what a huge mess they've created, it'll be too late and they'll be in the supreme minority of government. Didn't anyone see _Pleasantville_? Balck and white baby! Bring it on Mr. Bush! I welcome your plans!
Of course, the rest of us have to endure the torture in the meantime... Oh well.
Guess what's gonna happen to laws like these when Bush gets to appoint judges to the supreme court? Anyone want a recount now?
+1 Insightful, -1 Troll. What can I say, I'm an Insightful Troll.
When I was a kid (that is from 6 years on), I was allowed to read all the pr0n magazines my father bought, right in front of my mother (all she'd say was "that's not nice looking"). So, over time, pr0n didn't have any special attractiveness for me, and I never went out of my way in order to find pr0n - that is, until I got interested in really kinky stuff (besides which goatsee.cx is really tame)...
a story about people turning into salt, talking shrubs, wars, schizophrenics, faeries, ghosts and zombies performing 'miracles' shouldn't be allowed anywhere near a child with an impressionable mind.
just my $0.01
-c
I have discovered a truly remarkable proof which this margin is too small to contain.
Aside from the expense (which will likely force many libraries to simply not provide internet access) the current crop of filters don't work very well, so you are getting false security and asking everyone else to accept reduced functionality at the same time.
Perhaps a better idea would be to add the ability to avoid pRon sites and to shut them down if she hits them by accident to the list of skills a child should have before being left unsupervised in a public library...
Instead of requiring libraries to fund, install, and administer restrictive software which doesn't work reliably anyway, why not use the same damned money to fund one extra librarian whose sole task is to supervise the children's area? Not that the library should be anyone's nanny, but this would cover the issue while putting a thinking warm body in the job (who could actually be helpful to the kids) instead of braindead software.
Don't know if it's still this way, but at least one of the L.A. County libraries solved the "problem" by simply not allowing anyone under 18 to use the internet-enabled computers. I suppose in a similar if less-draconian vein, libraries could restrict children's use of internet-enabled computers to a particular machine(s) that either runs filtering or is under direct adult supervision, while leaving the "adult" machines alone.
I don't agree with censorship of any sort, nor with parents abrogating their responsibility; just offering alternatives, since it seems we're going to be bludgeoned into accepting some sort of "parental controls" willy-nilly.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
The issue before the court is requireing libraries to implement nanny software, not allowing them to, isn't it?
Yep, which I think is bad. Don't require it to begin with, and especially don't require a poor implementation. I agree.
(Reposted, account some moron moderating it as "flamebait")
Current technology does not offer a solution to this problem.
Here's why - and remember, IANAL:
- Filters don't cut it. The only way - I can think of, anyway - to block actual pr0n (and nothing else) would be a list of pr0n sites to block. Unfortunately, there is far, far too much content that would have to be sifted through to find these sites, and (as has been stated before) pornography is an abstract concept.
- Librarians, like all humans, are easily distracted. Even if all the computers are visible from the front desk, normal librarian activities - not to mention diversions from determined porn-hunters - will distract the librarian's attention.
(And remember, whoever provides the diversion: Give your pr0n-hunting buddy a floppy disk to save the pics on, so you can see 'em later!)
- Kids are smarter than you'd expect. After all, they've gotten away with pr0n at home, and most parents are more zealous at restricting pr0n-viewing than librarians. There's a lot of ways to get past filters, and there are a lot of perfectly clean websites - by nearly anyone's standards - that list those ways.
(And remember, pr0n-hunters: Open two windows, one with boring research type stuff, and the other with pr0n, and alt+tab whenever the librarian moves!)
- Finally, the government shouldn't be screwing around with local libraries anyway, which I'm told it's not allowed to do. The local population should be telling their libraries what to do.
- Besides, who goes to the library to look up pr0n anyway? Even immature teenage boys don't do it anymore - after all, what happens if they get caught?
The world can be wrong today for once.
All the comments I've had the patience to read here have it wrong. This is NOT a FREE SPEECH issue. This is a personal-accountability-and-resposibility issue. Unfortunately, that's a VERY unpopular notion these days.
No one on either side of ths issue is telling people that they can't produce porn. No one. It is still the Constitutional right of Heff and Flynt et. al. to continue to produce their magazines. No matter how much I hate it, it's still the Constitutional right for any number of faceless pornographers to put their smut on the internet. But don't get confused. The right to PRODUCE this garbage doesn't equate to my right to be able to CONSUME it.
The First Ammendment guaranteed the right to spew filth all over the internet, but nothing in the Constitution guarantees my right to be able to hear or see said filth. All it said was that Congress shall make no law restricting SPEECH. Installing filtering software at the local library doesn't restrict SPEECH. It restricts hearing. It IS censorship, and I'm not afraid of the word.
I do NOT want my tax dollars spent on guaranteeing that libraries provide unfettered access for every Tom, Dick, and Harry who walks in off the street. People howl that it is unfair for those on the other side of the digital divide. No one said it was. Nothing in the Constitution said we needed to make it so. Local libraries don't carry objectionable material because local communities won't stand for it. That's just a fact. If objectionable material can't be blocked without blocking non-objectionable content, then just DON'T HAVE ANY STINKIN' ACCESS AT ALL.
If you want unfettered access to the internet, buy a computer and get a feed. The Declaration of Independance stated that the government was designed to provide 1) life, 2) liberty, and 3) the PURSUIT of happiness. It's out there if you want it. No one is born with the inalienable right to look at porn. You want it? Go earn it. It's not the job of the government to provide you with a T1's worth of porn - or anything else on the internet - any more than it is to provide you a car or a big-screen TV.
Acts 17:28, "For in Him we live, and move, and have our being."
I don't get this. Why is the burden laid on the libraries? What if the blocking software fails? Will the library get nabbed? Will the software maker be prosecuted? Wouldn't that be royal... opening doors to bad software suits...
Why isn't the burden laid on the porn sites themselves? If a child gets access to a smut site, send the smut peddler to a Turkish prison. Put the burden of prevention on the scum bags themselves. What annoys the crap out of me is the abuse of misspelled URLs pointing straight to smut sites. Children (and folks around /.) are the most likely to misspell URLs.
gJust to let you know - CIPA is a rude word for women genitals in Polish, sometimes also used to name somebody clueless (also rude).
Just thought you'd all like to know that "cipa" is Polish for "cunt".
/-\-/
...to beat off at the library and their is nothing you can do about it. In fact I am entitled to free porn to do so.
Capitalism: unequal distribution of wealth
Socialism: equal distribution of poverty
When I was a kid (that is from 6 years on), I was allowed to read all the pr0n magazines my father bought, right in front of my mother (all she'd say was "that's not nice looking"). So, over time, pr0n didn't have any special attractiveness for me, and I never went out of my way in order to find pr0n - that is, until I got interested in really kinky stuff (besides which goatsee.cx is really tame)... (Reposted, again, account some moron moderating it as "flamebait", and another "reduntant". I guess moderators ought to see that they can't win at this little game)
If these filters are implemented, won't it filter out the comments on this slashdot article?
It has all the filtered words!
The ALA says it is all for open access and all against censoring. However, in practice, it is quite different. They are more than happy to de-facto censor things they don't agree with while promoting their own political agenda.
For example, my local library has a web page where homosexuality is openly promoted. I don't want my tax dollars going towards the advancement of sexually destructive behavior, especially when my children are also exposed to this. At the same time, there is no balancing view. It is a de facto censorship on all non-politcally correct opinions. I wrote the library and mentioned to them that this was a clear violation of the "establishment of religion" clause of the constitution. They wrote back a pithy reply.
Hypocricy seems to be a rallying cry for the anti-censorship crowd. While they claim to want "freedom of speech" what they actually work for is a furthering of what they believe to be politically correct while censoring nonPC opinions. It was both funny and disgusting to read the keynote speach at the recent ALA meeting in Atlanta. The speaker talked about how librarians shouldn't censor anything, while all the time advancing his politics without pretense. He talked of tolerance, yet showed very little. It is just so typical of the over-the-top censorship crowd.
On the flip side, as a citizen it is my responsibility to keep the library as a good environment. My initial email may not have been effective, but I am going to email again, this time with more support. I also plan on enlisting the resources of the library itself to promote a more scientific and moral view on homosexuality.
I think that CIPA means PUSSY in one of the european languages... funny, no?