Slashdot Mirror
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.
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
Comment removed based on user account deletion
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.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
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.
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?
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.
Nobody's bawling for the right to view porn here either. They're complaining about mandatory filters that can't discern between porn and normal sites because they're simply keyword based (ie, if you run a site on breast cancer it sees breast and you're blacklisted) and because these filters are often intentionally used to block web sites that have been deemed governmentally unsanctioned for your viewing, such as the Planned Parenthood website or the ACLU site. If there were an effective way of just filtering out the porn sites that would be great. But what this law mandated wasn't that, it was broad incompetent and/or malicious filtering which blocked legitimate sites.
This is not about the right to look at porn. The proponants of this law and filtering in general want you to believe that. However, that is not what this is about. Filters do not just filter porn, they filter unpopular speech, the very speech that needs the most protections from censorship.
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?
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.
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.
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?
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.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
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.
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.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
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 ----
"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.
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)
Except that a) not all packages allow exceptions b) when the software invisibly blocks the site, you don't even know it's there to ask to see it c) providing internet access is not distribution of porn d)when was the last time your child saw porn at the library? e) I dare you to provide a clear-cut definition of pornography that leaves no room for error or misconception. Your personal judgment doesn't count.
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.
Good question. I say we should petition to have it added to Form 1040:To hell with the Campaign Fund, put my tax dollars to good use!
-s
Thanks to the War on Drugs, it's easier to buy meth than it is to buy cold medicine!
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.
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.
Can't get to www.libraries.ex? Ask the librarian to unblock it.
That would have a chilling effect on people seeking out "legitimate" information. As the AC mentioned, if you're looking for information on anal warts, are you going to ask a librarian to unlock that site for you?
Despite what the ALA and ACLU say, porn is not information. Nor is it "art" or "speech".
Define porn in clear terms for us all, okay?
Current software filters out porn... along with health sites, human sexuality sites, democratic party websites, anyone else that the right-wingers running the filtering company have an axe to grind with...
But it's not irresponsible to let your child go to the library.
It's irreesponsible to expect the library to babysit your kid. If you've raised them right, it generally won't be an issue.
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.
As the husband of a librarian, that's not funny. It happens. Often. And this has been happening long before any library had an internet terminal.
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
Also, it's known for a certainty that the content of a porn establishment is, in fact, porn without inspecting the content. The same is not true for a web site discussing, say, breasts. Either the filters will get it wrong or the librarian will be censoring as an agent of the government. Both are bad.
If you reply, do so only to what I explicitly wrote. If I didn't write it, don't assume or infer it.
But in this case, why should the smokers feel
any different?
Considered harmful.
Should public money be used for building nuclear bombs? Should public money be used to perform painful and life-threatening experiments on animals? Should public money be used to create lasers that can blind hundreds of people at once? Public money gets used to pay for lots of things I don't like. That's one of the prices you pay for living in a society where not everyone has the same set of values.
Anybody reading slashdot should know that this is pure spin.
Anyone reading /. knows that is false. Filter software (all of it) has a long and sordid history of blocking all kinds of things that should not be blocked. And why should the librarian be forced to unlock your site for you? He/She's got enough to do as it is.
But it's not irresponsible to let your child go to the library.
It is if you are not supervising them and they are not of an age where you trust them to do The Right Thing(TM). You (and your wife/partner/whatever) are ultimately responcible for your child. No one else. If you do not take the responcibility to keep your child safe then you have failed in your job as a parent. The library is not a free babysitting service and many have rules against unsupervised children. Thankfully they ignore that rule so your precious child does not have to stand outside in the freezing rain because you can't be bothered to take the time out of your oh so busy day and do your job as a parent.
Despite what the ALA and ACLU say, porn is not information. Nor is it "art" or "speech".
To you, this is true. But this is not true for everyone else and I resent you forcing your view down my thraot.
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
Well, that's stretching it. Part of the
pleasure, even if you disapprove of it,
is smoking at the table, not having to go
out. Why should one be denied this opportunity?
Some people can't afford to go to restaurants;
should this distinction also be erased?
I am all for separate ventilation; but blanket
prohibition is just as wrong as forcing non-smokers to inhale smoke everywhere they go.
A restaurant can have no music and enforce
no cell phones -no loud talking rules, and
thus accomodate people whom noise pisses off - by
the way, loud noise is not exactly great for your
health, in terms of hearing, either. But nobody
makes a law forbidding jukeboxes. Perhaps that's
on the way, eh?
Considered harmful.
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.
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?
Just thought you'd all like to know that "cipa" is Polish for "cunt".
/-\-/
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)
First of all, How do you define "promoting Homosexuality?" If by that you mean a page that says "Homosexulaity is something that all kids should try" then perhaps you have a point. But, if you mean a page of information about Homosexuality or a page promoting tolerance of it in others, even if you do not practice it yourself, then I fail to see your point.
IMHO (and so far as I can tell the Supreme Court's) Homosexuality is not a religion. Moreover making information about any view or advocating tolerance of it in others (but not necessarily practice of it) is not a promotion of the religion itself. Therefore it is not a violation of the constitution. IMHO it is the job of librarians to make information availible and to advocate a world in which all views can be discussed and herd. This is not the same as promoting the views themselves and is therefore legal.
I would then ask what you consider to be a "balancing view". If the page is (as I would guess) providing information on the subject and advocating tolerance of it in others then do you feel that you need a page advocating intolerance? Or do you want to put up a page explaining how it is "sexually destructive"? In the case of the former I would say that that does not deserve to be on the page as all you are seeking to do is to suppress any discussion which runs counter to the purpose of libraries.
In the latter, then the question becomes more difficult and you may have a point however the problem them becomes one of "what is information?" If the library page explains what homosexuality is then that is a statement of fact that you would have to counter with facts. If it is a page saying "God does not oppose Homosexuality" then that is an opinion that should be up for open debate and it may be that they put up the page in order to make a debate possible in which case I would agree with them.
Just my $0.02
This is exactly why an objective filter (software) cannot be relied upon. Your definition would include the vast majority of modern television, commercials, and womens magazines.
Note in all this that I'm not objecting to libraries blocking porn, or even blocking anything they want - I'm against the flat mandate that they MUST block porn. To my knowledge, there is no filtering software available with is both a) more than minimally effective and b) provides an open blacklist and c) who is not known to block sites that are in no way pornographic.
I could care less if I can get porn at a library. However, I do not want anyone outside the local community deciding what appropriate content (for anyone!) to view is. I especially don't want a for-profit company to be deciding, since all the major censorware providers don't just limit themselves to pornography/violence/the other things they're supposed to block. I think it's unreasonable to put the (enormous) administrative task of administering a blacklist onto local librarians, when it's much more effective to simply have unblocked computers readily available. Give people some credit. More importantly, make them take some responsibility. Libraries are not there so you can dump your kids at them. Libraries are not there so teenagers can get off looking at porn - hell, considering how public the terminals are at most libraries, I doubt that this has EVER been a real problem at any library ever. But it sure makes for good campaign fodder.
As for how effective it needs to be, the false positive rate needs to be minimal (something that people generally don't require from spam filters, and which is certainly not the case in ANY existing blocking package) and it needs to be trivial to correct false positives, which again is not a feature in any package I'm aware of. On the other hand, if the true positive rate isn't a very high number, much higher than the rate people require from a spam filter, then the software may as well not be there.
On a further note, spam filters are generally customized to one persons needs, or a small group of people - not for the general public. That allows whoever is using them to make thier own decisions about what is spam, what isn't, and what level of false positive/false negative is acceptable.
You also did read those articles you linked to, since neither of them say that the ACLU opposes libraries blocking porn - just as I said, they oppose them being REQUIRED to block porn. And while the article doesn't go into detail, thier arguments in this case are more or less the same as mine. The ALA takes a somewhat stricter stance, which seems to be that at least some form of unblocked access needs to be available (although not to minors, note that limits based on age or legal emancipation are fine), which, again, I agree with although I'm not as hardline about it.
I'm always suspicious of any law or bill or regulation thats presented as being for the protection of children. Sometimes it's legitimate. Sometimes, the lawmaker is well-meaning and there's no hidden agenda. I would have to be shown a distinct gain for society before I would accept any bill that proposes to limit rights, and in the case of free speach, my personal bar is even higher. It's not speculation that filtering software is insufficent, it's an informed professional opinion. As for whether it's a problem - well, yeah, it's speculation that it's not. And I speculate again that any problems that DO occur can easily be solved without blocking software. If you have actual documented cases where it's impossible for other means of controlling access to be used (public terminals, librarian present, restrict access to adults), along with a documented history of porn viewing there being a "problem" - that is, that porn viewing was frequent and blatant enough that a signifigant amount of people were bothered and/or harmed by it, or that it prevented other people from accessing library resources - then I'll listen to you.