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US Supreme Court Upholds CIPA
TheMatt writes "The US Supreme Court today has upheld CIPA, the law that required public schools and libraries to put internet filters on computers or lose federal funding. Quote: 'The court in a 5-4 decision ruled that the Children's Internet Protection Act does not violate the First Amendment, but that filters sometimes, do block informational Web sites.'"
The decision will be posted on the US Supreme Court website later today. The case is United States v. American Library Association, 02-361. We had covered this story before.
Make sure everybody knows what is being blocked. Talk to the media. Once there is a enough support, try to get the law repealed.
Note that I am Canadian, and I have no idea what goes into repealing laws in the USA. It may be that, because it has already been to the supreme court, it's too late to repeal. But challenge it anyway. Knowing the way laws work, someone can probably write a counter-law that will override it, and attach it as a rider to another bill.
I can't say that I don't give a fuck. I've just run out of fuck to give.
The Washington Post article indicates that the decision was 6-3, not 5-4. Maybey they had a typo and corrected it later.
I'm for civil liberties as much as the next guy, and I agree that filters generally suck, but how hard is it really for an adult to ask another adult to turn off the filters? They are known to block all sorts of legit sites, so it's not as if you're really asking to look at pr0n.
The folks who get screwed here are the teenagers, but unfortunately that seems to be the way of the world these days. But what would youth be without breaking a few laws? If everything were legal, what would be the fun of being underage?
sulli
RTFJ.
A huge problem with the law is that filters which don't tell you they're filtering are OK: if you're using a reasonably clever Google-filter, for example, you may never know that information has been filtered.
Additionally, many methods of filtering infringe the copyrights of the original authors, or may if the MPAA lawsuit against the DVD bowdlerizers succeeds.
Funny that we may have to hope for the MPAA to make filtering harder.
-- Brian T. Sniffen
Plurality opinion here.
Dissents are here and here.
Concurrences are here and here.
Does anyone know if there are any requirements as far as software, or if certain vendors are "certified" as being good enough?
This argument has been around for a long time, and I don't think it's a bad idea to require a filter, I just think there needs to be a better filter out there before this should be legally enforced...
Something clever...
By the CIPA!
sulli
RTFJ.
And buy shares in anybody producing internet filters - they've just gotten the Golden Ticket!
First they've got a huge market that must, by law, use their product. Second, that product is painfully inadequate to perform the job it's asked to - hence a nice long development-release-fix cycle that should go on for years, fully funded via government mandate.
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
The SCOTUS did say that having a librarian temporarily disable the filter is acceptable (and that's why the case was decided this way, in part; it isn't an undue burden, if a legit site is blocked it can be bypassed, and it will prevent a majority of porno or whatever.) Take a look over at SCOTUSblog, there's more information there.
I'm on a road shaped like a figure eight; I'm going nowhere but I'm guaranteed to be late.
Unless the effectiveness of the filter is legislated, I suppose all one would have to do is redirect sex.com, porn.com, and some obvious pr0n sites to a warning page and you'll have met the letter of the law without accidentally blocking National Geographic. Or artistic movies about gay cowboys eating pudding.
Provided teachers have block/unblock per site capabilities, what is the problem. I understand that some sites get blocked that aren't pornographic, but so what. School is for education, and so during school/study hours having game sites blocked also is appropriate.
But that is just my opionion, I could be wrong...
Wait a tic, aren't low scores on tests a problem.
I say block everything, and have the teacher unblock the relevant sites automagically by time/date. Programming a lesson plan into the blocker/unblocker sounds like a good plan to me.
And preventing pedophiles from downloading porn at the library is a good plan too.
Most libraries already have procedures for logging on and can therefore check age/parental permissions per "account" What is the big deal.
Food not Bombs is a nice platitude but it breaks down when you notice that the Bombees are usually well fed
There are all kinds of legitimate uses that are being stopped though this software because it is far from perfect. I can only hope that the Supreme Court doesn't continue with this apparent precedent for saving a few at the expense of many others. After all, how long of a jump is it from this to, say, imprisoning anyone who could be a terrorist, based on demographics? Sure, a lot of innocent folks would be robbed of their rights, but, hey, we've stopped a couple of terrorists from causing trouble. Things are better, right?
Please tell us you are not referring to France? See you in meta mod hell
is it really a bad thing to keep pr0n away from elementary kids?
kids should be beating off at home in their bedrooms, not in the library.
pr0n - keeping monitor glass spotless since 1981.
Everyone gets screwed here. All the Supreme COurt has demonstrated is that none of them has actually used an internet computer at a public library.
Do you really want to have to ask the librarians every time you look for information on breast cancer? Or even worse... you're looking up Penis cancer. Lo and behold, you'll have to walk up to a librarian and say "Excuse me... could you unblock Penis cancer, you commie swine?"
Working in a library, I'm certain this will happen. The worst part is no so much the filtering, but what it does to a poor library's ability to control their own agenda: you want computers, bow down to the morality of whatever company makes your filtering software of choice.
Just what we ALWAYS wanted... private companies determining the morality of the public.
The article now says 6-3 ruling. I presume WP changed the numbers, and the poster isn't to blame.
Anyway, the lawyer for the libraries should have engineered some text in his arguments that would guarantee that case to be blocked by the filters. That could help prove a point, if only after the fact.
At least it would make the court look like the out-of-touch, technically inept folks they are.
One positive note, something I didn't know, the Yahoo article states that library patrons can request that the filter be disabled.
As for needing to hide the eyes of our children, have the justices not seen television lately? Do they not have their own hotmail email accounts? Kids left alone with TV or internet will inevitably get material we don't want them to get. They're much more likely to get it from a source while at home than while at a library. How many kids nowdays spend time in a library?!
.sigs are for post^Hers.
Schools and Libraries are government funded, so there shouldn't be any reason why they aren't filtering this stuff. If people really want to look at their porn, they can do it at home. The internet is a great medium, but with it comes the bad, and a good deal of it is senseless porn popups and redirects that people have no control over. I would not want any kid to have to see something like goatse pop up on them and literally scar them for life. It's just not worth it. Yes, legit sites do get blocked, but that can be taken care of on a site to site basis.
How about just setting up a "kids section," With filters on those computers?
:/
The computer lab should be "policed" by the librarians anyways. Wandering around, leaning over people shoulders. Making sure thomas q pervert isnt masturbating in the library. If he is, call the cops and have him dragged off.
I mean, its one thing to look at breast cancer treatment sites and another to look at big-tittied-lassies.com Wouldnt just seperating the sections be a perfectly fine solution? The kids could just ask the librarians for help if they reach a blocked site.
Normally I would rage against something like this. But if you read the article, the supreme court's decision was based on the fact that librarians can shut off the blocker on request. As long as they dont ask "why?" it should be okay.
Still.. It makes it difficult for people to do research on private topics
I am conflicted.
no
Read the ALA's opinion...
Someone needs to start an open source filter project that only blocks XXX porn, and verifies with human eyeballs every page blocked. 100% no false positives. Only even look at sites for possible inclusion that registered users suggest be considered.
Then give it away for the minimum possible cost to libraries. They will be legal and have "filtering" software, (it just won't be a very good filter from the religous right's perspective... OTOH, it will be more palitable to a librarian). Nothing says they have to use the crapware that block tons of sites that shouldn't be blocked (i.e. breast cancer, et
Is it really such a BAD thing to put filters on a library computer accessible by kids? I hate them as much as the next guy, but doesn't a publicly funded institution have a responsibility to protect children from offensive and degrading material? Perhaps they should just have filters on the computers in the kids section and leave the others clean.
besides there is better filter tech out there now.
my Prof. just finished some research that rather than filter on the content of the page, filters on the construction of the page.
you have to teach it what a certain type of page looks like. a porn site looks diffrent than a news, medical, sports, entertainment, etc. site.
you can also have it take into account as many features as you deam nessisary.
this tech I think will reduce the number of false positives and false negatives by a very significant amount, IMHO.
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
Yes, it was indeed librarians who opposed the law here's the link...
that in Polish "cipa" means "cunt"? :)
because they won't be able to get pr0n at the library anymore, but this is good news for everyone else. Yes, maybe the filters need to be refined, but this is a good start...
I would have to agree with this. Filter specific kids machines, and then have some machines for people 18 and over, and check for an ID before they use them.
It seems to me, that all these problems and objections could be avoided if someone just made a program that would only block the _binary_ data from black-listed sites. That means you'd still be able to see text and HTML, but no images, no file downloads, etc...
I'm sure this would satisfy FAR more people than the current system of all-or-nothing.
Additionally, I don't see why the libraries don't just all band together and make their own filtering solution, rather than giving a blank check to companies? They could maintain absolute control, and decide wether blocking site XYZ is limiting someone's right to free speech.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
Doesn;t sound all that bad to me now...
Freedom of speech is protected by the fact that you can say anything you want online, meaning you can send any 1s and 0s you want out, but what you recieve, who says censorship is unconstitutional if the school agrees to it?
I think this is pretty fair to me, I dont really think public schools and libraries should have access to the true internet.
Filters do not block access to the internet, it filters, like it says, and I think its good to filter kids from the net as a whole, because a library or school should not decide if a kid can or cant access the unfiltered internet, this is a parents job.
I do think however the law should be adapted to work in a more realistic way, an Adult with ID should be able to access the unfiltered internet. If I go with my adult library card I should be able to access the whole internet. If I am in college, in an adult library, I should have access to the whole net including porn sites.
I agree with the purpose of this law, I just dont like the solution.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
From the MSNBC article, http://www.msnbc.com/news/929326.asp?0cv=CA01
Stevens suggested that blacks would not need preferences much longer. But Justice Thurgood Marshall, the first black justice in the courtâ(TM)s history, disagreed, saying preferences would be needed for another hundred years. âoeThis remark left Powell speechless,â according to Jeffries. He âoerecoiled from the prospect of generation upon generation of racial quotas.â
In other news, go play games.... Gibfest
I agree they should block Pr0n in schools. (I mean, what's the point anyway; kids fapping under the desks (not that I haven't seen that)) Personal e-mail, perhaps. Kids supposed to be doing research or in computer / programming class waste time on that stuff instead of paying attention. Either it should be policed better by teachers or perhaps in fact blocked. Entertainment (video trailers, games, etc) the same thing.
But political sites and "hate sites" I honestly don't think should fall under this same policy. At my place of employment, much like school's filtered i-net, Rush's streaming conservative talk show is blocked. But NPR isn't. You can't read the drudge report (in the high school I graduated from two years ago) but you can read the NYT. Something's wrong when political and "hate" reasons (IE anti-gay... I mean, that's a political choice! that's like blocking atheist sites (which they do!) but not blocking catholics-r-us.com (wonder if that exists)) are chosen by the blocking company as to which are acceptable and which aren't. And that's where blocking sites no longer protects but censors. Only blocks certain opinions. What if (I don't) I feel that pro gay sites are as if not more offensive than anti-gay sites?
I haven't posted in so long, my sig is out of date.
This point has been made before but I feel the need to re-iterate....
.
:-)
The children of today are what are going to lead the world tommorow. Makes sense. They shouldn't be prohibited from seeing all sorts of diverse stuff including the negative.
It's like inbreeding. If you don't have enough diversity you end up getting weird illnesses and the species dies off. Same thing. If we all think the same way and band counter-thoughts we're doomed
Imagine in the future if the history of slavery becomes too "upsetting" and is band. etc... etc...
Glad I'm a canadian, proud and free
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
Let me get this straight, the "foundations" you speak of include the right to free pornography via taxpayer funded computers? I don't think so. No one is saying that you can't view internet porn, only that you'll have to do it on your own dime.
I think the validity of this law would depend on the overall computer usage of all libraries. How many children use these computers vs. the number of adults? If the number of children far outstrips the number of adults, then this law makes sense. Are there any library computer usage statistics anywhere on the net?
Secondly, do we have any idea how much legitamite information is getting blocked by the filters? I suppose any information relating to sex/sexuality would be blocked, and there are legitamite uses for that information by students. But what other types of content are getting blocked? And what is the total effect on the person doing the research?
I think one viable solution to this problem is to create a database of 'trusted' web sites, that are exempt from the filter. These web sites would be checked by adults beforehand, who would ensure that there is no inappropriate content. There are tens of thousands of libraries in the States, and at least that number of librarians. I'm sure such a database could be quickly created and maintained. If each librarian submitted a website or two to the database every month that they use often and know are appropriate, then in a very short period of time this database would be up and running.
In any case, I do think it is appropriate to block minors (especially younger children) from viewing unsuitable content. I personally am from Canada, so this decision dosn't affect me. But in my experiences (from our local libraries), the majority of library computer users are children. If the situation is similar in the states, then this law is understandable.
Anyways after reading THIS I have lost all faith in the supreme court to actually even know what the constitution is. What is it with these people, do they not realize that the constitution is the framework for our contry and not a spare roll of toliet paper.
The constitution is for freedom and those freedoms should be expressed in all parts of the government especially our centers of education. I'm tired of these conservative views being implemented on me. You don't want your children downloading porn, how about you try being a parent and stop relying on everyone else to do it for you.
I want something to restore my faith in the system, I really do.
Ignore the "p2p is theft" trolls, they're just uninformed
WaPo story says that Court split 6-3. Slashdot says 5-4. People who follow the court will tell you that 6-3 is a lot different than 5-4 in terms of how the decision is viewed.
probably off topic.
I was doing some work for a private religious school that had software of the CIPA type installed on their server, and it was preventing the students (grade schoolers) from doing their research.
The topic at hand was something on their favourite sports team. The CIPA type software had a default not to allow access to such things.
I looked into the config files, and modified the defaults to allow sports-type web pages to be accessed.
I decided to test this (with all the kiddies watching no less) by going to www.nfl.com
Lo and behold it worked, with the front page of the NFL talking about the suspension, and jail time, of a star player for drug use, rape and murder of his pregnant girlfriend....
perhaps those filters are in place for a reason?
So rise up, all ye lost ones, as one, we'll claw the clouds.
It sickens me to see the Federal government use federal funding as a club to make local libraries comply with Federal guidelines--and then have the gall to talk about 'community standards' in the same breath! And they do this *all the time*.
What if my 'community standards' involve protecting the bill of rights and upholding The Constitution? Why is the Federal government suddenly against that?
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
I went into our local library and most of the teen/adults where looking at porn sites, regardless of the issues that children have also access to the said material and that they are exposed to it unwillingly (seeing other people surfing for it)
i dont pay my fucking taxes so bored young men can sit there with a hardon in a library surrounded by children, fuckin disgusting and i applaud the courts desicion
The libraries apparently are still able to turn off the filters when asked to, but is there anything that says they "must" turn off the filters when asked?
If not, I predict that the filters in most libraries will not get turned off unless someone asks very loudly, and that's not likely to ever happen. This is likely to happen if for no other reason than lack of librarian time to deal with constantly turning them on/off.
The problem isn't so much that it's a violation of civil rights (when a person is in public, they have a civic responsibility to behave in a certain manner anyways), as much as it's a problem that computers just aren't smart enough yet to be able to really tell the difference between, for example, a porn site and an article on breeding cats for profit. This isn't because of bad filters, it's because computers are too dumb to do any thinking on their own.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Apparently this is what you get for letting a bunch of drooling, senile old farts run things. What's the going price for a SCOTUS decision these days, a case of Depends? Heck -- still cheaper than a Congressman...
Government financed porn surfing isn't a freedom. Privately-financed porn surfing is. If you don't want your content politically filtered, then don't have it politically financed. Pay for it yourself.
That is all.
Congress passes laws. The Supreme Court of the United States ensures that the laws passed by Congress are constitutional.
Congress can vote (with a simple majority) to strike the law, at any time, without any oversight from the SCOTUS. So -- the law isn't set in stone, and certainly doesn't require a constitutional ammendment to change.
If congress votes to change the law (not remove it entirely), and if an American challenges the revised law on constitutional grounds, and if the SCOTUS agrees to hear the new case, then hte opinion of SCOTUS will reign again.
The SCOTUS only determines if current laws passed by congress are constitutional. They do not write law. Their decisions on law are binary, and they cannot reword laws so that they adhere to the constitution. They merely stamp the law "UNCONSTITUTIONAL" and send it back to Congress. Once stamped, the law is null and void.
Support a few technologists in Washington.
While I find the blocking software providers a secretive and sleazy bunch and the blocklist rather suspect, I'm not sure that this law will be all that bad.
The terminals I've seen at libraries require a card or login anyway. Since the law is aimed at kids, just issue adult/minor cards or IDs that are, by default, unrestricted or restricted. (I think that parents must sign for kids library cards anyway - minors can't sign legal documents promising to return the books - so determining who is a minor is just part of the process anyway.)
Since adult logins are never blocked there should be no issue of embarassment over requesting removal of the filter. If a kid "needs" unfiltered access he can bring his parent to log in. It's sort of like an R rated movie.
Sure, IDs or cards can be lost or stolen but they can also be deactivated. It seems that this would fulfill the requirement of the law in a nearly transparent way (of course I haven't read the actual law in detail so I could be wrong).
~~~~~~~
"You are not remembered for doing what is expected of you." - Atul Chitnis
This law only keeps unapproved information out of the hands of poor kids, who probably won't need it and can't be trusted to use it responsibly.
Here is a great way to get banned from using the computers in the library.
telenet or ssh into a remote server and edit a perl script with VI.
The librarian saw me and almost started to yell out loud that it was not allowed to use the computer for THAT. She always refered it as THAT as she obiusly didn't have any idea what i were doing.
I tried to explain, but the second i mention the word 'server', she told me that i was banned from using the computers and if i didn't close it down and let ASAP she would call the police.
*sigh*
i guess the kids cannot read 2600 magazine at ther local library annymore. Locks like they will be forced to no brainer sites in the future. Of course it's good that some sites are blocked but who do decide what are appropriate.
With all due respect to your conspiracy mentality, the decison was "bipartisan." Bush I appointed Souter (although, among right wing fanatics, Souter is regarded as a "mistake". Clinton appointed Breyer. Ford appointed Stevens. It is likely that Bush II will, if given the chance, appoint someone in the mold of Judges Hathorne and Corwin, but mistakes might just be made.
Hooray for Common Sense winning out over Leftist Hysteria.
**>>BELCH
I'm a sysadmin at a public library. I have been following these fights for a few years and see only one solution. Kill SLC.
Eliminate the Schools and Libraries Corp and the tax that supports it and the problem goes away. These eternal attempts at control by the FedGov are only possible by the indirect method of tying it to Federal Money. The actual number of dollars our library gets that can be traced directly to SLC is small enough we would just tell them to shove it, but when we looked into it we found it intermingled throughout the state and other misc funding to the point we would lose a buttload of money. Kill SLC.
THE SLC MUST BE DESTROYED.
Democrat delenda est
For those of you who don't aggre with this kinda of stuff I should point out the ACLU has been fighting it for a while now.e s.cfm?ID=12017&c=55
They have a section on libary filters if your intersted.
http://www.aclu.org/Cyber-Liberties/Cyber-Liberti
Technology, the cause of and solution to all of life's problems.
How about these reasons?
1) This is Government mandated censorship. The Supreme Court accepts that occasionally, sites are blocked incorrectly. The Government accepts that peoples free speach may be impinged by these filters.
2) Reason #1 is in direct breach of the 1st Amendment. Remember that? Its part of the constitution.
3) This assumes Guilty until proven Innocent. It is mandated nanying of the population. The law assumes that you cannot be trusted and that requests for blocked material will be the exception to the rule. The state thinks it knows better than you do.
4) Following on from #3, why not simply make a law against viewing pornography in a public library? There; no need for filters and those that do it can be throw out of the library and arrested if required.
Or are you O.K with the idea of giving up a small part of your constitional rights in return for nanying someone else are you?
... down the slippery-slope of censorship. Weee! [==== CENSORED FOR YOUR PROTECTION ====] Can you believe it? [==== CENSORED FOR YOUR PROTECTION ====] Just don't try to get any info on bXXXXX cancer or contraception... and the pr0no spammers will always find a way around the filters. Maybe they should just have text terminals in libraries? This is the future of America, technological regression and thought police. That's it, I'm moving to Costa Rica!
The biggest trick the devil pulled was letting lawyers become politicians so they can write the laws.
We actually turn down about $50K of funding due to CIPA, but in the past 3 years I can count on one hand the number of complaints we've had about the filter. We run it from a proxy server and there's no quick trick for someone to circumvent it.
The suggestion of publishing the logs of what gets filtered. Bad idea! You wouldn't believe what people will surf for. We process about 2GB of patron Inet traffic a day, and have between 100-500 blocks on average. Nearly all of them very legitimate.
I hate big brother dangling the carrot as much as the next guy, but blameing the filter isn't the right approach.
My main objection is with the companies producing the stupid-assed filters and closed/encrypted blocked sites lists. Is it feasible to think that there could be an open source blocking software? Who would maintain the list of blocked sites? Whose moral standards would such a list enforce? How would categorization be done such that, for example, you could allow non-explicit sexual content (ie, educational and health sites), and not explicit content?
In other words, is there a way to make this work somewhat well, now that the law passed the Supreme Court test?
Ahh, the sweet sweet smell of innocence protected.
Kudos to those who support censorship and who are policed by fear and shame. It makes me so proud!
Thank you for trying so very hard to clamp your hands over the eyes, ears, and mouths of our tender youth... it's a good thing that saying that something is bad stifles curiousity!
It's so caring to uphold the belief that children should be led blindfolded into the world and only exposed to the reality of the people around them in bite-sized pieces... it's easier on the digestion!
I for one am thankful that the Supreme Court has my future children's vigin minds on the top of their priority list.
Time to check that banned book list, too! Banning, burning... whatever. Maybe the Nazi's weren't crazy after all!
B
"We must still have chaos within in order to be able to give birth to a dancing star." --Friedrich Nietzsche
the library is NOT a place to get sexual gratification, especially as its populated by children
if i said "this guy wants the right to sit surrounded by children and look at pornographic material while sexually aroused in a public place" people honestly think thats ok and to deny that is a breach of freedom ?
It kills me that this law is already in effect when nothing is being done regarding SPAM (OK, until the last couple of weeks...). It's even more annoying when you consider how much SPAM contains pr0n. This country has its priorities all screwed up.
Hmm the USA giving the world lessons of Liberty? Come on. You really believe that you are a free country? When anyone opposing the goverment is un-american and deprived of access to (market/media/whatever). When you sue an artist (famous Osbourne case) for being responsible for the suicide of a teenager and Winning? (thus limiting the freedom of artists to whatever cannot be turned against them). When you have DMCA/RIAA/Patent hell. When you have a legal system that forces the financialy week to comply to whatever X company dictates, just because they cannot afford going to court. You don't teach the world freedom by changing the name of a food (freedom fries) whenever someone has an opposing view of the world.
True , USA has many freedoms compared to other countries and is indeed democratic (for now).
Mod me down to oblivion , but i just had to say this.
Slashdot Sig. version 0.1alpha. Use at your own risk.
For the most part, you DO have to TRY to get to a porn site to get there. Yes it's possible to inadvertently stumble across them, but in my experience, it is not likely.
Yet another law that tries to take over parenting and parental supervision. The lawmakers really need to stop doing this.
The report is out, has tons of data about blocked sites. Here is the executive summary:
The abstract is online in HTML as well. The whole PDF is 10.6MB.
-- Are you an EFF member yet?
oh, come on. who seriously thinks it's a big deal to have a filter on computers in schools?
they have every right to provide no internet access at all if they want, so why can't they limit access if they're good enough to provide it?
It's all going according to
Of course, it couldn't be one password for everything. I wonder if they could manage to have a password per site. When the dialog comes up, the user is given a number to give to the librarian, and they can in turn look up the password for that site. (and see what the site is if they so choose).
There may be holes in this idea, but it seems to me that they could be worked out. The idea behind filtering is a good one, but the facts are that it doesn't work that well.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
I'm sorry but I agree with this. If a parent puts a filter on their computer system to keep a child from seeing pr0n0 sites (which is their right I might add) that child should not be able to go to the library to get their fix of sexual content which the parents have already deamed not suitable for their child. The Government SHOULD NEVER overrule the rights of the parent in this case. And this is EXACTLY why it's an issue. If the parents decide that their child(ren) can look at whatever they want on the net, the child wouldn't go to the Library, they'd just look at what they want at home. If something "bad" comes up in a child's research of a topic (oh, breast cancer for example) the parent has said it's ok for the child to look at that content and that the child should use his/her own discression.
The real issue here is the Government overrulling the parents, that's why it's come to this and I don't belive the Government has that right.
-- DuckWing
And will be promtly filtered out by most schools.
Can't have the kiddes reading about the Supremes with out some filtering and "contextual" information being provided/(force fed) to them. They might actualy start to think on thier own... ooooh, the evil that would ensue...
Personally, I'd prefer that open source be mandated (say, squid and squidGuard), but I'd rather they be used on their merrits.
All this law does is keep these nanny software vendors alive and kicking. I'm sure they're laughing all the way to the bank.
Ideally, these filters wouldn't be required anyway. Welcome to the Nany State.
Method of processing duck feet
~~~
So all this has done is raised the difficulty of the "6 clicks to porn in the library game" in public libraries across the country. Hell if the library sets its browser start page to National Geographic's website, little Johnny could probably get to the nude tribespeople pictures in less than 3 clicks...
...welcome to the USSA!
The library doesn't have pornography on its shelves, though they do have some moderately racy material. After all, sex scenes are in just about everything these days. Filtering is probably a good thing, since one expects one's children to go to the library and not have access to pornography. Yes, there are false positives, and the library should be sending the examples in to the makers of the filtering software who are, in the end, only human.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Would it be okay for a library to use a filter designed by an open source development team? To survive under this crazy fascist new paradigm, it stands to reason that the only effective solution is for libraries to adopt the use of open-source filters with open-source block lists. Would any developers care to take on this project?
The flag just makes more sense than the constitution. - Judas Gutenberg
If you buy this logic, Renquist is just a two-bit terrorist with the wonderous decoration of a black robe. Makes the Critical Legal Studies folks seem more right every day.
1: CIPA act
r in g.php
2: Build Linux Routers/Filter, use busybox, lrp, a little bit of roll your own
3: Sell to Libraries
4: Profit!
http://www.derbytech.net/embedded/content-filte
Children must understand what happens when they break the rules! If you deny them this freedom, then they will instead grow up seeking ways not to break the rules, but to change them altogether and perhaps even to overthrow the system.
I'm not paranoid or anything, it's just that I was once one of those kids, and luckily I was smart enough to find ways to change the rules without working behind the backs of the supposed authorities. Those with fewer opportunities and poorer guides, however, need to be shown the difference between right and wrong -- not shielded from wrong.
Shielding them from the atrocities of life, no matter how light they may be, only makes them incapable of handling it when they inevitably confront it at some later time.
Is this really that bad? More importantly, are any rights really being trampled on? You have the right to say and read anything you want, but that doesn't mean that the goverment has to provide the means to do it. You don't have a constitutional right to access the internet from a library. It makes sense given the mandate of a library, but there are other concerns here. The internet is full of things that would be completely inappropriate for public libraries, so they block it. The fact that other legitimate information is also blocked is too bad, but if you want to read about reproductive health, or whatever, pickup a book, or surf from home, or an internet cafe. It's not the govenment's responsibility to provide this information to you, and it is their responsibility to protect kids.
This post cannot be rebroadcast without the express written constent of Major League Baseball.
It's interesting to see what they censor. I went to FCPS schools in fairfax virginia, they censor out www.beretta.com but also pro-gun sites. Even more interesting is that they will not censor out gun control sites; it's deciding what kids see. I don't know how else I was effected, but an extreme (very!) pole of this could be whether or not maybe cnn.com were blocked as opposed to msn.com or any other news site.
just interesting.
Sig & Below
Yuck Fou
Just turn off the gateway for each library (filtering everything). Then everyone must ask to disable the filter, which means that in fact there is no filter at all, and asking to disable it implies nothing unusual.
The downside is children will have to wait until after an adult uses the net..
This law is a 'think of the children!' law, and should be ignored.
Most libraries have books with porn, explosives, murder, history.. If children today are too stupid to deal with the same things you dealt with, there is no need to protect them... they will soon die from playing "MTV's Jackass".
Well, on one hand, it's the fed's money, so they can pretty much do what they want with it. It's pretty lame to make that money conditional based on these filters, but when someone is giving you free money, you're pretty much in their house.
On the other hand, libraries should be allowed to deal with such things in their own way. I volunteered at a public libary for awhile, and their policy was to cruise by the terminals to shoulder surf the users. If we saw pornography, we were to turn off the monitor and inform them that surfing pr0n was not allowed and if they continued they would have to get off the computer. If they raised a stink all we had to do was point to the police station right out the window.
-R
Does this mean I can't go to his web site anymore?
GIGOwiz
Cool. I remember waiting for it to be out sometime last summer. This one must be very very late.
The problem is that there is no definition of pornography.
In a community of religous fundamentalists, a woman with a skirt at knee-height might be considered pornographic filth.
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
It was flesh, not a body part... sorry...
"I'll have a Guinness, no wait, make that a Coors Light" -Grad student I work with, who shall remain anonymous...
As a Webmaster for a library, I found that the Internet filters, and security programs installed are possibly the least effective programs I have used. If one wishes to find 'filth' then they are only a minor inconvenience. If one wishes to find legitimate information that has not yet been sterilized, then they are a firm roadblock, as there are many sources of filth, but precious few of real information. Fortunately, the library at which I work has filters installed on only two of it's computers, and these are clearly labeled. I think this solution is a very sane answer, as if a parent wishes to have their child protected, they can put them at the filtered computer, however, adults still have full access to the web. "Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." -Benjamin Franklin
Within 10 years, there will be a war when the world turns against the USA to stop it like the world did against nazi Germany in 1939.
On one hand, this is a blow to free speech.
On the other hand, if this country wasn't full of fucking morons, this law wouldn't exist.
I mean, come on - surfing for porn at a *library*?
Yeah, I really wonder why parents across the nation were getting a bit pissed off.
Stupid laws for stupid people. Of course, we could simply deny the use of public computers to stupid people, but then we'd get into a whole mess of what's politically correct and what isn't.
In a year we'll be hearing reports of Talk Origins being blocked as "Blasphemy" and "Violent pornography".
I think librarians should take blocked sites and print them out and put on the shelves. The pro-filtering people want nothing more than to burn all dissidents and create lots and lots of unquestioning little robots to share in their delusion. Force them to be honest about it.
Thinking people cannot be ruled. The children shouldn't be thinking, they should be obedient copycats of their parents. Great. A nation of idiots in the making.
Mark me flamebait if you must, or troll. I'm just so tired. So tired of all this bullshit. DMCA, CITA, lawyers everywhere, creationists, John Edwards and a nation of gullibles. Just fucking great.
...oh, and God forbid....he could *gasp* ASK A HUMAN!
You've never been in the rural south, have you?
I remember writing my high school senior research paper. My topic was affirmative action. The www.hornyteens.com web site sure was a big help. I don't think I could have finished the paper without it!!! Down with censorship!!!
Is it pronounced 'kipper'? It should be, because it stinks real fishy.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
nope. Reverse engineering net nanny tools/blockers is one of the specific exemptions from the DMCA.
-- your Web browser is Ronald Reagan
You are assuming that these libraries and schools will be using comercial filtering software. That's the wrong way to go about it.
The law is extraordinarly lax in what it requires the institutions to install (IANAL but I have read most of CIPA.) It basically sais you must have filtering software that blocks stuff. Not all stuff, not some percentage of stuff, it just has to block stuff. SquidGuard and derivitives like Dans' Guardian are great options for these institutions. They are open, not just in the source but in the blocklists. They offer full control over the block lists, they are plain text so you can read them, edit them etc. There are places that serve out updated block lists that you can auto-update from. You have the ability to put in local files that override what comes from these servers (explicit allows and denys). It's really great and FREE in both sences of the word which is important for things like Schools and Libraries.
Comercial filters are wrong for Schools and Libraries. They absolutely shouldn't use them and it should probably be illegal for them to use anything where the block list isn't examineable. How do you know if they are filtering ideas that it is illegal to filter unless you can see what they are filtering?
set softtabstop=4 shiftwidth=4 expandtab nocp worlddomination
THE SLC MUST BE DESTROYED.
Dude, Salt Lake City is *bad*, but it isn't *that* bad...
Unless it was showing graphic images, it's not really anything more than you would see on the cover of a newspaper, sports mag, etc - publicly available in a corner store or magazine section of chapters.
How much will these filters cost? Most libraries are on very, very tight budgets (many libraries have suspended book purchases for the fiscal year because their budgets are so tight -- either that or reduce their staff to less-then-skeletal levels); will the purchasing of these filters cause financial hardships on libraries that can't afford them?
-- The reason it's called the right wing? Irony.
It's time to end the commie dream of the federal government funding everything, anyway. Some things require a massive huge collective country-wide effort, such as defense. But that list of things that require federal involvement is very small. It might seem like a good idea, at first, for the feds to be involved in things they don't need to, such as education, libraries, healthcare, roads, etc. That's because you see the huge federal budgets and you think, "damn, I'd love to have a piece of that." But the people in your state (or city) are the ones who use the libraries, roads, etc there. You're not getting something for nothing when this "free federal money" comes in; you paid for it with your income taxes. Why do you want this extra middleman, when you know that it will inevitably skim off some efficiency, and abuse it's power so that some senator who lives thousands of miles away from you, will have a say in how you live?
Stop voting people into federal offices (president, senate, house) who say they will do great things for you, because it's always a lie. Vote in the ones who say they will get the federal government out of your local community's concerns. That means you won't be getting those federal dollars, but you won't be giving them to the feds in the first place, either. Decide for yourselves, at your local level, how much to spend on what, and under what conditions. Then nobody will be able to use your own money as a weapon against you.
These kind of abuses will not go away as long as you keep voting for them.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
This is a good decision. Children should NOT be allowed to access everything on the Internet.
:-)
After all we don't allow them to access pornographic or other offensive material in the libraries, and the blocked internet sites are no different.
Oh and spare me the arguments about all the kids wanting to do breast cancer research and getting blocked by the software...
The fact is, Libraries are a bastion of "I'm okay, you're okay" philosophy. They don't give a rats ass if your kid views porn and in many cases support their "right" to do so. Notice in all the objections I've heard, never do they seem to offer a solution to kids surfing porn in the library. Guess what, until you offer a good solution you're stuck with filters. As the father of a teen and pre-teen, I don't want my kids looking at Ron Jeremy on a libraries PC. If surfing porn at the library is okay, then why aren't they fighting the right to stock Hustler? Because they know they couldn't win. There is a sick element out their who think kids having sex is a good thing. Hey, I was a teen and I know at some point they're going to start but the library, where my tax dollars go, should NOT be it. >
1) Rant about conservatives without looking at merits of case
2) Do NOTHING
3) Karma!
I'm the system administrator for a small municipal public library somewhere in Texas. We solved this dilemna by simply having two sets of public access Internet workstations located in separate areas of our library. Over in the children's section, we have four machines that can only surf thru a rigorously filtered and censored list of websites. On those machines every site is denied access except for an explicit list of URLs that have been personally reviewed and accepted by a committe of library staff and appointed citizens who oversee the content of the entire children's section of the library.
Over in the adult internet area, it's a different story. All the workstations here (about 10, give or take a couple due to downtime, etc) are located in a seperate room, with a solid door on it, you have to have a library card and be 18 or older to get in, or if 17 or younger, you must be accaompanied personally by parent or legal guardian. All the machines have privacy screens on the monitors and nice solid wood privacy cubicles around them. You can surf anywhere on the net from these and absolutely nothing is logged. However, don't get caught deliberately surfing pr0n here... the act of "public display of pornographic materials in a public place" is a criminal offence in this town, and we have busted some genuine sleezebags who abused the facility, and believe me, they deserved it, but if you want to surf websites that have graphic images of naked people like medical stuff for instance, that's perfectly allright, but spending an hour surfing gross S&M sites on the library computers will get you busted.
It's only a matter of time. Citing "national security" interests and the need to play a part in the "war on terrorism," libraries will be compelled (via laws that will be constantly "revised" to withstand SCOTUS review) to censor information related to WMD and "terrorist propanganda." So not only must we save the children from titties, but also from certain aspects of chemistry, physics, and whatnot.
Perhaps the day will come when thinking of alternatives to the fear-based corporate state is no longer a legal activity (or shunned so much that anyone fears to do so). I would like to think that this can't happen in the United States, but I could also say this about many of the events this past 1.5 yrs.
Sad, really. You may think I'm jumping to conclusions, but I guarantee you this won't stop with pr0n.
Let's get drunk and delete production data!
Support Bennett Haselton / Peacefire.org and their efforts in this area.
The ones that did what did they do?
Go to the little old librarian and say:
I can't seem to get trhu to Fuckmeinthebuthole.com , when are you going to get that fixed?
Help fight continental drift.
This is why people have parents. If you need to do a research paper on a filtered topic, then your parent can go to the library with you and tell the librarian it's okay for you to have free reign. At that point, if you get access to pr0n, it's your parents fault not the librarians.
I didn't realize that CIPA provided a means for adults to unlock the filters. That being the case I don't have that much of a problem with it anymore. This law seems to give authority to the parents until the child becomes an adult and that's very reasonable.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
I have one of the most comprehensive Internet user safety sections online, and simply because of my domain name and content, I'm blocked. It's too much trouble just to get a second domain name and revise the safety section to comply with the blocking software. I don't lose that much traffic as it is, but what really gets me is that a lot of high schools and colleges cite my site as a reference, and then block it in the libraries.
Pete Carr Owner Chatmag.com
I bet they block sites like http://www.askmen.com/ too as the article mentioned that informational sites on sexual topics are blocked. So teenagers who only can access the computer at the library will have to resort to asking their peers or adults for information in which in both cases it might be innacurate. Yet sites that provide objective, down-to-earth information on sexual topics are blocked. Puritanism post-2000? I think so!
Next they will require us to put these on televisions, computers at home, register our children's and our DNA and retinal scans so big brother can keep an eye on us at all times. It goes to show that politicians and media always know what's best for us, and we should rely on their judgement in every case and not worrying about our constant decrese of power as individual citizens in the last 100 years.
Personally, there is not a lot of choice in who we elect, and its a case of electing someone who sucks, or someone who sucks worse. The end result is we get pathetic censorship like this!
Volunteer Mozilla developer, RPI Student.
...is thus: RTFD (read the fucking decision).
For you and anybody else who feels like holding a First Amendment Rights parade in front of the front steps of the Supreme Court, quit preaching from the pulpit about your FA rights. They don't exist in this case.
The Supreme Court made a good decision. Maybe I can explain it to you in a way that won't make your head hurt.
Libraries are federally funded.
That means, plain and simple, that the government has every right to say, "You can have this money, if..." They Supremem Court has made it crystal clear that the government can stipulate almost anything when it comes to funding. From the court's decision:
Within broad limits, when the Government appropriates public funds to establish a program it is entitled to define the limits of that program. Rust v. Sullivan, 500 U. S. 173,
194 (1991)...The Government [was] not denying a benefit to anyone, but [was] instead simply insisting that public funds be spent for the purposes for which they were authorized. Ibid
And here's the best part about it all: They aren't preventing Public Libraries from providing unfiltered content. Hell, any library has the right to have pornography on its shelf...hell, they could sponsor a midnight orgy session if they wanted to...but the government wouldn't pay for it. And since money's so important for funding, don't expect it to happen (unless Hugh Heffner decides to open his own public library).
From the decision:
CIPA does not penalize libraries that choose not to install such software, or deny them the right to provide their patrons with unfiltered Internet access. Rather, CIPA simply reflects
Congress decision not to subsidize their doing so... [A] legislature's decision not to subsidize the exercise of a fundamental right does not infringe the right.
So QUIT COMPLAINING! Your First Amendment rights are not being taken away. The First Amendment stops the government from limiting YOUR freedom of speech, not THE GOVERNMENT's freedom of speech ("Government entities do not have First Amendment rights...The First Amendment protects the press from governmental interference; it confers no analogous protection on the government.") Feel free to log into your own internet and look at whatever the hell you want. Feel free to walk down to your privately-owned bookstore and purchase either the latest Harry Potter or some S&M erotica novel. Just understand that the government has chosen not to PROVIDE you everything that you have the right to do.
And will somebody PLEASE stop calling posts like this parent post insightful!?!
because in polish language "CIPA" means exactly "PUS*Y" :)
Despite what many people claim, there is still such a thing as human dignity - and internet pornography insults it. Our kids deserve better.
Good job, supreme court!
Protesting against Big Government is Leftist now? Someone better go tell the libertarians...
Together, we will drive the rats from the tundra.
but where is internet access a right?
Thanks to file sharing, I purchase more CDs
Thanks to the RIAA, I buy them used...
quote---
The Supreme Court made a good decision. Maybe I can explain it to you in a way that won't make your head hurt.
Libraries are federally funded.
That means, plain and simple, that the government has every right to say, "You can have this money, if..." The Supreme Court has made it crystal clear that the government can stipulate almost anything when it comes to funding.
-- unquote
----
And they've done it already with federal funds for transportation (alcohol age limit, roadblocks, seatbelts) and federal funds for education (zero tolerance gun law).
So, is the solution for libraries to refuse federal funding and look elsewhere and look for alternative revenue? Or is the law so encompassing that *any* public funding stipulates filters
Mod Karma -1: I sed bad wurds. If I cep my mouf shut, I wud be at riyses.
I find it odd that the legislation on internet filters means "pussy" in Polish.
Many small neighborhood libraries only have one or two computers, which makes your idea unworkable.
I used to live in downtown San Diego, circa 1997. The public library had (still has?) a row of computers in the techology section that can't be seen by the librarians. They put cardboard hoods on them because the homeless people would surf porn all day back there.
Not as bad as their struggles with street prostitutes using the bathrooms upstairs for servicing the customers...that was in the early to mid nineties. A huge increase in security stopped that.
So I guess that's the future of the USA...more security, less rights. I don't think the burden should be on adults to have to ask anyone for anything...innocent until proven guilty.
Someone else mentioned using the library card to sign in to the computer...and looking at the age to set the security level. Interesting, but it opens up a very ugly ball of worms (government tracking of computer use, etc).
As I recall, we had to show ID and sign in to use the computers, so I suppose they could track someone anyway if they really wanted to.
Treatment, not tyranny. End the drug war and free our American POWs.
See my user info for links.
I get a laugh out of people complaining that their rights are being violated because they can't go to a public library and look at pornography. Are you insane?
A library is a public place. There are also public indecency laws. These are the same laws that prevent you from walking down the sidewalk with your penis hanging out of your pants, or waving your private parts at bus-fulls of old ladies and puppy dogs.
So why should you be allowed to expose pornography (which, by and large, is a VISUAL medium - yes there is written pornography, but you can't look over somebody's sholder and immediately tell they're reading smut quite as easily as you can look over somebody shoulder and see a double-fist-penetration scene.) to those who do not want to see it?
"Turn the computer the other way!"
Horse shit, and you know it. It's still a public venue. It amazes me that people will go to such lengths to support things like being able to go to a library and get their jollies on a computer. Nobody is making pornography ILLEGAL, they're making it more difficult to view in a public place.
Think of it as an open container law for porn. Can you crack open a beer, walk down the street with it? In a few places, sure, but by and large this is a law thats in place to prevent things like drunk driving. You can drink beer in a bar or in your house, sure. So go home if you want to yank your franklin, keep it out of the library.
thanks, chances are I'm getting modded down for making sense.
One patron went even so far as to follow a lady out to her car.
Now the librarians are suing the city to allow filters to be put in place because it is creating an unsafe work environment.
Good security is based upon reality and common sense. Common sense is a function of having common knowledge.
If the worst problem your kid is going to face is some pr0n on the web, you might as well consider your parenting job done. Children are beaten up by bullies, exposed to drug dealers, emotionally abused by teachers, pressured to have sex they don't want, forced to memorize mindless drivel in classes. Sure you don't want to spend your time and tax money on these things rather than forcing filtering software on librarians who already have a choice of using it at their discretion?
Granted I am not a parent, but won't teenagers develop some mental problems without good knowledge of human reproduction? I would explain to my imaginary son what I think is healthy and show him some good, clean sites for futher reference.
I have _real_ issues with my tax money being used to puchase and utilize software that is designed to block citizens from accessing content. While this alone I might be able to stomach under very strict and specific circumstances, when you add into the mix that the lists of sites that citizens are not only restricted from the view of citizens, but it is also a _federal_crime_ for a citizen to surreptitiously attempt to glean what sites this blocking software is restricting from view.
This country was founded on the ideals of freedom and individual worth. I find it extremely distasteful that the very tools of law that were designed to help us all become all we could ever want to become are now being used to to tie about our necks the stone of faschism.
RFC2119
check out a hard copy of the "Joy of Sex", and read it at home.
Never answer an anonymous letter. - Yogi Berra
Democracy in US o' America died when the Consititution was signed.
That document made the USA a representive republic, like the Romans. Democracy was saved for local governments that still wanted a polis. Not very many of those still exist, some still remain in the East Coast.
Never answer an anonymous letter. - Yogi Berra
In SOVIET RUSSA you donâ(TM)t fuck little boys, the fuck YOU!
According to the WP article:
Adults, the government also noted, can ask librarians to disable the filters.
So when you go in to use the library, ask the have the filters disabled. It's as simple as that. If they refuse, refer to this court decision and insist upon it. I did not know in all the debate leading up to this decision that CIPA permitted adult patrons to get the filtered turned off if they wish. It'd be nice if you editor types would bother to include that sort of detail in your stories. It makes a HUGE difference in the impact of this ruling.
If you don't use the library for internet access, what is your problem with this? Any adult who wishes to browse unfiltered may do so just for the asking. I have no problem with that. If enough people do it, large libraries would probably set aside some unfiltered PCs for adult-only use, to relieve staff of the burden of enabling and disabling it repeatedly.
Edith Keeler Must Die
The issue here is that Congress has side-stepped the Constituion. They've legislated through the back-door what they can't through the front.
They have no put a ban on such sites, nor told schools that they have to block such sites. They've said that if the schools don't do this, they won't give them Federal funding. They do the same thing with taxes. You couldn't pass a law criminalizing smoking, but you can tax it to high heaven. This is why Libertarians want states to be in no way dependent on Federal gov't funding.
So, the question here is, is it ok for the government to side-step the intent of the US Constituion. The USSC's answer is hardly affirmative, with a 5-4 decision. Such a weak decision is susceptible to being over-turned. The answer to it, of course, depends on whether you are a strict constructionalist or a loose constructionalist.
Quite frankly, I think that the government shouldn't be able to regulate through the back door what it can't through the front; that mandate should be written into the US Constitution.
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
I get a laugh out of people complaining that their rights are being violated because they can't go to a public library and look at pornography.
Who says that's what is desired? What if I want to read an editorial about the influence of pornography, or even an article about this Supreme Court ruling? Both of those are likely to be blocked by ham-handed filtering software (and note that there is no other kind of filtering software but the ham-handed kind).
Edith Keeler Must Die
I found a link to a Local News Poll, and was wondering if ./ wanted to put its skew into the fray. No Cowboy Neal option however . . . :-(
(1) IN GENERAL.--No funds made available under this Act for a library described in section 213(2)(A) or (B) that does not receive services at discount rates under section 254(h)(6) of the Communications Act of 1934, as added by section 1721 of this Children's Internet Protection Act, may be used to purchase computers used to access the Internet, or to pay for direct costs associated with accessing the Internet, for such library unless ``(A) such library ``(i) has in place a policy of Internet safety for minors that includes the operation of a technology protection measure with respect to any of its computers with Internet access that protects against access through such computers to visual depictions that are ``(I) obscene; ``(II) child pornography; or ``(III) harmful to minors; and ``(ii) is enforcing the operation of such technology protection measure during any use of such computers by minors; and ``(B) such library ``(i) has in place a policy of Internet safety that includes the operation of a technology protection measure with respect to any of its computers with Internet access that protects against access through such computers to visual depictions that are-- ``(I) obscene; or ``(II) child pornography; and ``(ii) is enforcing the operation of such technology protection measure during any use of such computers.
So... I was wrong earlier. It's not even children's public computers... It's ANY library computer. Glad to know your local library staff can't help you research certain topics without turning off their own filters?
And it's only "visual depictions." Too bad the technology focuses on words.
To me the answer seems simple. All web sites and web pages should have a self assigned ratings for graphic content. Like XXX, NC17, or whatever system seems reasonable. Then the browser should do the filtering. No need for 3rd party filters.
So while the self assigned rating system may be abused, we could then add an oversight committee that could assign or re-assign the ratings. Perhaps the web site ratings could be assigned or kept at the DNS level?
I'm not some type of censor freak or right winger, but I have two children ages 9 and 10, and it scares me at what they can view.
Children don't need access to web sites with pictures of women with sperm all over their faces and cocks up their bum.
- People with rare illnesses: pre-internet you'd be lucky if your doctor recognized the symptoms of the illness. You'd have to move from doctor to doctor, so that months or years went by before you'd find a doctor who recognized what you had. You'd almost never meet anyone else with the disease, so you'd have to recreate your 'library of information' yourself. Now you can quickly search for information centers and support groups, and you can narrow down possible causes of symptoms much faster than before.
- People with illnesses in general: before, unless you were near a research library you'd not be able to find out much about your illness on your own. Now you can quickly get access to medical journals (Medline) or to other people with the same illness to get advice or support.
- People who need to comparison shop: pre-internet, other than Consumers Report (and similar) you were on your own.
- People who want to warn about a business or practice: pre-internet it was difficult to share warnings. Even if you told your local BBB, what happened if the problem business left town / state?
The reduced asymmetry of information brought about by the internet is a qualitative improvement to people's lives.If you'd have read the parent, you'd realize that he said the USA gave lessons, not that the USA is giving lessons.
Believe it or not (and as a current USian, I barely believe it), there was a time when this country was actually more or less free and democratic.
Now it's closer to less. Much closer.
"America has done some terrible things. But I know that Americans don't cheer when innocents die." -Dave Barry
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/03/05/214220 0&mode=thread&tid=153
Reinquist compaired it to a library being allowed to have a choice in which books to stock, he says that which has a list of 'acceptable sites' regulates too much information, thus even if there is a small loss of useful information, it's still on the whole consitutional.
So if we're so busy impowering librarians, why not give them a filter that blocks one site like www.somefilteredpornsite.com.
Then we can really make it an issue of the USFG forcing a specific type of filter.
I'm sure that someone else must have noted this by now, but one of the greatest things about our system coupled with one of its worst problems for dealing with technological innovation is that the Supreme Court is our "Court of Last Appeal."
In the real world, Once the Supreme Court has ruled, a change in the law requires considerable political pressure and motion through a federal appelate court system that the administrations of the last two decades have stacked with appointees who were often picked more for their ideological reliability than for their objective jurisprudential acumen. That is, more for how likely it is believed that they would rule 'against' on cases involving issues disliked by conservatives; issues like affirmative action, privacy, worker-safety or reproductive issues.
Having travelled through that minefield, the Supreme Court would then have to collectively acknowledge that there was some new issue at stake for the Court to examine and then finally, the decision would have to overcome the ideological-stacking of the court by previous conservative administrations. Rehnquist, Scalia and Thomas have often worked to generate some truly hideous law IMHO, and their finding the 'protection of children,' of greater weight than publicly-available access to information from sources paid for by the tax-payer is not surprising.
In the final analysis, a successful review of the matter would all come down to a question of how small the issue was as a hotspot in an ideologically polarized judicial branch where a partnership between wealth, religion and the desire for social inertia in the face of social change have worked together to produce a court capable of making, um, uh... counterintuitive rulings on important issues.
All things considered, don't hold your breath and hope the border to Canada stays open for as long as possible.
To mail me, remove the 'mailno' from my email addy.
"Yeah. It smells, too..."
>Why not voluntarilly move to a .xxx tld?
.kids TLD. Not exactly a smashing success. I would fully disagree with moving anything with nakedness to a .xxx TLD. The question of "what is porn" would be simply be too much for everyone to handle and some hamfisted legislation would make sure anything involving any show of skin short of wearing a burka would be in that domain. Sorry, but once .xxx is created it will be abused by the censorship contingent in the US.
This has been done with the
>we can't afford to hire 'extra' Librarians to monitor what's going on
You don't have to. An occasional walk-by to see what's going on is all it takes. We don't need a technological solution to a social problem. Once someone lose privledges to use the internet because of using those computers to view obvious porno sites then the chilling affect would more or less help control human behavoir.
Look at how well "be quiet in the library" signs work. Most simply obey the sign at face value, knowing they could be kicked out for disobeying it. Once people become loud the librarian asks them to quiet down. We don't need decibal meters and special laws to take care of this. The same can be applied to the internet.
I'd much rather have someone be able to sneak in a little porno than make the internet unusable for everyone else. SCOTUS can learn a lot from saying, "It is better than 100 guilty men go free than for one innocent man to goto prison."
Also, I'm highly skeptical of the constitutionality of "pulling federal funding" as extortion on the part of the federal government. This is clearly, in my opinion, a check against local government that is not in the constition.
Regardless, this is a big win for the pro-censorship organizations (big religion), the big federal government people, the anti-local government people (why cant we vote on this on a state by state basis AND get federal funds), etc. SCOTUS could have simply said that this greatly threatens first amendment protections and thrown the whole thing out. Its very telling that they didn't.
Ahh, but where does it stop. Filter for porn one day, the KKK the next, before you know it Al Jazera is filtered. Once the precident is there, it's easier to expand the law to cover any "morally wrong" content.
db, if you're getting modded down, it's because you're looking at the issue from a restricted perspective, not because you're making sense.
I don't think any reasonable person is on a crusade to be able to view double-fisting-xxx.jpg on an Internet terminal at the public library. The question is, how do you define what is pornogrpahy and what isn't, and just as importantly, who decides?
My local public library has a book on the shelf full of ancient woodcuttings depicting people in flagrante. There's also pages and pages of explicit sexual fantasy, from The Story of O to Nancy Friday's collections to the shelf of Harlequin paperbacks. By their presence in the library, those print materials have been affirmed as acceptable. But with internet filtering, those same materials in digital form could end up being censored.
In short: of COURSE jerking off at the library should not be allowed. But does Congress have the right to prevent us from even looking at a picture of an exposed breast? The court decision states that they have the right to draw a line in the sand, but not where that line must be.
"We make our world significant by the courage of our questions and by the depth of our answers." Carl Sagan
No one is saying viewing pornography should be allowed on library computers.
What people are saying is that this law is unreasonable. It requires every computer in a public library or school to have Internet filters on it. Not just public computers that children might use, but all computers.
Why is this a problem?
Because Internet filters are notoriously unreliable. They block things they should not. Thus they often block people from looking up valid research topics. They can block some email names. They can block kids' games. They can block online stores. Certainly it depends on the filter's settings, but not one of them is perfect.
They also provide a false sense of security. Parents assume filtered access means their child can not view porn. This is not true. The filtering is based on analyzing words and picture file names. If those are misleading or not blatant, then the file is viewed okay. No software can actually "see" a picture and realize it is porn.
Finally, no other form of control is considered. Local policies or setting a computer where others can watch the screen or even offering filtered access on some computers are not considered options. Only applying software filters is acceptable, according to this law. When other remedies might be better suited, they are not allowed to be considered.
If this were actually about porn, I wouldn't give a damn. I work in a public library, and if I catch you eyeing T&A, I'll tell you to leave. It's about applying a single solution to a problem that does not solve the problem, but instead creates many other problems in its place.
And despite the opinions of two of the justices, simply asking to have the filtering turned off is not reasonable. It's often difficult to turn off, and keeping track of patrons and when they log on and off is a nightmare.
So, no, if you're modded down, it's not for making sense. It's because you only addressed part of the argument. It's a common misconception, but the battle is not over viewing porn in a library.
what does this have to do with freedom? the taxpayers are supplying free computers for people to use!
i defy anyone to defend the opinion that the constitution requires us to put computers in our libraries. for that matter, i defy anyone to defend the opinion that it's a violation of our freedom to have no libraries at all. i'm not saying libraries are a bad idea--just saying they're not a human right.
put another way, how can it be that:
no violation of freedom (if there were no library computers)
+ a new freedom (access to some websites on library computers)
= a violation of freedom?
it's like saying "x + 1 is less than x"
just for fun, what would happen of we treated the second amendment like the first? the constitution says we have a right to speech and we have a right to guns. if you assert the implication that we must buy speech for those who can not afford it, then we also need to buy guns for those who can not afford them. the laws requiring filters would correspond to laws forbidding the most dangerous of firearms in this federal program (let's say, all fully automatic weapons). that's not to say people would not have access to these weapons--just that they would not be freely available under this program. now, what would you think of the nra if they cried out that this restriction was a violation of the second amendment?
i don't know about you, but at that point i would say that the nra is no longer about the second amendment, but rather about pushing an agenda of "more guns! more guns! more guns!" regardless of the constitution. the extreme "anti-censorship" crowd is like that. when what they want is to force the national endowment for the arts to buy things that most people find offensive, or silence students from speaking religious views in school, or make porn available in libraries, it's no longer about the first amendment, is it? who is really "implementing their views" on whom?
char *mySig;
Yeah, and "they" are the same people who try to make it illegal every chance they get. And in many cases, they're the same people who want to take books like "My Two Dads" off the shelves. You'll forgive me if I'm a bit suspicious of their motives.
You have erected a strawman argument and handily knocked it down. Good for you.
:)
Too bad for you, the actual argument by the people on the other side of the issue isn't about trying to make pornography available to library patrons. There are several interrelated arguments of people against this law (including myself).
First, do the filters actually succeed in preventing minors from getting to objectionable materials? Apparently not, as critics of filtering software will be able to show you hundreds of sites that children shouldn't be reading that the filters let through without hacking. Then if you know what you're doing, it's rather easy to walk around the filters. The filters don't do what they claim to do.
Second, do the filters also filter out material that teens and children absolutely should have access to? Breast cancer is but one example of many. Discussions of censorship? Not if you're filtered. Political protest? Much of what you'd find will fall under a violence filter. Ancient history? Same thing. The filters that you're cheering for censor with a much broader brush than they claim to be using.
Finally, what you're objecting to, public display of pornography, is better handled by having the library computer monitors face the main desk. The librarian won't be able to read any text you're looking at, but an occasional glance by the librarian will suffice to actually prevent little Johnny from looking at the dirty pictures. No need for adults to ask each day to disable the filters, no need for the library to spend time and money selecting and buying filtering software instead of buying and managing media for lending...
Oh, and guess what, every public library I can recall does in fact have the monitors facing a desk where library employees are stationed. The only library where this was not the case is the University of Cincinnati library, but perhaps they expect fewer children looking for porn (they're mistaken, but at least the kids are over 18
Regards,
Ross
I moved to the US in 2000, but I'm now somewhat confused...What part of "Land of the Free" am I not understanding?
Might just be time to dust off my Canadian passport.
Cheers, Peter, W2IRT
When Bush and the boys get done with stacking the courts with the far right we in America will be living in a nightmare no one could have for seen before 911.
This should, of course, be a hundred thousand or so perfectly appropriate websites.
Finding God in a Dog
nobody expected you!
I am incorrect. It is allowed to turn off the filter for adults.
Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.
Use Win4Lin to set up a virtual Windows box within Linux. Let that be your server, which then runs thin computers.
Then have the setting be "filter on".
Then require each user to log on and log off when they're done. If a user wants filters off, he can ask. Kids get told "no".
When the person logs off, it goes back to standard mode.
This is an advantage, too, in that you can use any of your old computers just as easily as the new computers, because its only a thin blade. It's cheaper. It's linux.
P.S. I approve of the Supreme Court decision, and specifically disapprove of librarians in certain areas who refused parental requests to keep their own kids off the computers, or not allow porn, or to inform them. Those librarians were taking "in loco parentis" to new orders of magnitude, and helped create this problem in the first place.
You want freedom, live rightly. If you live as a predator on your neighbor's back, you're not going to remain free very long.
Oh yes: one other thing. When you keep a list of all those sites that are blocked but shouldn't be? Don't try to overturn the law. Simply unblock those sites. Duh. Techies sure can be stupid when they want to be.
Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
When asked, the attorney for the government said that any adult could ask to have the filters turned off and that they do not have to provide any reason.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
you have bared your ass.
I'd go on a Vegan diet but the delivery time from Vega is too long. --brownkitty
Okay, now I can hear myself. This was not insightful. This was troll, although a very standard troll that is used in the media, especially on abortion issues.
First, you're overplaying an impossibe hypothetical. That's not a valid argument.
Second a person doesn't have to tell a librarian *why* they want the filters off, they just have to tell the librarian "oh, and filters off". Librarian says "fine."
Third, clearly this hypothetical person has made a real mistake before that. There is *one* safe kind of sex, and it is called "sex within marriage". Every other kind of sex is actually a form of violence, because it violates the family (either preexisting, or to come). [Ask any guy whether he won't feel jealous of some other guy with his wife, and he'll say yes. That extramarital sex does do violence to relationships. So the girl and her boyfriend have already done one thing wrong.]
Fourth, the boyfriend has done violence to the girl, with his cheating and the STD. If you want to lay blame, don't lay it on a internet filter. Lay it where it belongs: with the cheating boyfriend [as well as her own stupidity.]
Fifth, at least fifty percent of that STD equation is the guy. At least. Now, guys who are exposed to porn do get their interest in sex activated sooner than guys who are not exposed to porn. Most guys are visually oriented. So the internet filters go a long ways towards reducing the STD problem.
Sixth: there aren't girls who don't know that an STD needs to be treated by a doctor [family, or clinic, or hospital] who are intelligent enough to properly search the information out on the internet.
*sigh*. I'm going to be flamed to death on this one, but I'm still signing my name. I'm just going to pull on my asbestos underwear, the ones labeled "The flames aren't rational -- they're based on 'I want'."
Okay, flame away if you will. But that parent post is not insightful, just inciteful.
Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
Should have previewed.
:
Anyhow, it said
"(/violin) Okay, now I can hear myself. This was not insightful. This was troll, although a very standard troll that is used in the media, especially on abortion issues."
In an unrelated, but equally anti-constitutional ruling the court decided that the 14th amendment does not apply if the discrimination is against the white people in this country. That as long as it favors a minority, its ok to do so.
These judges should be removed from the bench immediately and all their cases reviewed. No judge that throws the law of the land to the wind should be allowed to retain ANY authority. They are sworn to uphold the constitution, not change and degrade it with these absolutely insane rulings.
Which amendment is next to be nullified?? Bastards.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Should be the last words to come out of a judge's mouth before they are barred (or is that debarred?) from the bench.
Congress shall make no law abridging freedom of speech isn't a suggestion, it's an edict. There's no "unless it's to protect the children or to fight bad men or to save puppies". There is no conflicting clause, nothing to balance this against. Congress shall make no law..
Go on, someone explain how the Bill of Rights and separation of powers prevents political abuse. I need a good laugh after this farce.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
The CCPA Law of 2003: As the US Congress is 100% federally funded, all congressional computers must have a protective filter installed. That filter shall be identical to the filters used on adults' computers at a randomly selected, federal-funds-receiving US library. All requests to lift the filter or unblock sites must be forwarded to a librarian at the selected library, and if delays occur because that librarian is already overworked due to budget cutbacks, Congress shall just have to wait. All requests to lift the filter or unblock sites shall be a matter of public record.
(Of course one could say that Congress is different because CIPA is all about protecting the children, but... 1. Shouldn't we care almost as much about Congress as we do about children? Now that we've got children protected, why not Congress next? 2. Doesn't Congress want to show that it won't force laws on other adults that it isn't willing to take for itself as well? 3. What about Take Your Child To Work Day? Do we want the innocent children of Congresspeople (or their staff) to be Harmed?
(*)Pre-recorded phone spam is bad except for political messages, OSHA rules apply to everyone but Congress, Labor rules apply...FOIA rules apply...
Nothing is more tacky, boorish or sick than when someone intentionally or unintentionally brings up a picture of a person doing _____ with an animal in the middle of kid's section of the library. I was at a library a week ago and this happened prompting a near-riot from those of us with kids. Say what you want, but I'd prefer not to explain what horse that part of a horse is called and what it's function is, why the lady was naked to my four year old.
Unfortunately, I doubt the filters will do any good anyway.
$G
-- $G
The short-sighted Supreme Court has just set a precedent, and I wonder if they even know it. And it has nothing to do with filters or porn.
We now have the precedent that a certain social, legal practice (in this case, no porn in libraries), has been mandated to be solved by a technology-based solution. As Lessig said (I have read second hand), we have relegated a criminial justice or exective branch type job to a piece of code.
They could have said: libraries must disallow porn on the internet. Instead, they said libraries must use porn filter software. Will this start a new legal trend on the 'net? Will it spill over into the real world? What about 'cars must not be allowed to exceed the speed limit' rather than 'speeding is illegal?'
It strikes me as a really dumb ruling, and one whose negative consequences we might still be living with decades hence.
-- Hello_World.c: 17 Errors, 31 Warnings
All online pornographers ought to be relegated to a special domain name just for them - .xxx for example. That way it would be a lot easier to block the porn. Pornographers operating on other domains would be penalized.
Can ICANN an the FCC do this????
I agree, and there isn't much we can do about them--I would have voted Nader in the last election, if my state had been counting those votes. But no candidate has the sort of support needed to break that corporate stranglehold, and I don't think that any of them are likely to in the near future.
I understand your concerns about your children, but there are better ways to try to fix this than a one-size-fits-all solution. Several others have suggested tying access to library cards in some fashion. You could also allow logins for uncensored (or less censored) access, because obviously what might be appropriate for your son might not be appropriate for your daughter. Maybe one day biometrics will be cheap and reliable as well--and could be used as a login option, or used to assess your physical age--but it isn't there yet.
However, in my experience, kids will generally pay attention to what appeals to them in the first place. In some ways that should make them less likely to encounter porn, or to be influenced by it. And if they do see something they don't like, they'll probably tell you about it. But I would be in favor of blocking pop-ups and whatnot by default, as they can also hamper web browsing in general. And I have no problems with blocking or restricting access to explicit pornography on library computers--it's just that filtering software these days blocks a lot more than that.
Thank you as well; if you enjoy discussions like this, you might want to take a look at kuro5hin; I think it's better for that sort of thing.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
*sigh*. I'm going to be flamed to death on this one, but I'm still signing my name. I'm just going to pull on my asbestos underwear
In other words, you call me a troll but are basically saying you know you're trolling... Very chic.
Since the majority of your post basically says "they're bad people!" and doesn't address the topic, I think I've provided more reply than the post merits.
Education is a better safeguard of liberty than a standing army.
Edward Everett (1794 - 1865)
Any state just didn't have to take the money and they could ignore the law.
The problem is that many people, including most reading this assume that things like libraries are "free", or that someone else should pay up but NOT have any say in how that payment is used.
It doesn't work that way.
Federal = Feudal, only we vote for our lords.
No, I am not trolling. Everything I said here, I completely believe. If you want to call me to task on an issue, if you want to talk about anything I said, I will reply, and I will reply genuinely. I will only stop replying if I decide that your replies are not genuine.
What that means is that is that if you *can* shoot down one or more of my arguments, you'll actually be going quite a ways towards changing what I think.
On the other hand, in order to do that, you have to risk the same yourself.
Trolling is *never* genuine. This is.
Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
Fuck!
Fuck fuck!
Fucking FUCK FUCK FUCK!
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
Theres no way someone can post something once and get labeled redundant
I'm sure this post will be labeled flamebait or underrated
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
Actually, the amount of money we get from the SLC fund itself is pretty small and our small poor rural library already had a T-1 feeding a lab full of machines years before AlGore decided to give 'every' library the Internet through a tax on every telephone line.
The problem is that once that damned SLC find was there the various interests found it an irresistable target for meddling that would otherwise be impossible. This one is just like your example of the 55MPH speed limit and seatbelt laws being things the feds could have never passed outright but could do indirectly, except this time they went one better. This time they added a clause that says that if (and only if) you REFUSE the SLC funding the conditions attach to ANY other federal funding source. Because they KNEW librarians would never take giving up one of their primary beliefs without a fight.
Democrat delenda est
The point under discussion here is that, where there are computers, should the information available on them be subject to potentially biased censorship by all kinds of herberts with hidden agendas.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
"Justices Anthony M. Kennedy and Stephen Breyer, in separate opinions, said the government's interest in protecting young library users from inappropriate material outweighs the burden on library users having to ask staff to disconnect filters."
The GOVERNMENT'S interest - not yours, not the young person's, not their parents...
Not to even go into the FACT that NO ONE can be harmed by a porn site (unless they hurt themselves laughing...). "Protecting" people from "inappropriate materials"...
How about protecting Iraqi kids from cluster bombs, assholes? Recently, several young girls were brought to a US soldier in Iraq suffering from severe burns as a result of setting some explosive powder left over from the war on fire. The US soldier summoned US Army doctors who refused to examine the children, stating that the injuries were not inflicted by US troops and did not involve the loss of limb or life so did not qualify for US military medical aid. One of the doctors said they didn't have burn medicine. The US soldier involved said the hospital was fully stocked. He was devastated by this incident as he kept seeing his own daughters in that situation. The Pentagon, informed of this incident, predictably blew it off...
Meanwhile, the same gang of black-cloaked thugs who let Bush steal the election sit in their expensive chairs and suggest that the government has an "interest" in "protecting" children from "inappropriate materials"...
Pathetic...
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
This time our Supremes have trod upon the toes of the Constitution. This is not acceptable. At some point they will learn; meantime, we shall have to live with their ineptitude. That's a damned shame.
My point is that setting up individual accounts, including two individual generic accounts [private_filt, private_nofilt], is no more difficult than using your standard library accounts.
Actually, this would be quite convenient in another way. You open up your account, and all your preferences are there, saved, including bookmarks and everything.
You want the generic account, ask the librarian to log you in. She opens the generic account, and when you're done, the computer resets it back to the previous original setup, by copying archives over the information.
You know, what really gets me is that this discussion that popped up here was mostly on how to legally be called "filtering in good faith", while in reality filtering in bad faith. You do that, and you are really wrecking your country, because you are undermining truth. It would seem that you really *like* devious law. For me, I'd much prefer truth and justice to this new "American Way" bit.
However, at least I already have my escape hatch.
Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's