Slashdot Mirror
Librarian Suspended over Patrons' Web Access
bsw149 writes "The head librarian of the Valparaiso Community Library in Florida was suspended
after investigators found that users had viewed adult content on public computers.
While the library has a policy against viewing adult material on library
computers, the librarian is facing possible dismissal. Is the best enforcement policy to
hold librarians personally responsible for the materials patrons' access?"
How is it the librarian's fault? They're not looking over the people's shoulder's all the time, and they could just hide the content when the librarian walks over.
Nothing for you to see here, please move along.
The head librarian of the Valparaiso Community Library in Florida was suspended
They lynched him?
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Is it in their job description to monitor what users access? When they signed their job contract or whatever, did it clearly outline this? Cause if not, they librarians should not be dismissed.
By analogy, perhaps it would be best to fire any cop who doesn't manage to stop all crime on his shift?
Crazy midwestern neo-con bumpkin bible thumpin kneejerk blame the innocent bullshit response.
TFA doesn't go into what actually happened, only that someone watched porn and from that the librarian is being dismissed since she "had not done enough to prevent the incident".
First off, it's an "incident" not "incident s ", so it probably only happened once, and if the history just showed one site, I can think of a thousand ways that could have accidentally happened.
We're missing some kind of important details here.
No, this is stupid. Librarians don't spend years in school earning higher degrees in library science to become nannies. The world has enough problems, why must they keep inventing new ones?
what the hell does a suspension of a librarian have to do with my rights or anybody else's?
The fact is that the librarian's superiors didn't think she was doing enough to stop people from browing for porn, and they took action.
I also like how the slashdot summary noted it was "adult matierlal" when it was in fact kiddy porn, which is not legal at all.
This story is not very interesting or relevant to most people. But it at least it provides a forum for the Chicken Littles to scream about the death of Free Speech, Big Brother, yadda yadda yadda, the sky is falling crowd.
If someone reports the user to the librarian, the librarian walks over, what power do they have? The person will most likely close the window when they see the librarian. Is the librarian allowed to ask the person to leave or ask person to stop using the computer? Is there a standard policy for what to do, and the librarian isn't following it or does the person just make it up when they catch somebody?
Obviously another case of blame first, never ask any questions.
Its not like the librarian would have his job if he DID keep an eye on what the users did.. He would just get fired for invading the user's privacy or sued at the least.
Yes, this is the great state of Florida, which has brought you (and the rest of us) among other things, criminalizing people over connections to an open wi-fi. It's no wonder Fark has a special tag for items just from that state.
What makes Florida interesting is that half the state is relatively progressive, and the other half is still living in the 10th century. This creates constant clashes between these two idealogies. You don't see news like this coming out of Mississippi, Alabama, Kansas, New York, California, etc. Texas is another state like this too, except these kinds of ideological clashes are still not yet news worthy.
Here's what they should do: ban all devices and texts that display inappropriate information. Who wants to live in a world in which people can see sex, violence or evolution?
Once we get rid of all those books and magazines and that interweb thingie, we can get back to the important stuff. I think it's time we put an end to all of this inappropriate behavior by setting an example. Let's put the librarian to death and be done with it. She's obviously a witch.
What are you eating? isItVeg?.
The librarian herself says
"We continually enforce our policy by monitoring all computers. Any suspicious use is immediately checked by accessing the history of the patrons' Web use. In addition, the staff monitors the patrons' use by 'walkthroughs' of the computer areas."
If indeed it was her job to prevent access to adult content up front, then it would seem that she has failed to take (or at least mention) some of the basic steps to prevent this...
here.
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
Now librarians have to be cyber cops? Thanks to gutless wonder admins, they have to take the heat for this. This isn't right. Maybe we should just hire armed guards for each computer terminal, and offenders will be shot. You better make darn sure those popups don't get ya.
It will be interesting to see the body count for this, huh?
how many Slashdotters think viewing hardcore porn in the public library should be allowed?
Librarians better watch for people entering the building with magazines or other reading adult material. Someone could be reading something relating to procreation or even pictures of it on government property if they aren't careful.
Libraries originally came into existence by the altruism of wealthy individuals. They were endowed with trust funds administered to keep the libraries funded for the future. Private administrators ran these libraries under guidance by the rules established by the trust. If a librarian broke these rules, they were fired.
Today, most libraries are called 'public' and are paid woth tax dollars in addition to donations given to the public body administering the library. They're now restricted so much by general government laws and regulations that libraries are pretty much all the same.
The fallout of government censorship comes from this private to public change.
If you're against government censorship, support the return of privately run libraries. Wealthy folk have little incentive to endow new libraries as the public 'good' has created tax funded monopolies.
As the HEAD librarian the person concerned does have responsiblity to implement library policy. If they didn't do it they they should be for the chop; if they are under investigation then the authorities owe it to possible witnesses amongst the library staff to keep the head librarian off work until the investigation is complete; once they are proved innocent (here's hoping) then they can come back to work. heads of organisations have a lot of power and with that comes responsibility and the risk of suspension if things go wrong.
The real question is what is a public library funded with public dollars doing by being in the business of censorship. Adult-oriented material should be freely accessible from publicly-funded. In some cases, libraries should implement measures to ensure that non-adults are not exposed to adult-oriented material but, then again, there are no limitations on what books one may check out from a public library, regardless of age.
blog
I would be held accountable for things like this, I wouldn't have taken the job. Or if I ahd taken the job, I would unplugged all the computers, 'sorry, too much risk...'
CDE open sourced! https://sourceforge.net/projects/cdesktopenv/
The librarians are stuck in a no win position, if they install filtering software on the computers they are violating the rights of the people using the public library and if they don't some idiot will come along and fire them? This is a classic over reaction by someone who wants to score a few points with the voters by going after a percieved evil without consdiering the greater implications of thier actions
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
Maybe they'll send her to their "faith based" prison to repent.
"I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence or insanity but they've always worked for me" - HST
What the hell is going on here.. how much more of this bull are people going to be willing to put up with. The same EXACT scenario played out at a corporation would result in the problem employee to be fired, not their boss.
Librarians are up there with teachers and it appears that our society has now completely lost its way... the end times are coming and it's starting in forida.
Let's make:
Police officers liable for crimes that occur in their precinct
Firemen liable for fires that occur in their district
Teachers responsible for illiterates who move into their school system
Politicans responsible for the consequences of the laws they pass on an "eye-for-an-eye" basis
I mean, really. This is beyond silly, on many levels. It is crazy to expect that a librarian can, in detail, monitor (or "spy") a patron's computer usage habits (they have a few other minor responsibilites to attend to). It is silly to think that they should demand ID from everyone who walks in, and check to see if they are child molesters first (For those who didn't RTFA: the person viewing the porn was registered sex offender). And lastly, BOOBS are NOT going to corrupt Western Civilization - but censorship and Big Brother monitoring you will.
Sheesh.
Typical Slashdot. Not just anybody viewing porn but:
"The director of the Valparaiso (Fla.) Community Library was suspended without pay in early August after city officials found that a registered sex offender had used library computers to access pornographic websites."
Since I don't know what really happened I won't dispute whether the librarian is at fault. I'll just note that filters really don't work well and for libraries it's either the choice of internet or no internet. Nothing much in between.
If internet access is so much of an issue, perhaps the computers should be put in a seperate room where you have to be over 16 or 18 to enter and use or have your parents sign a permission slip.
Personally I think it's all that streak of classic American puritanicism anyway, TV shows violence with people's heads and other body parts blown off every night of the week, or have realistic grotesque autopsies on CIS-like shows, or real grotesque surguries/diseases/etcetera on the scientific channels, or animals mating on any NationalGeographic or discovery channel yet a kid can't handle a glimpse of people doing the same?
If the sex offender viewed that stuff, put responsibility where it belongs and haul his ass to jail if he violated parole or whatever.
If it is a job description of librarian to monitor what is being accessed using library computers and he did not do his job then firing him makes sense. My take on this is, if it a policy why not block these websites rather than having somebody monitor. We all know this cannot be a librarian fault. I think somebody wanted a scapegoat and they got one in the name of librarian.
Well, let's see. In her own words, the suspended librarian writes:
It stands to reason that if some kids are getting away with surfing porno at the library, she's not fulfilling her duty, by her own definition.
Getting caught at incompetency is a pretty common way to get fired; I wouldn't expect her to keep her job very long.
Nathan
Perhaps this is retaliation by the authorities for the librarians being so vocally opposed to the Patriot Act.
http://www.rootstrikers.org/
lets get retarded, lets get retarded.
w00t
Here's the lovely Catch-22 that's been set up for this librarian:
Librarians are not allowed by federal law to restrict what people view on the Internet.
Now, the librarians can be suspended/fired for NOT restricting what people view on the Internet.
What the hell is she supposed to do? Punt?
I have no tag line
Of course this isn't her fault-- since when have we tasked our librarians with being the Morality Police?
If anything, the municipality is to blame for NOT funding a proxy layer (and utilizing a content filter in the form of a whitelist, wordlist, or category product like Smartfilter) for their library's access. Heck, even a client product like NetNanny is thousands of times more effective than asking the attendants to manually enforce the library's appropriate use policy.
Budget arguments are moot, given the range of available web cache products and the number of vendors with state/local stewardship programs available.
-Anonymous Government Stooge
You refer to the librarian as he. His name is Sue Martin.
Yes, that's a great policy. This way you motivate librarians to spy on patrons. They then become your agents, your pair of eyes in each library.
of trying to protect society from doing what it wants to do, compounded by holding everyone in the world accountable for everything anyone else does. (like every person on the planet needs to police the rest of the world or be held liable for what they do)
When will it end? Somehow I'm thining "probably never." *sigh*
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
I lived in a major city in California, in the downtown area. When the library opened, plenty of homeless people would be lined up to get inside, off the streets.
Many would sign up for their thirty minutes at the web browsing computers. And a lot of those would immediately start surfing porn.
The librarians dealt with it by placing carboard "blinders" around the monitors to make it difficult to see what people on the web machines were looking at. I thought that was pretty smart.
If you were really really curious (like me, as I noticed the blinders were suddenly there) you could go to a couple areas of the bookstacks and peek over, and see a hints that it was porn.
I don't care what people are surfing on taxpayer machines, at least in the library. It's not like they are employees or any of that. If no one else can really see what they are doing, who cares? You had to work at it to know what they were surfing in this case.
Large swaths of Amerika are run by retards, what can you say.
Is the best enforcement policy to hold librarians personally responsible for the materials patrons' access?
Correct procedure, as for any failing, would have been:
...and if that proves insufficient to deter offenders, more rigorous measures should be considered.
When one person suffers from a delusion, it is called insanity. When many people suffer from a delusion it is called Rel
They just need setup proxy server and turn on few adult filters. I dont see problem there. -- Alexei A. Korolev Free Downloads Discounts for software
This may be shocking to hear, but summaries are not supposed to tell the whole story.
Anyway, how is a librarian's responsibility to track whether a computer user is a sex offender or not?
You must be new here.
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself no matter what they say
If a kid brings a gun to school and shoots people in his classroom, is the teacher responsible?
If a man stabs his wife while visiting his parents, are his parents responsible?
If a police officer shoots an innocent man while in the presence of his superior, is the superior responsible?
None of these make any sense. Why should a head librarian be responsible for something that happened in his or her presence that he or she had no control over whatsoever?
I am scientifically inaccurate.
The library policy did say that they would monitor access. But constant monitoring is impossible. There are issues with monitoring in general: you don't want to invade patrons' privacy and you don't want to restrict adults' rights. But as everyone here should know, filtering is an ineffective solution. Filtering is also required for federal funding. Rock and hard place.
to this was, if the librarian can't be a network security specialist, sure fire her.
Note the sarcasm in there... the internet is more than just a big reference. This isn't a card catalog with the dewey decimal system.
After reading how they prevent these incidents, it's pretty pathetic. Imagine "Martin" in the article is head of IT instead of head librarian:
The Sun quoted a letter Martin had written to Billingsley in which she explained, "We continually enforce our policy by monitoring all computers. Any suspicious use is immediately checked by accessing the history of the patrons' Web use. In addition, the staff monitors the patrons' use by 'walkthroughs' of the computer areas."
Seems pretty sad doesn't it?
FLR
Blame anyone other then the actual person at fault.
Its always someone else's fault, they are just victims.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
How to get your local librarian fired: 1) Upload the porn to your private online server 2) View the porn on your private server at the library 3) Keep the cache intact. 4) Contact the authorities and inform them that someone has been looking at porn on library computers. 5) Laugh mirthlessly as you watch your librarian being led away in handcuffs.
And yes, I'm totally kidding...don't mod me down for being sarcastic. Of course, now I might be modded down for pointing out my sarcasm, thereby negating the humor. Crap.
The librarian is facing dismissal, and possible criminal charges for the actions of another. So if the system this, why could we not punish you for someone else's crimes?
"I'm not impatient. I just hate waiting." - My Dad
Most libraries have an acceptable use policy. Wich protects the librarians all over the place.
It says that librarians are not held responsible for the content of what the patron is doing. Adult rated stuff is prohibited and serious consiquences will be used if a patron is found looking at such material.
No, i think you are the one that is freaking out.
The issue is that a person is getting fired for what appears to be out of their control. For a what seems to be a single incident.
This has nothing to do with freespeech/etc. Its about the transposing of fault to innocent people.
The person doing the viewing is at fault and should be punished, not the person running the building.
The only thing it should do for the librarian is serve as a wakeup call that their blocking procedure isn't adequate.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
This is fascism at work and a growing danger to our last bit of privacy. How do you even define "adult" material, what are the damages from viewing it, why should a librarian be punished for a patrons actions, and most importantly: WHO IS ILLEGALLY SPYING ON PATRONS OF PUBLIC LIBRARIES?
Here's the lovely Catch-22 that's been set up for this librarian: Librarians are not allowed by federal law to restrict what people view on the Internet. Now, the librarians can be suspended/fired for NOT restricting what people view on the Internet. What the hell is she supposed to do?
She supposed to do what every other good fanatical amerikan is supposed to do, and just 'shut-up' and make believe that she is guilty-- on BOTH aspects of 'The Law'.
This 'catch 22' is now the norm, with 'the governement' attempting to convince us all how 'bad we are' and how we 'need-them-so-much' to keep us safe from 'ourselves'.
The governments philosophy is clear; make us 'feel' so confused and guilty-- in EVERYTHING that we do (and don't do), that we all feel constantly confused and unsure about what 'the-right-thing-IS-to-do'.
I will gladly loose all of life's battles.. in order to win the war..
Dang!
So if the system allows this, why could we not punish you for someone else's crimes?
Note to self: Preview THEN post.
"I'm not impatient. I just hate waiting." - My Dad
Did anyone else picture a 300 pounds orang utan?
Oook?
main(char O){O++&&(((O-291)*O+27788)*O-868020?1:putchar(O++
Is it in their job description to monitor ...
No idea. But it certainly is in their job description to provide library users with a true view of the world, and porn is just one aspect of the world we live in. And a damn popular one at that.
The fact that the US wants to write porn out of the public history books is an indictment of the cowardice of politicians to stand up for the majority interests of the people whom they represent, more than anything else.
Fire first (while the local headlines are hot), and ask questions later...
Seeing bad movies only encourages them. Watch responsibly
This is totally retarded. How is it the librarian's fault that someone viewed adult stuff? I bet a ton of people view adult stuff at most libraries.
And what about research? Yeah I know its usually a misnomer, but there are some legitimate research reasons you might want to visit adult sites, and you'd probably want to do it at a library rather than your home computer if you were researching.
even tho a little off off-topic, the parent post does a great job of showing just how many of america's core values have been shattered in recent years.
Be all grew up (assuming you are american) believing in the right to a speedy trial by your peers, freedom as a given (and very difficult to take away), presumption of innocence, respect and trust between people, etc.
it's as though someone has beaten the news media and all three branches of the government with a McCarthyism stick.
People read stories like this, and then wonder why so many people are so hostile to the idea of municipal broadband servies.
I will take my Internet service without Big Brother government watching, thanks.
"We're missing some kind of important details here."
Nevertheless, we'll not let that stand in the way of rampent speculation, and unfounded accussations.
So get out of the way, and let us do our slashdot duty.
Some Ideas on better ways to handle this ...than expecting Librarians to track what everyone is doing at all times and also do their core jobs as well.
1. Require registration / logon to access public terminals (with disclaimer that usage history subject to audit) suspend privilages (for offensive /prohibited content viewed)/ refer to authorities (if illegal content viewed -i.e. Child porn )
2. Proxy/filters
3. Software that detects pr0n images on screen and sets off loud recording saying "attention libary patartons and staff... this SICK BASTARD is looking at pr0n" when pr0n is detected.
on a side note who??? would want look at pr0n in a public place anyway?? just what you need a massive Boner out in public.... YAY
actually I am happy to see you, however that is in fact a banana in my pocket.
But the lions never bust out the bondage gear and certainly don't have gang bangs.
/rant
On a more serious note, the Puritanical influence is certainly very strong in America. Why is violence acceptable, but not sex? Just take a look at some Puritan sermons. There is plenty of fire and brimstone and really awful, graphic depictions of hell. Scare people into walking the straight and narrow and keep them awake during a sermon. The violence wasn't meant to be entertaining, it was meant to be terrifying. The fact that people enjoy it now says more about their personal moral corruption than about society. Or something, I can only get so far into a preacher's head before I get dizzy.
Sex, on the other hand, is supposed to be private. It's unwholesome to display it in public. It's between you, your spouse, and Jesus with a telescope. I'd imagine that nudity got tied to sex simply because of the cold climate that the Puritans lived in. I mean, when else did you get naked except to have sex?
But Puritanical influences asside, I see this as more of an issue of treating every American citizen like a child. Unfortunately millions of Americans willingly give up their freedoms to be pampered like a child for their entire lives. Don't want a job? Don't worry, big daddy goverment will pay your way.
If only people didn't make it painfully clear that they couldn't be trusted with their own wellfare. I mean, they had to make food stamps because people kept buying useless shit with their free money and then had nothing to eat by the end of the month.
These are the kind of people that need a totalitarian government, which is exactly why that is what is happening behind all the smoke and mirrors of "democracy".
Come on, I think slashdot can differentiate between "adult content" and child pornography.
But filters don't work. I worked at MSI during the development of CyberPatrol. You just can't keep up with the amount of porn on the internet. And of course, one of the other programmers who worked on it didn't implment proper coding techniques. He was fast, but sloppy. Why do you that was developped so easily.
Fight Spammers!
"She was supposed to use her god-like omniscience, and know what all people were doing at all times."
Those are called mothers.
Why do you citizens put up with this shit?
Isn't it time you started demanding that things change?
Come on, mobilize already!
Your religious right is going to completely fubar your society and culture if you don't start demanding better. You can't afford to sit on your fat asses pretending that this stuff doesn't hurt you.
--
Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
this is EXACTLY why the U.N. should run the internets because they would have the athority to stop all this bad stuff and make my downloads faster and stop popups and spywarte especially the ones that make my computer slow and also help the kids who dont have internets on there computers or only like one internet which isnt enough for kids to research school and to help with there thinkings.
But, yeah blaming a librarian for a patron's browsing habit(s) is pretty weak.
"We continually enforce our policy by monitoring all computers. Any suspicious use is immediately checked by accessing the history of the patrons' Web use. In addition, the staff monitors the patrons' use by 'walkthroughs' of the computer areas."
This practice is clearly illegal and a violation of our constitutional rights. Hopefullly the ACLU or some patron will sue the hell out of them and teach them a lesson in justice.
I know an ex-head-librarian.
Let me tell you, if they have time to sit around and monitor users internet access all day, they are not doing their job.
You have a lot of responsibilities at that job, and one wrong step and everyone's clamoring for your resignation.
Consequently, she refused to use filtering software. Mainly because it was easy to get around and way too restrictive. Monitoring the internet usage should be done by the assistant librarians, but the head librarian is more worried about other stuff, like you know, making sure the library stays open.
Job? I don't have time to get a job! Who will sit around and bitch about being broke and unemployed then?
"Being a librarian is about tearing down the walls around information, not building them up."
And Lord knows there's plenty of walls around porn.
[Reagan Moment]
"Mr Gorbachev, tear down this wall!"
It is a sign of this warped administration that librarians who don't catch people viewing porn are being fired while innocent people are being killed in a war that had falsified justifications.
Well, if we're going to start blaming librarians for the actions of patrons on public terminals, why stop there? Why not broaden out the blame and let librarians take the rap for everything that's bothering us:
The war in Iraq - The Bush administration isn't accepting any responsibility for going to war on falsified pre-war intelligence, so let's blame those damn librarians! After all, if they were stocking better intelligence in the reference section that never would've happened.
Gas Prices - Obviously libraries weren't stocking enough books on alternative power, the rise in demand from China or America's affection for gas swilling monster trucks.
The National Debt - The Republican controlled House and Senate are spending us into a hole that will take our children a generation to pay back. But why should we care? Just don't touch our social security benefits and stay hell off my lawn! I heard there were some librarian jobs opening up in Florida, so quit whining and get to work stocking some better accounting books.
Supporting Terrorism - All them terrorists read stuff, didn't they? And where did they get some of those books? The library! If those librarians would've been paying better attention to what their patrons were reading, we could have nabbed those extremist Muslims before they got off the ground. Besides, if they were stocking books on extermist Christianity like they should be we might have converted one or two.
Gay Marraige - Those damn libraries, open to everyone. No membership lists like any decent minority-excluding country club would have. Makes people that are different think they belong here. Next thing you know fags will want to have rights and get married! And it all started with those damn libraries!
Creationism in Schools - Those librarians again, stocking books with "science" and all that other crap. Filling our kid's heads with ideas with facts instead of telling it the way it is in the Bible.
Wow, it took a bunch of Jeb-backing righties in Florida to show us the error of our ways. The cause of all our problems has been right under our nose the entire time!
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Let's pull the zoom lens back out to a statewide standpoint. Florida in general has been beset by one major sex related crime after another. Their CPS is a dog's lunch and is currently paralyzed by the scandals surrounding it.
The bottom line is that when something remotely sex related is found on a public access terminal in Florida, there is a kneejerk reaction to find a scapegoat and lynch that person as quick as possible.
If this were anywhere else in the nation, there would have been a Gaelic shrug and beefier security procedures put into place, no one getting crucified over it.
First rule of holes; When in one, stop digging.
So, we "register" convicted pedophiles and then let them ROAM FREE to molest again? Then, we fire librarians who don't know, apriori, that the guy setting at the PC is a pedophile?
She didn't know if he was a Mulslim terrorist or not, either. Why not charge her with that? It's just as rediculous.
Law abiding people have been driven from the night, and are being forced to hide behind bars or in gated villages during the day for their own protection, when it is the deviants who should be locked up.
To make matters worse, the Supreme Court preceeded their repeal of the 5th Amendment property rights with a ruling that police have no obligagtion to enforce restraining orders obtained by citizens under proven threats of attack. That puts police in the same catgory as corporate and 503C CEOs, and welfare recipients - people who don't have to work for the money they receive.
Add to that the fact that the PATRIOT ACT nullifies the Bill of Rights by treating everyone as if they were Muslim terrorists, in order to 'protect the Bill of Rights', and the RICO ACT treats all property as guilty and susceptible to confiscation by the police, at least 10,000 times a year, and the paradox of "Law and Order" in America is complete.
Running with Linux for over 20 years!
Perhaps the worst is that the Librarian is being held responsible for someone else's actions. In that case it shouldn't stop there but continue up to the City Council & mayor. Are they not responsible, too? What about the judge who released him, the probation officer and the lawyers? They didn't prevent this either.
... it is hard to tell them apart.
Valparaiso, which is is nearby, is known locally as Val-P. Beyond that, it lacks a distinct personality, being more of a bedroom suburb of Eglin AFB, rather than a real town. Most people combine it with Nicevile, as it is hard to say where one ends & the other starts, & refer to them as the Twin Cities. Siamese twins, at that. Despite the presence of Eglin, they both have a hostility to "gentlemen's clubs," as well. Or maybe that's Niceville
If you want your life to be different, live it differently.
> But it at least it provides a forum for the Chicken Littles to scream
> about the death of Free Speech, Big Brother, yadda yadda yadda,
Exactly. Like the story slashdot linked to a week or so ago on unions that once you learned the truth you could only laugh. This is just one side of the story and from another historically biased source. There is almost certainly more to this story than is being told in this article. Odds are the authorities suspect actual involvement in the crime, otherwise it just doesn't make any sense.
The ALA has always had leftist leanings, recent events have pushed them all the way into moonbat status. Which is why, although I work IT for a public library I have never considered joining ALA. But I did attend one of their conventions back in 2000 (Guest speaker on Open Source stuff) and got a first hand look. The ALA Library Store booth was proof enough. The yhad exactly three types of material, generally available useful stuff for librarians, internally produced books and leftwing propaganda. Al Franken's current (think it was the one ripping Rush) book had place of honor.
Democrat delenda est
Parent is a spammer.
Sounds like local politicing and a witch hunt.
A ID=/20050813/LOCAL/208130332&SearchID=732171503810 16
How much funding does the library get?
It's nice for the local politicians to say they want their library to have nice new computers for their constituents to use, but back out when budget time comes and they might give the library enough for the hardware, but not a cent more for upkeep, firewalls and/or filters and/or staff for the computer area.
How long was the content viewed for? Was it something caught by a librarian or other staff or was it noticed during a review of the Internet access logs? If it was caught during one of the "walkthroughs" then the staff did all they could. I work in a college computer lab, and the legal porn is protected free speech, but games are not allowed. It's very easy for someone to sit at the computer in the far corner to see the lab staff coming and close the window, a browers window is a browser window, just as easy to hide/close if it's porn or yahoo games.
I'm sure the city knows more about who's a registered offender more than the library and should have informed the library and possibly had their computer or library access monitored, limited or revoked.
Before they try to fire a city worker, librarians are where I am, they had better make sure they had the necessary tools and funding to have been able to do something about it, not one of the "well, if you had 'this thing' it may have been prevented, but we took that line out of their budget"
there isn't much easily findable info on this to do anything other than guess. Here's the mentioned "Gainesville Sun" article:
http://www.gainesville.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?
F7 doesn't work, ignore spelling and grammar
I was head of IT at a public library. What he says is correct. Most libraries make Internet users acknowledge and agree to the AUP before they can use the Internet. Also, the trend these days is to treat porn surfing as a behavioral issue; that is, if the surfer is not bothering anyone, they aren't really violating the rules by surfing porn. The exception case would be if they had deliberately avoided filtering software to do so. I have a hard time seeing how anyone in the library is criminally culpable here, although the negligence charge might have legs if it can be shown that the library staff were routinely and systematically not enforcing the policy.
This sounds more like a political football than anything. The 'teens surfing porn' charge sounds like the sort of cheesy sting operations used by local law enforcement to bust convenience stores for selling alcohol/cigarettes to minors. Sounds like Ms. Martin pissed off ol' Boss Hogg.
my jerk-o-meter is beeping
Really... there was a policy regarding what proper use of the facilities were. The pervert in question decided to go against it. IMO, they should have pulled the guys library card or told him that since he didn't go by the policy, he wasn't to use the computers.
Our libraries are getting shafted at every turn. Lets not drive away good librarians too.
"Let him go, Ralph. He knows what he's doing." --Otto Mann (simpsons)
I was thinking that they could lock down the computers so you have to swipe your library card or type in your library card id in order to access the public internet (library catalog is OK for anonymous access).
Since the sex offender registry is public (I believe - at least it is in my state), when somebody signs up for a library card the software automatically checks the registry and locks this user from the accessing the public internet from library computers. Obviously there would be a human step involved to confirm this and a policy to dispute it.
I like this solution a lot better than overly-broad filtering.
Libraries are places of information storage and exchange, promoting free (well taxpayer funded) exchange of ideas being through any media (books, CDs, videos, etc.) By inhibiting the free exchange of ideas you are practically eliminating the whole point of the library.
First of all holding a librarian responsible for what patrons are viewing on computers is just dumb. Patrons should have the freedom to select any materials that are available at the time, by saying that librarians should be monitoring internet access like saying they should remove all the "bad words" from books or not having books that have any explicit material in them (ever look at the romance novel section?)
Additionally I know many libraries both public and university that have pornography in their collection, usually if you go into the periodicals section you'll find Playboy magazine.
I did IT support for a while and every once in a while we'd get some patrons (of age) coming in and looking at pornographic material. At the time I believe that there was some sort of rule in place that prohibited us from stopping him. I believe it came from the state library (this was in NJ.) I'm not sure if the rules have changed at all, but usually you're not allowed to censor material or put censoring software on computers (except of course for the children's area.)
The much-missed sketch comedy show Mr. Show that HBO ran a few years ago beat you to this idea already...
Read my blog.
You havn't taken it far enough. The gov't here in Washington state gives you a plastic card for your food stamp benefit. They had to do that because store owners would buy the foodstamps at $.50 and get the full $1 when they turned them in. The store owner got money, the food stamp trader got booze or whatever else they wanted. I'm sure someone, somewhere has figured out how to scam that system too. The next thing you know you'll have to go to a state owned store for your pre-selected food box.
Totalitarian control in the U.S. can't take place without turning the populace into its own jailers, a'la the GDR. DHS has had Yvgeny Primakov and Markus Wolf as consultants for creating "internal security measures."
Ten years from now, one-third of you will be reporting on the rest, just to keep your rare and valued job in the cafeteria. - That BTW, is the agenda behind ruining the dollar and the U.S> job markets: scarce jobs and government payrolls == social control.
Of the new jobs [created], 26,000 (about 13%) are tax-supported government jobs. That leaves 181,000 private sector jobs. Of these private sector jobs, 177,000, or 98%, are in the domestic service sector.Here is the breakdown of the major categories:
30,000 food servers and bar tenders;
28,000 health care and social assistance:
12,000 real estate;
6,000 credit intermediation;
8,000 transit and ground passenger transportation;
50,000 retail trade; and
8,000 wholesale trade.
(There were 7,000 construction jobs, most of which were filled by Mexicans immigrants.)
Not a single one of these jobs produces a tradable good or service that can be exported or serve as an import substitute to help reduce the massive and growing US trade deficit. The US economy is employing people to sell things, to move people around, and to serve them fast food and alcoholic beverages. The items may have an American brand name, but they are mainly made off shore. For example, 70% of Wal-Mart's goods are made in China.
Where are the jobs for the 65,000 engineers the US graduates each year? Where are the jobs for the physics, chemistry, and math majors? Who needs a university degree to wait tables and serve drinks, to build houses, to work as hospital orderlies, bus drivers, and sales clerks?
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
I can spend much time commenting on the stupidity of this whole incident. However, I have this question for the Florida supervisors and administrators. Have you ever heard of a filter? They exist you know, and even web proxies have difficutlies getting around them if they are in the local system net. There are probably always ways to avoid filters. But anyone that can get past the best filters, is probably spending more time learning how to do that, then bothering to look at "adult content".
Librarians will be jailed for allowing people to read up on evolution when their schools teach nothing but creationism, or hard science like intelligent design.
As far as I am concerned, the library is at fault, not for not censoring their patrons, but for not putting in place a system of adequate privacy. I understand that features are coming in Mozilla that will make it even easier to make sure that all privacy-related information is purged. As far as I am concerned, this sort of feature should be required by law in libraries. The principle should extend beyond internet usage. The Patriot Act stormtroopers cannot demand a record that is not there.
An interesting idea.. Although I wonder how many people would make their own shirts and wear them. You know, people with a strange sense of humor.
The director of the Valparaiso (Fla.) Community Library was suspended without pay in early August after city officials found that a registered sex offender had used library computers to access pornographic websites.
City Commissioner Robert Billingsley said in the August 12 Gainesville Sun that he would ask the commission to fire VCL Director Sue Martin, but he declined to explain why he thought she had not done enough to prevent the incident, which occurred July 25. Police charged Michael Bushee, 25, with possession of child pornography several days later. Billingsley said police also told him that three male minors had used the VCL computers to look at sites with adult content.
The Sun quoted a letter Martin had written to Billingsley in which she explained, "We continually enforce our policy by monitoring all computers. Any suspicious use is immediately checked by accessing the history of the patrons' Web use. In addition, the staff monitors the patrons' use by 'walkthroughs' of the computer areas."
City Attorney Doug Wyckoff said Martin would receive a hearing within 60 days.
Posted August 12, 2005.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
But, this discussion is pretty much moot since I can't believe even the Christian Right has enough power to reinstate the "Scarlet Letter" days.
There's more than one Cold Fusion site talking about libraries, and many of them are only "secure" because they use MS Access as a database. However, this site uses MS SQL Server, and it shows! (no pun intended...)
they should take a look at the records of who was using the computers in question when the porn was viewed. Then suspend their library card and fine them, and they lose access to the Library Internet system for a long time.
Suspending the Librarian is like firing the Clerk of a convience store because it got robbed while he/she was on duty, it makes no sense at all, because he/she is a victim of a crime too.
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
I know you're being sarcastic. But I'd like to chime in my own obvious answer: don't let people out of prison/jail that you want to punish. Letting people out of prison "early" while placing any sort of restriction on them is paramount to turning the whole state/country into a prison. The fact that the librarian is being punished over this seems very clearly Florida's way of saying that the prison guards (police) aren't too happy with her conduct.
If Florida really wants sex offenders to be punished for the rest of their life, they better be prepared to adequately shelter them in prison for the rest of their life. If every felony meant life imprisonment (think of all the ex-felons who can't vote), I think Florida would be a quite different state.
Eurohacker European paranoia, gun rights, and h
Maybe he knows something? Let's find out, shall we?
To summarize, we are allowed to watch things on TV that should never happen (kidnapping, murders...) while we are forbidden to watch something which basically mostly everyone agrees to be a fun thing, while also being still our primary mean of reproduction (i.e. survival).
Why isn't it the other way around?
Strange world indeed.
Sneak teach kids Algebra using a game
What's even more fun is that often you're legally allowed to see it in life, and do it yourself, before you're allowed to see it in photographic or video form...
I mean really... As to what they saw while the were surfing... What business is it of mine? I DON'T CARE OR EVEN WANT TO KNOW!
This is 'political correctness' taken to a ridiculous, extreme conclusion.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
Stupid Americans and your "freedoms". Give me a break. I know this will be called flamebait, but I couldn't care less. Your contry REALLY needs to settle down a little bit and quit taking yourselves so seriously. Deep breaths.
'Libraries originally' means what?
Do you mean ancient libraries that contained a combination of privately commissioned original works and captured contents of other libraries?
Which had nothing whatsoever to do with altruism, and calling those ancient kings/emperors/caliphs, etc. individuals is pretty far from what you seem to imply.
They were not individuals in the sense of using private wealth, they were the state.
Or, by originally would you be going back only to modern libraries, like the one operated by Benjamin Franklin?
If so, by what possible criteria was Mr. Franklin 'wealthy'?
Who was the so-called 'private administrator' running that one?
What were the 'rules established by the trust'?
Citations please.
I call bullshit.
It's called 'No Child Left Behind'. If stupid people move into the school system, the test results go down and the school gets less funding.
It works almost as well as you'd expect.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
Why is watching porn at the library an illegal activity in the first place?
Why choose "porn" to be illegal? How is porn somehow illegal, and not some other completely aribitrary thing, like "gardening", illegal? Why aren't we banning books about "Auto Repair" at the library?
Is this some Christian thing to arbitrarily choose pornography to be illegal? To non-christians, why would porn matter?
Why not just make it legal, and let people check out porn at the library, like they would a book on 18th century French literature?
In Canada (or at least Alberta), libraries are not allowed (by law) to install filters of any kind, because doing so violates their charter (open access to public information.)
There are several rural schools that share network access with public libraries, and this is one of the things that we have to work around (computers belonging to the school must be filtered, but computers belonging to the library must not be.)
I find it amazing that libraries in the US are not only allowed to censor information, but that they are *expected* to.
See you in the Gulag, comerade!
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
And I mean ANYONE! ..can get porn from google.
Perhaps we should make it illegal to download porn in a public place, just like its illegal to browse the web at your public library without wearing any clothes.
Then punish those responsible for breaking the policy and the law. Even if they are kids, they need to be punished, severely.
We all know its morally wrong to see naked people and sex.
I'm affraid we're so concerned about sex we forgot that our children still have access to terrorism. And drugs. And poverty.
Hey, I know, lets start a War against Librarians!!!
Well, now you're supposed to tell the government whenever you notice it.
Even though people will tell you (and me) that 'we-are-the-government', you & I know that this is simple NOT true.
The government (except the armies) are civilians, but not all civilians are 'IN' the government.
The government looks at us (in the usa anyway) as an 'us & them' situation.
Unless there is widespread defection, malcontent and out right opposition from within the ranks of our government, it will be *EXTREMEly* hard for the masses to 'join in' on the fray, when it all-comes-down someday. :(
I will gladly loose all of life's battles.. in order to win the war..
I live in ValP but I'm not from the area so I can tell you that this is all about context. This town, up until a little while ago, was called Boggy Bayou. My point is that its about as backwater red neck is anything you can imagine. That's the context, just like eating a big juicy steak in Calcutta would upset people, viewing child porn on Valp is a big problem for the locals. That's the great thing about our constitution, it allows the people who live in an area decide what kind of environment they want to live in. In this case, their upset that someone was viewing child port 20' from the children's book section.
Libraries are for grown-ups, too. Adult images aren't illegal. Libraries aren't day-care centers, although I think that's what some people expect them to be. If I am forbidden to look at boobies on the internet at my local library, will I soon be forbidden from looking at boobies on African tribeswomen in the National Geographic on the shelf behind the computer? Or at the boobies in a book on art? Or read a description of boobies in a poetry book? There's a whole bunch of adult situations in that there bible these assholes are always thumping. Maybe we should censor that, too.
In a million years, when the alien archeologists are picking through the remains of our society, they're going to have a hard time figuring out how we reproduced. "Well Xzgralfap, they documented the reproductive practices of every other species on the planet and labeled it 'biology'. But they're own reproductive practices were labeled 'pornography' and forbidden to be documented and studied by the ignorant."
I'm tired of it. Mary Carey for President, 2008. Her and Bill Clinton are the only two pro-pornography candidates I can think of. Don't forget to order your save the court kit, today!
- by Johnny Cash:
My daddy left home when I was three And he didn't leave much to ma and me Just this old guitar and an empty bottle of booze. Now, I don't blame him cause he run and hid But the meanest thing that he ever did Was before he left, he went and named me ``Sue."
Well, he must o' thought that is was quite a joke And it got a lot of laughs from a' lots of folk, It seems I had to fight my whole life through. Some gal would giggle and I'd get red And some guy'd laugh and I'd bust his head, I tell ya, life ain't easy for a boy named ``Sue.''
Well, I grew up quick and I grew up mean, My fist got hard and my wits got keen, I'd roam from town to town to hide my shame. But I made me a vow to the moon and stars That I'd search the honky-tonks and bars And kill that man that give me that awful name.
Well, it was Gatlinburg in mid-July And I just hit town and my throat was dry, I thought I'd stop and have myself a brew. At an old saloon on a street of mud, There at a table, dealing stud, Sat the dirty, mangy dog that named me ``Sue.''
Well, I knew that snake was my own sweet dad from a worn-out picture that my mother'd had, And I knew that scar on his cheek and his evil eye. He was big and bent and gray and old, And I looked at him and my blood ran cold And I said: ``My name is `Sue!' How do you do! Now you gonna die!!''
Well, I hit him hard right between the eyes And he went down but, to my surprise, He come up with a knife and cut off a piece of my ear. But I busted a chair right across his teeth And we crashed through the wall and into the street Kicking and a' gouging in the mud and the blood and the beer.
I tell ya, I've fought tougher men But I really can't remember when, He kicked like a mule and he bit like a crocodile. I heard him laugh and then I heard him cuss, He went for his gun and I pulled mine first, He stood there lookin' at me and I saw him smile.
And he said: ``Son, this world is rough And if a man's gonna make it, he's gotta be tough And I know I wouldn't be there to help ya along. So I give ya that name and I said goodbye I knew you'd have to get tough or die And it's that name that helped to make you strong.''
He said: ``Now you just fought one hell of a fight And I know you hate me, and you got the right To kill me now, and I wouldn't blame you if you do. But ya ought to thank me, before I die, For the gravel in ya guts and the spit in ya eye Cause I'm the son-of-a-bitch that named you `Sue.'''
I got all choked up and I threw down my gun And I called him my pa, and he called me his son, And I come away with a different point of view. And I think about him, now and then, Every time I try and every time I win, And if I ever have a son, I think I'm gonna name him Bill or George! Anything but Sue! I still hate that name!
Pretty much says it all. Moron.
Tell me what you believe...I'll tell you what you should see.
...blame Canada.
my univ. (and many others I hear have) policy which allows one to watch porn as long as the neighbor surfing does not get "offended"..
And, they had what I consider to be one of the most sensible policies for monitoring children I've ever seen: for children under 13, a parent or other guardian *must* be present for the kid to be allowed to use the computers.
The rationale was, well, rational: as a parent, you know what you consider to be inappropriate for your child, so it's up to the parent to make the judgment call.
I haven't been back to Sioux City in quite some time, and I certainly haven't been in the library, so I'm not sure if they've changed their policies. What I really liked about their policies is that they accounted for the unspoken question of appropriateness: appropriate for whom? The courts are never going to be able to decide what little Johnny's parents think is appropriate for him, so let/force them to decide. That's why I think it's crazy that librarians are expected to parent other people's children for them while they're at the library.
If it's not one thing it's your mother.
A policy isn't a policy without someone enforcing it. Ultimately, if the person responsible for enforcing policy doesn't or won't enforce it, they must be replaced with someone who will. If a person responsible for enforcement sees that he/she doesn't have the tools or time to effectively enforce the policy, they have to escalate the problems until the policy goes away or they get the tools. Anything else is weasle wording and waffling.
And yet, for all your paranoia, did you actually worry about a knock on the door when you posted this? Anyone can invent conspiracy theories - it doesn't take much intelligence or effort, and it's *also* not a useful good or service.
At least invent something entertaining - add some aliens or Elvis or something. Maybe Sasquatch - yeah, Sasquatch is always good!
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
This article seems to clear up a few things. http://www.local6.com/news/4843803/detail.html
die444die
Instead of firing innocent librarian(maybe she's a hott chica who just turns on all the visitors giving them reason to go looking for porn) they should investigate why people go on net lookin' for dirty stuff instead of going out dating and getting laid. Where are the good old 70's???? I'm not from the 70's BTW(it's later) ;-)
Java Oracle Linux Enthusiast
on the circumstances...
I was using the public terminals at the library a few years back and leaned back to notice this creepy looking guy a few terminals over and was so shocked it was hard to beleive:
He was looking at pictures of naked boys that were obviously amatueur child porn shots.
I told the librarian on duty, and she came over to him, and having been assured by the pervy dude that everything was fine, she went back to her romance novel.
Now maybe she didn't know the seriousness of that, or how to check his history... but she should have taken it more serious than she did.
I don't like people looking over my shoulder anymore then anybody else. I'm saying that library patrons and kids in schools have to accept these compromises.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
There is no "best enforcement policy" for irrational laws, rules and in general attempting to dictate to adults what they may do with access to the Web. That the access happens to be in a library paid for by taxes should not mean that Congress critters or whatever set of Mrs. Grundy types who scream the loudest get to monitor or restrict content accessed.
A library Spanker was just caught at Princton IIRC.
In any case it has been going on for years (centurys?). Usually on college campuses.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
They certainly monitor usage where I live and will not hesitate to kick you out for porn. Lamers that this happens to find their names in the paper and themselves banned. Usually it was another patron that snitches them out. Simply a matter of how you arrange the screens.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
"If anyone should be fired "
And that's the point. No one should be fired over this incident. The librarian is there to assist patrons in study and scholarship, not to be a net nanny that makes sure nobody is downloading porn.
This is an unfortunate incident that a politician is trying to make a name from. If anyone should be fired its the commisioner who is now on a witch hunt.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
I mention this not to boast, troll, or complain that the library service is way behind in the tech curve but if my fellow users Monopolise the staffs time in the same way I do I and the community it serves might be more likely to loose all of the services provided by the Library.
If say the middle management of the library department decides to add another meddlesome thing for staff to do.
Libraries should serve there users. I do happen to agree with most of you but ?
Should dvds etc be in library ? probably but it does feel more like a internet cafe, and blockbuster store rather than a library.
The problem here the is reduced investment in new book stock is being slashed. the word Library feels the wrong word when i go there.
Send Peter Clifford Francis Macrae comdoms to 23 Bedford St, St.Neots, PE19 1AX, England
"where tinfoil-hat-wearing radical loonies can site it as some sort of "proof" of an evil U.S. agenda/conspiracy."
Right, because no school districts in the U.S. have banned Harry Potter books because they have the "occult" in them.
And Catcher in the Rye is just a favorite all over this great land of ours.
Don't forget that racist Mark Twain and remember that we need to ban his books.
And Janet Jackon's boob. Nobody gets upset over a middle-aged saggy boob on TV. It hardly rates a notice, in fact.
So yeah. Those radical loonies are just making stuff up again.
If I'm caught speeding? After all, shouldn't the manufacturer of a car be responsible for how I drive it? At least up until I pay it off?
Sheesh. Let's go back to the days where the only computers in a library were tied in to be able to look up books (electronic card catalog), and check other branches to see if a book was available. If you need internet access, either go to an internet cafe (if an adult), or let the schools keep there computer labs open for students *ONLY.*
The schools can then try to block "inappropriate" content (maybe with the help of some of the kids, it'd be experience for them), and the internet cafes are in it for the money, so what happens is their problem....
My perfect library would be a monstrous building that you need golf carts to get around, with at least two copies of every book published, anywhere, anytime, and librarians that are there to help me find what I'm looking for, not watching what I'm doing....
Do you see the FNORDS? I refuse to post anonymously, as I am fireproof!
"So how many of the librarians in your family over the generations helped sex offenders find child pornography?"
Probably the same number as the number of men in your family who beat their wives.
Or did they stop that yet?
Asshat.
Wonderful reference to communism/Rand's "We the Living". But yes. The state is trying to take over our lives, slowly and surely.
Show this to your friends and family that don't know what a real hacker is
upset. According to the ALA, libraries should offer freedom to information without any type of restrictions. Definately a nobel concept.
Unfortunately these same people act surprised when homeless people, kids, and sex offenders use the T1 at the library to download pr0n.
"The head librarian of the Valparaiso Community Library in Florida was suspended after investigators found that users had viewed adult content on public computers. While the library has a policy against viewing adult material on library computers, the librarian is facing possible dismissal."Well, all I can say is that the VPC are making a mistake. When you are dealing with hearts and minds, don't fuck with librarians. They are networked, have public support, are articulate, are respected and are unafraid. Librarians deserve everybody's respect as public guardians who actually deal with the public (cf. university professors).
Librarians are amongst the most valuable people in society...
Call me old fashioned, but I like a dump to be as memorable as it is devastating - Bender
City Commissioner Robert Billingsley said in the August 12 Gainesville Sun that he would ask the commission to fire VCL Director Sue Martin, but he declined to explain why he thought she had not done enough to prevent the incident,
Just an asshole. Nothing to see here.
It isn't like librarians have to go to college or anything is it? What do they have to do all day except hang around watching people use the computers? Surely firing "somebody" will be good for this City Commissioner's career.
It's practically impossible to completely protect public computers (wow, that's a lot of "p"s in one sentence). In a strange coincidence, I first read this particular /. story this morning at my local library. I normally shouldn't have been able to do that, because the library has a specially-developed browser that only lets you access about five websites, but it took me all of about 30 seconds to hack around that and open up IE. This guy probably did the same.
Besides, a librarian can't watch over your shoulder the entire time you're using their computers. Could they hire an IT guy to secure the computers so well that it would be practically impossible to access restricted content? Maybe. But I think that his $60,000-or-more salary might be better spent on, oh, a couple thousand new books? A new non-fiction wing?
Oh, and my library does have a separate room where a permission slip is required for access. A permission slip? That'll keep the sex offenders at bay.
We discussed doing something like this at the library at which I work back when the state asked us to give an estimate of the costs of something like this, to determine if they should make it a law. Our response was that we'd have to build a room in which to put the "adult" machines with Internet access, hire a staff member (at combat pay!) to sit in there and monitor the room, answer questions and get harrassed by people who've just been viewing porn online and buy all kinds of interesting cleaning materials for the inevitable messes that would result from those people who were viewing porn online.
Robin Hastings
The best enforcement policy is to fuck off directly and let people look at whatever they want so long as it's not harming other folks.
Librarians, despite their stodgy image, are by and large one of the most hilariously liberal groups you'll find when it comes to freedom of information; so I figure most of them would agree.
I love librarians.
(Plus, you get some of those young female librarians, with their hair up and little glasses. Rawr.)
Because they are the ones that know how overrated it is by the masses?
There are 2 ways to control internet access: (1)have 1 librarian for every 2 internetters to monitor what they surf*, or (2)permit only access to the bbc-website.
*probably concerned parents will love to volunteer for this task! Or would they have anything better to do that watch their kids? Yet be the first to point fingers when someone else doesn't do what they should've done?
All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die.
Install internet filters? Oh but wait.. thats not allow.. its a freedom of speech thing.. plus the ACLU will raise hell over it.
Uhm, if Caesar Augustus fixed the boundaries of the Empire, why did it continue to grow until the time of Marcus Aurelius? Heron of Alexandria spoke Greek.
Actually that I don't mind. Because if kids were to reproduce what they see on porn movies today, then sex would be a strange experience indeed. People have now strange expectations, especially for their 1st time.
You know. All these guys who think they aren't good because they don't last 1h and have a 10 inches dick and those girls who think they are not open minded if they don't let guys do them what they want.
Actuallu some already start reproducing what they see, and having sex with a 20 years old girl today is completely different than what it was 10 years ago. At least in big cities.
Sneak teach kids Algebra using a game
The Registered Sex Offender looks like a regular adult, so in order to recognise Registered Sex Offenders, the librarians would have to look them up. The libraries are enrolled in the parole officer's workforce. This puts a substantial overhead on the libraries, as they have to look up every adult entering the library.
Why not do something more efficient, since the Registered Sex Offender is already unfree, monitored and branded (just not on his face)? How about an ankle clamp with GPS and a beacon, tracking him 24/7, so that the library can be alerted the moment he comes through the door?
I'm dead serious about this! If the USofA release sex offenders before they are considered 100% "safe" with clauses like "if you view pr0n, you go back in again!" then there should be measures in place to enforce those clauses efficiently. And having the rest of the population act as prison guards should be rejected flatly!
I must have missed some important news in the last few years, because I am really confused at this article. I thought Libraries weren't allowed to filter web content, because it was deemed unconstitutional somehow?
Antisource - antivirus, antispam, antispyware
far enough but how often is it the librarians fault. I've never seen a librarian who knew anything about how the computers worked. THey have tech guys who do that sort of thing. Plus filters aren't perfect, whose to blame when someone gets a obscure porn site that isn't filtered. The only solution to that is to whitelist sites which is far to restrictive.
If the librarian had caught the person and did not 'revoke library privilages' as they always warn us will happen. Then maybe I could see some justification in holding the librarian partially responsible. Of all the people to blame most likely the librarian is the least responsible.
...are
1) *what* investigators?
2) *why* were there investigators?
3) who sent them?
And a hearty thanks to all those who voted Republican, and so supported Christian neo-fascist "political correctness".
mark "and libertarian votes help the GOP"
You turn the displays to face the room.
I don't need my busybody gossip mongering next door neighbor snooping on what diseases I am researching. I don't need to go into an explain that I'm looking at a white supremacist website because I oppose racist idiots. It's none of her business if I am going to pro-Bush websites or anti-Bush websites, or even the Communist party website. I not need to explain that reading a gay rights website does not mean I am gay. And even if I were gay, it's still none of her business. I do not need some idiot butting in and asking why I've been spending the last 5 hours studying one particular passage of the Bible.
I'm saying that library patrons [] have to accept these compromises.
Why?
If some librarians choose to put the internet terminals in cubicals facing the wall, or even put them in doored research booths, what.... you want to pull out a gun and march those evil librarians into prison cells?
I wish we'd drop the damn War On Evil Information and redirect all of that attention on people that actually commit criminal acts against other people.
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
Except for the librarian in question, for whom this is undoubtedly a stupid horror, this is just another high water mark that indicates the general stupidity of contemporary U.S. society, especially Florida which I'm sorry to say, may have a couple positive news stories but in general looks like an example of massive social deevolution.
Even IF the librarian had a written contract guaranteeing perfect surveillance and control of the Internet kiosks, it is most likely a minor footnote compared to all the good done for the community. Or to put it another way, the inability to restrain suspicious conduct by a felon was found to outweigh all other contributions. Maybe an accounting of the tasks that were done instead of policing the kiosks would be illuminating.
Possibly there is a secret war against sex offenders that requires the public library to be some kind of gauntlet the newly released offender has to run. Not sure if that wouldn't in fact count as entrapment but.. heck Florida doesn't think libraries and custodians of knowledge are that important so screw 'em! There's a limited number of slots in the Ivies and Big 10 schools anyway.
sex offender... automatically checks the registry and locks this user from the accessing the public internet from library computers.
I like this solution a lot better than overly-broad filtering.
Good idea. We wouldn't want ex-con sex offenders using the internet. Hell, they might even attempt to do legal reseach trying to overturn an erroneous conviction or something. I like this solution a lot better than overly-broad filtering. Just ban ex-cons from the internet, they might look for something naughty.
While we're at department stores should do the same sort of search on credit card names to prevent them from shopping there at all. You know, just in case that guy convicted for peeing in the bushes behind a bar was trying to buy candy to lure children. I like this solution a lot better than overly-broad filtering. Just ban ex-cons from shopping anywhere, they might try to buy something naughty.
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
The point is these changes are coming in gradually, and scarily. If you look at the trends to remove liberties, the reasons for which are mainly based around terror, it seems quite obvious that totalitarianism is approaching, even if it is not going to get here. The power of fear to manipulate the population is very real, and the "land of the free," seems on its way out.
I, by the way, live in Britain, and from my limited view on these things, we're not much better off.
im in ur
Hmmm....noticed a lot of people here are slightly peeved at this, and I agree that it isn't right she's taking the fall for this. A quick search through google pulled up some information which I think would be useful to share, so I figured I'd post it here.
If you don't like what is going on, maybe you should be responsible enough to let those elected officials know this. Have fun.
Robert Billingsley
465 Valparaiso Pkwy
Valparaiso, FL 32580
Email: rbillingsley@valp.org
Web: www.valp.org/
Phone: (850)729-5402
To quote Hermione Granger:
What. An. Idiot.
Absolutes have nothing to do with the case, mate - the truth is, all our factories are overseas.
All we produce here in the gool o'l U. S. of A. is . . .
RICH EXECUTIVES!
Patrolling ftw
Well, someone is using scare tactics to control the population, but I'm not sure it's the party in power ...
OTOH, we have a constitution here to protect us, and would see cameras on every street corner to be a bit much. You might be SOL.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
I'm not sure who you're referring to, but it's obvious that the party in power has been using the war on terror to bring in legislation, such as the PATRIOT Act.
im in ur
You do know that John Kerry wrote one title of the USA-PATRIOT act? It's not some vast right-wing conspiracy. There were no new police powers in the USA-PATRIOT act, just the same abuses we already allowed for the War on Drugs, now allowed in the War on Terror. Sad, but true.
As much fear-mongering about terrorism as there is on the right in this country, there is even more fear-mongering about totalitarianism on the left (especially the European left). You heard the exact same BS in th 60s, yet the totalitarian state somehow failed to materialize.
The constitution can be changed, but only by an elaborate process we haven't used in quite some time. Anything *could* happen, but people bending over for the government is quite unlikely to happen, whether in a red state or a blue.
We're in a sad state right now because there's no "small government" party, but that won't last long: there are too many voters to ignore who don't like a nanny state. You know, I can understand that our federal government would propose crazy laws regulating stuff like sudaphed and video games, as part of the population always wants everything regulated, but it still amazes me that it's Democrats proposing this stuff. A Democrat from California leading the charge for tougher drug laws? What a weird system.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Sure enough it's not a certainty that such policies come into effect, but from where I'm sitting that appears to be the trend (for Britain, too) hopefully it can be averted however, whichever side of centre you happen to be.
im in ur