Boston Bans Boing Boing From City Wi-Fi

DrFlounder writes "The city of Boston has apparently blocked access to Boing Boing on the municipal Wi-Fi. This is possibly due to the popular blog's known Mooninite sympathies." Update: 4/22 13:11 GMT by KD : Seth Finkelstein did some research and posted an explanation of the blockage to his blog. "'Arbitrary and capricious' seems the relevant characterization."

Comments

The ISPs were right all along

[Wonko the Sane]

Municipal WiFi is bad after all.

Re:The ISPs were right all along

[Anonymous Coward]

There is nothing wrong with this ... except, perhaps, if you hate freedom.

Do not question the mayor. LED cartoons are terrorist threats and non-sycophantic websites are subversion.

Re:The ISPs were right all along

[Paladin144]

Municipal WiFi is bad after all.

At least the people of Boston have a chance to throw the bums out in the next election. If you're encountering censorship by a cable company given a legal monopoly to "serve" a certain region, you have virtually no recourse unless such a thing was specifically planned for and written into the contract. I know that my city has no control over my cable provider's rates, allowing them to jack prices through the roof. I don't know if there is similar deregulation in the case of censorship, but I wouldn't be surprised.

In the end it's best to have as many choices as possible. So far as I know, having municipal wireless does not preclude the existance of DSL and cable providers.

Re:The ISPs were right all along

[wbren]

I don't know how things work in Minnesota, but here in Boston we don't generally oust politicians for blocking Boing Boing. This will blow over, and there will be no repercussions. This is one of those situations where a politician can say "Even if someone has a problem with this, people will call them stupid for making a stink about something called Boing Boing."

Re:The ISPs were right all along

[autophile]

At least the people of Boston have a chance to throw the bums out in the next election.

Here's all I have to say on the subject:

Let's watch the monkey dance.
...Anti-intellectualism.
Make fun of the South of France.
...Anti-intellectualism.

And that's why Boston will not be throwing anyone out.

(Thanks, Ze, for the words)

--Rob

Re:The ISPs were right all along

[bxwatso]

I do think that municapl WiFi precludes other services. They are offering 90% of the value of the paid ISP services at no end user cost (of course it's not free to taxpayers). This puts a chill on the incentive for others to invest and innovate to best serve the consumer. If I had free wifi on my block, I would have a hard time paying Comcast for something only a bit better.

Government intervetion into a free market causes shortages (lack of high end WiFi) every time.

Re:The ISPs were right all along

[Anonymous Coward]

What the hell does SVN have to do with anything?

Re:The ISPs were right all along

[Chandon Seldon]

It's not about boing-boing, it's about filtering on a public network. If the government is providing a public network, it must be open and unfiltered - because the existence of a free public network drives away alternative commercial providers - it may become the only network, or it may be the only network available to some users.

Re:The ISPs were right all along

[bhalter80]

While I appreciate your comment that they have the opportunity to throw them out at the next election that opportunity will remain just that and nothing else. To be voted out of office in MA takes some serious doing. For an example look at their senior senitor the Honorable Edward M Kennedy, he's often publicly intoxicated, and has even been involved in fleeing the scene of an accident where his campaign worker Mary Jo Kopechne was killed as a result of drowning after the car he was driving was driven off a bridge. I feel all their jobs are safe after all being a drunken murderer isn't enough to keep you from getting reelected.

Re:The ISPs were right all along

[Anonymous Coward]

Government intervetion into a free market causes shortages (lack of high end WiFi) every time.

Oh please, as if any of the big companies were going to do it.

Besides, an uncensored internet connection isn't "only a bit better" for a lot of people, so there will still be plenty of grounds for other companies to compete, of course, that would require them to offer full wireless internet access too, none of this "well, you can use the web a little bit, and our email, but if you do anything else, we drop you" bullshit. Maybe if they spent their money on developing services instead of canceling rollouts to blow the cash buying other companies and stuff politicians' pockets and run marketing campaigns about how terrible this all is, they'd be able to compete.

Re:The ISPs were right all along

[StarvingSE]

I can understand if a private ISP blocks content, although I don't agree with it. They are a private company and can do things like that, and I can choose not to do business with them. I would rather do without internet access than pay a company to block content.

In this case, it is a government controlled service, and thus clearly falls under free speech rights. Someone needs to bring the constitutionality of this under question in court.

Re:The ISPs were right all along

[lysergic.acid]

they don't need to make a federal case out of the matter. it's municipal wifi, but municipal government is still answerable to the citizens of boston as we live in a democratic society. they need to write to their city officials or take it to the city council directly with a petition. there should be municipal policies regulating the administration of public wifi access that prevents city officials from employing political censorship. it's the tax payer's wifi system, so ultimately they have control over how it's run.

Re:The ISPs were right all along

[Anonymous Coward]

How did the Cable company accquire their legal monopoly? Usually a contract with a city or county government. So they do have some control over this.

Re:The ISPs were right all along

[Zantetsuken]

Its been a while since I read on muni-wifi, so I can't exactly remember how it works, but if it's outsourced to a 3rd party company and only paid for by the city govt' - would the 3rd party/private company be able to block it without bringing the Constitution into this, or because it would be funded by govt' money then it would have to comply with the Constitution??? Even if this isn't the case in Boston, if it is so in other places, I would think it would be a valid question...

Re:The ISPs were right all along

[DDLKermit007]

More just an issue of free speech deep down. That'll get someone tossed in the next election. When the hell did a government entity have the right block access to something that wasn't obscene?

Re:The ISPs were right all along

[jeppster]

As far as anything that is provided as free, it "must" not be anything you dictate because any service provided free of charge is completely up to the discretion of the entity providing it, and no one person has any say in its operation.

Now, I don't really consider the discussed service as free because I'm sure plenty of Boston's residents paid their own little part of it last week; hence, I believe that they should have a say in the matter.

Now, as far as opinions go, I agree with you that it should be open and unfiltered. It just seems silly to try to restrict an entity so viral (the Net, not Boing Boing).

Re:The ISPs were right all along

[Bios_Hakr]

If you lived in MA, you'd be stupid to vote out Kennedy. As a senior member, he has a lot of power and influence in congress. If they vote in someone else, it'd be 10 years before the new guy could even propose legislation without being laughed at. Maybe another 10 years before he could pull the members of his party to pass legislation.

People like Hatch, Kennedy, Stevens, Pilosi, and all those other idiots *should* be voted out. It's in the best interest of the other 49 states to get rid of these assholes. But, that one state, the one that votes for these morons, has no choice but to keep them around. To vote them out would guarantee their state drops off the face of congress for at least 10 years.

I used to think that term limits were the way to go. However, after looking at CA, I see that's a really dumb way to do it. With term limits, everyone is a junior and the lobbyists just roll right over them.

Now I'm thinking that we should make it illegal for the incumbent to actively campaign. If the people really want to re-elect them, their record should stand on it's own. We should also make congress more work. Be in your seats Monday through Friday from 0700 till 1700. Be back in your district Saturday morning by 0800 and work till 1600 doing charity work and meeting the people. They can take Sunday morning off for church, but they need to go on local TV Sunday night for an hour and explain to the voters what they did that week. If the voters so choose, a junior senator can have a one-week vacation in the Summer; a senior senator, maybe two-weeks. Both unpaid.

There should also be a weekly financial statement of every dollar that the official spent and a record of where that money came from. It should be in the Sunday morning paper. If they guy goes to Starbucks for a coffee, he should be able to show where the dollar came from. A senator should not be allowed to accept any gift, nor should his family members.

Re:The ISPs were right all along

[Urza9814]

No, the local governments grant the ISPs a monopoly usually, so they should be held to the same standards as a government service would be. I dunno where you live, but where I am, we have one choice for broadband and one choice only. And lemme tell ya, it sucks. I recently discovered they charge an extra $60 a month for the EXACT same service, just without the 'you are not allowed to run a server' clause in the TOS. But yea, unless I want dial-up, that's my only option.

Re:The ISPs were right all along

[yesteraeon]

There is nothing wrong with this ... except, perhaps, if you hate freedom. I think you might have misspelled love, 'cause I hate freedom and I think this is best thing since Guantanamo Bay!

Re:The ISPs were right all along

[pipingguy]

I used to think that term limits were the way to go. However, after looking at CA, I see that's a really dumb way to do it. With term limits, everyone is a junior and the lobbyists just roll right over them.

Interesting point.

Re:The ISPs were right all along

[Kohath]

Municipal WiFi is bad after all.

Government taking over services private industry could do is always bad and always has been. Free choices should decide when and if a service is provided or blocked, but governments choose based on politics and force.

Re:The ISPs were right all along

[isdnip]

No, it won't impact the election.

Menino has been in office roughly forever, in large part because nobody else really wants the job. That is, nobody who's not far more inflammatory to some major part of the populace. "Mumbles" Menino is everyman's mayor, the none-too-bright neighbor who you know means well, and won't do anything really outrageous, while things basically take care of themselves.

The muni wi-fi network probably has very few users anyway. It's rather new and I don't think it covers the whole city. Cable modems are well established and there's some DSL already. Boing Boing's audience probably isn't the muni's. When I'm in Boston neighborhoods looking for WiFi, I've never seen it, though I've never had trouble finding an open Netgear or Linksys.

Re:The ISPs were right all along

[salimma]

Scary that we hear about this about the same time as Slashdot carries a Russian media censorship article.

I'd make a Soviet Russia joke, but this time it's an apt comparison for a change.

Re:The ISPs were right all along

[plasmacutter]

because we all know standard oil was a great choice.

the computing industry offers you a choice.. oh wait theyre all part of the trusted computing group.. no choice but to buy drm computers.

the insurance industry offers you a choice... a choice between jackeduprate and jackeduprate+3, that is.. only if you dont actually need the insurance.. if you do need it.. for say medicating yourself for a known illness.. there seems to be no competitor willing to provide comparable coverage everyone else gets for less than jackeduprate+so.much.its.no.longer.useful

lets see.. the telecom industry? (do i really need to go further).

Government provided services may be inefficient and/or screwed up, but at least when theyre that way people have a say, unlike the above examples.

Re:The ISPs were right all along

[rednip]

I can understand if a private ISP blocks content, although I don't agree with it. They are a private company and can do things like that...

Agreed, with one caveat, they should lose their 'common carrier' protection and be responsible for all content which flows through their network.

Re:The ISPs were right all along

[Stewie241]

We should also make congress more work. Be in your seats Monday through Friday from 0700 till 1700. Be back in your district Saturday morning by 0800 and work till 1600 doing charity work and meeting the people. They can take Sunday morning off for church, but they need to go on local TV Sunday night for an hour and explain to the voters what they did that week. If the voters so choose, a junior senator can have a one-week vacation in the Summer; a senior senator, maybe two-weeks. Both unpaid.

I'm all for politicians earning their keep, but don't you think that is a bit harsh? IMO, that would preclude them from having a family - at least being good parents. Let's be realistic here! I think working a 45-50 hour work week is sufficient.

Spending should also be monitored, or at least a culture of fiscal responsibility developed. But how do you do that when our culture runs on debt and convinces us that we need everything we can possibly buy (I'm not american, but Canadian, though I assume things aren't that much different south of the border).

Re:The ISPs were right all along

[MyIS]

Yeah but it's ultimately all about where the money comes from. If the government pays a private "enforcement" firm to be a Gestapo, it is still breaking the constitution.

Re:The ISPs were right all along

[Chandon Seldon]

Bullshit. Free or not has nothing to do with it. If the government is providing some service, that service should contribute to the public good. Censorship is absolutely not a public good.

Re:The ISPs were right all along

[mi]

is still answerable to the citizens of boston as we live in a democratic society.

And what if the majority of the citizens of Boston really do hate the blocked site(s)? Then those, who want to access it, are screwed by the same flaw of Democracy, that killed Socrates... And even if citizens of Boston do wise up and force the block to be removed, tell me, what's easier — organize the citizens to protest and petition the government, or switch to a competing service provider?

Municipal WiFi was and remains a profoundly stupid idea, because it effectively blocks the competition through government subsidy. At least, with roads and other infrastructure it could be argued, that we can't have competing ones simply due to the lack of space (although Tokyo manages to have competing subway lines, somehow). But WiFi networks? Please — can put 10 different access point on the same pole...

The illiberal Socialist Boston is showing us all the worst of it. The supposed market failure was used to justify government's encroaching into an area, where it should not be allowed. You — the fans of "Municipal WiFi" — have made this bed. Now sleep in it.

Re:The ISPs were right all along

[PenguiN42]

who said anything about federal? I'm pretty sure the Massachusetts constitution protects free speech as well.

Re:The ISPs were right all along

[quanticle]

With term limits, everyone is a junior and the lobbyists just roll right over them.

In my experience, its been that the junior congresspeople are most resistant to lobbyists. Not only are they not as used to the perks and favors that lobbyists provide, but they've been in the cloistered world of politics for a shorter amount of time, which means that they have a greater sense of how the world works outside of the capital.

Also, term limits allow congresspeople to have a "lame duck" cycle in which they don't have to worry about getting re-elected, and therefore can focus on the long-term good of the country.

Re:The ISPs were right all along

[Anonymous Coward]

they don't need to make a federal case out of the matter. it's municipal wifi, but municipal government is still answerable to the citizens of boston as we live in a democratic society. they need to write to their city officials or take it to the city council directly with a petition. there should be municipal policies regulating the administration of public wifi access that prevents city officials from employing political censorship. it's the tax payer's wifi system, so ultimately they have control over how it's run.

Balderdash. That's WHY we have laws, and WHY we have a Constitution. By your logic we wouldn't need any constraints on government at all -- we could just write petitions, hold a vote, and ultimately do what the majority says. Does the phrase "tyranny of the majority" mean anything to you?

Maybe you're right that there should be municipal policies on meddling with wifi in this manner, but the fact is that we already decided these questions -- and enshrined our answer in the Constitution and in federal law.

Re:The ISPs were right all along

[hobbesmaster]

I might find that plan vaguely feasible if our country was the size of England or something, but Hawaii to DC is a 9000mi round trip (Juneau to DC is "only" 5000mi or so round trip). Do you really want people making that trip once a week for the entire year? I'd probably go crazy, and I imagine most other people would too... Not to mention the logistics of all that...

Oh yeah, also, I assume that the airfare is going to be provided part of the job, right? That salary for a congressman is going to be brought down to nothing after paying for two homes and airfare...

Re:The ISPs were right all along

[JohnVanVliet]

Comcast i bet , i ran a server for 3 years from home

Re:The ISPs were right all along

[belmolis]

What you're missing is the fact that many people care more about a politician's effectiveness in advancing the positions that they advocate than they do about his personal habits and morality. Senator Kennedy may be an alcoholic, but he's a highly functional alcoholic. He remains in office because, on the one hand, Massachusetts voters like his positions and find him effective, and on the other hand, they don't care very much about his alcoholism. There's no reason to think that it is particularly difficult to get rid of politicians in Massachusetts if the voters want to.

Re:The ISPs were right all along

[cerberusss]

(...) publicly intoxicated, and has even been involved in fleeing the scene of an accident

Give the guy a break. This can happen to anyone.

Re:The ISPs were right all along

[Spetiam]

The grandparent was artfully saying that he killed Mary Jo by driving drunk into a lake and leaving her to drown. Were one of us commoners to do this, we would undoubtedly be convicted of at least manslaughter. But I suppose you understand this and were just trying to be funny...

Re:The ISPs were right all along

[EugeneK]

I feel the same way about open standards like TCP/IP, developed at public expense (I never would have consented to my money being wasted in this way). Instead of having a range of innovative, privately-developed protocols and networks (imagine being able to choose MSN's or AOL's innovate networking protocols), we are now forced to use a socialist, inefficient protocol like TCP/IP. It's been pretty much a disaster ever since.

Re:The ISPs were right all along

[asninn]

Would you be OK with the postal services opening your mail and refusing to carry them if they didn't like their contents, or your phone company listening in to your calls and disconnecting you and/or refusing to allow you to call the same number again in the future based on what you're talking about?

What if those decisions are done by automated systems rather than humans - would you feel better because you knew that no actual person was reading your mail and listening to your phone calls?

You might still say "they're free to do it, and I'm free to take my business elsewhere", but what if everyone does it, and if you had no other choice but to agree to it if you want to be able to send letters or call people on the phone? You might say "I'm gonna encrypt my letters and scramble my phone calls", but what if your postal services company and telco decided that that was against their ToS? Would you still say "I'll just take my business elsewhere"? And again, what if everyone did it and you COULDN'T take your business elsewhere?

Your rights are only worth anything as long as they are actually protected, and that includes protection against non-government entities as well. And while you may argue that forbidding these kinds of things would impinge on the companies' freedom to conduct their business the way they want to, also do keep in mind that non-interference is an essential counterpart to freedom - your right to swing your fist ends where my face starts, and arguably, the same thing applies here.

As long as you just stand somewhere swinging your fist, it may make some sense to say that I simply shouldn't go near you in order to avoid being hit, but if you deduce from that that you're always free to swing your fist, then do consider a situation where I'm in a group of people who're all swinging their fists, with nowhere left to go. Is it my fault then that I get beaten up?

So, yeah, I agree that it does fall under free speech rights, but I also think that saying "if it were a private company, nothing would be wrong with it" is fallacious.

Re:The ISPs were right all along

[mi]

BS. Developing standards (TCP/IP, 110V) is completely different from providing services. And you know it.

"Insightful" my behind — find a better example, or admit, there aren't any.

Re:The ISPs were right all along

[Hal_Porter]

If the government pays a private "enforcement" firm to be a Gestapo, it is still breaking the constitution.

Oh shit! Really? Damn, I thought that was a killer business model.

Re:The ISPs were right all along

[fosterNutrition]

Well, to me it looks like an all or nothing situation, in that if all states did it, everyone would again be on an equal footing. It's only when one or a few states have term limits that you end up with a situation like that.

Re:The ISPs were right all along

[Shipwack]

It -is- a killer business model... you're just a little too late. http://www.blackwaterusa.com/

Re:The ISPs were right all along

[StarvingSE]

Your claim is incorrect because the constitution is designed to reduce these flaws of democracy. For example, even though a tyrannical president could be voted into office, the constitution sets term limits and has 3 branches of government for checks and balances. Because of freedom of religion, the establishment of a state religion wouldn't even be on the voting ballot to begin with.

Because of this, the citizens of boston cannot vote to ban content due to the first amendment. The constitution protects the people of a democratic society from themselves, so to speak.

However, all I know about how the government works is from high school civics class, so please correct me if I am wrong here.

Re:The ISPs were right all along

[mi]

Because of this, the citizens of boston cannot vote to ban content due to the first amendment.

You are absolutely right — our democracy is better than that of the ancient Athens, because laws (beginning with the Constitution) protect the minority, however unpopular a particular group/individual may be at any given time.

However, if the citizens of Boston agree with the ban, they will not pressure Boston government over it, and the blocked site will have to sue to get unblocked... It will be an expensive and lengthy process — without guarantee of winning at the end, because this is hardly the first time an ISP is censoring (for better or worse).

In most cases, however, one can simply switch to another ISP — an option, a government-sponsored service is killing...

Re:The ISPs were right all along

[Chris Tucker]

So isdnip sez:

"When I'm in Boston neighborhoods looking for WiFi, I've never seen it, though I've never had trouble finding an open Netgear or Linksys."

Or in my case, someone's open XBox Live wireless point in/near my apartment building.

Re:The ISPs were right all along

[cellocgw]

Grow up already, will you? To be exact, learn a little history before reciting neocon rants.
Here's the way it was, not only in MA but in all states: drunk driving leading to death was not considered a major crime. It wasn't until the mid-70's that a certain pinko lefty state (hint, the mayor of its port city is called "Mumbles") started pushing for jail time for drunk drivers who caused a death. It took rather longer for the South to catch on.
Even now you're likely to get more jail time for threatening a Store24 clerk with a knife than for killing 5 people while driving drunk.

Re:The ISPs were right all along

[EugeneK]

Oh you're just fine with a government-sponsored, coercively developed standards, created by taxpayer expense, with money extracted by the threat of force, standards which oppress and inhibits the formation of market-based, genuinely innovative standards?

Some Libertarian you turned out to be. I wouldn't be surprised if you're one of those fake Libertarians that troll slashdot trying to make the rest of us real Libertarians look bad.

Re:The ISPs were right all along

[raddan]

Municipal WiFi was and remains a profoundly stupid idea, because it effectively blocks the competition through government subsidy. At least, with roads and other infrastructure it could be argued, that we can't have competing ones simply due to the lack of space (although Tokyo manages to have competing subway lines, somehow). But WiFi networks? Please -- can put 10 different access point on the same pole... But the fact is, we don't. In Boston, you have essentially two choices for your ISP: Verizon and Comcast. All other ISPs run on top of lines provided by these two (like Speakeasy), and you essentially are still paying for one or the other. If you want to be pedantic, you could say that, sure, we could bring in a Cogent line which is neither Verizon nor Comcast, but is that within the reach of your average citizen?

And that's the heart of the matter: access. Many people cannot afford Verizon or Comcast. With more governmental services moving toward being electronic (e.g., n MA, I can and have renewed my driver's license via the web), access for those who cannot afford it becomes a problem. The people behind muni wi-fi in Boston saw this, and easy access to information in general, a major cause of the rift that is the "digital divide".

The major ISPs, and Verizon in particular, have been extremely reluctant to extend their services to everybody, because of cost. Muni wifi attempts to fill in those gaps, because profit is not the incentive. Access is. Sure, it steps on the ISPs' feet a little, but seriously, what's more important to us? Verizon's bottom line or equal opportunity for our citizens? Teh interweb ain't some nerd's hobby anymore, it's a necessity for participation in democracy.

That's fine if you hate muni wifi-- maybe we should call the ISPs to task for utterly wasting the billions we poured into them in fiber-laying subsidies in the 1990's? Sounds only fair.

Re:The ISPs were right all along

[sumdumass]

The problem with this entire argument is as I understand it that TCP/IP was never developed for commercial ventures such like the Internet. It was developed as the result of a need to connect government computers in differing area more effectively and once it's effectiveness was shown at the time, it was opened to everyone.

So, your not really complaining that the government created a product for sale like nitendo does. You complaining that they created a product to achieve some goals they needed and let everyone use it. I think there is quite a bit of difference here.

Re:The ISPs were right all along

[geekboy642]

Exactly.
The "Internet" and all the corresponding technologies were created by schools and government researchers, for the government. The goal was a network that could 'survive' multiple nuke strikes, and still let the government communicate. Then they let college students onto the thing, and they lost control of it.

That was never a public good created with your tax dollars, that was a defense requirement, just like F-16s and an aircraft carrier. And I dunno, but only idiots claim the US has never needed a war machine.

Re:The ISPs were right all along

[Omestes]

Or, as the other FA said, they could wait for it to scroll off the first page in a day or so.

Wait... Your talking at cross purposed. Your saying people don't like it (cheap wifi) since it censors, but they also can't switch. But if enough people wanted a wifi ISP with free speech wouldn't it be profitable for some big non-government regional monopoly to move in and make a killing? I don't see the government BLOCKING competition. Perhaps they don't want to since it is better for them, so they are willing to accept some of bad with the good.

What I don't understand is how a baby-bell is less anti-capitalist? Where I live you have two choices for ISPs (broadband), the regional Baby-Bell, or the regional cable company. Both restrict access from poor or rural areas, and fix rates unnaturally, and limit content. This is 100% better than 5 years ago when you got 1 choice.

When it comes to good internet access you're not dealing with a nice fair arena for competition in the first place, so why bother complaining that some people are getting a cheap deal? Sure, when I can pick a local "mom and pa" ISP, then I'll agree with you. But having a choice of one monolithic corporation or... well possibly, if your lucky, another monolithic corporation isn't much a choice. But then again I don't agree with the libertarian ethos.

Re:The ISPs were right all along

[wljones]

Notice that the Mayor has banned Boing Boing in Boston. Publications coveted this distinction in the past because it guaranteed huge extra sales. Boing Boing may suffer meltdown (Dare I say slashdotting?) from this free publicity.

Re:The ISPs were right all along

[jeppster]

I don't see where we disagree. I said "shouldn't censor". You said "shouldn't censor". If you'd actually RTFP, you'd have seen that there is a distinction between "must" be open and "should" be open.

Re:The ISPs were right all along

[EugeneK]

Right, I wouldn't have a problem with TCP/IP if it were only used for legitimate government purposes like fighting wars. But the problem is that the government allowed non-military related use of this strictly government purpose. It's not too late to remedy this, however. We need to outlaw the use of TCP/IP except for government use, with strict penalties, including the death penalty for repeat offenders. In this way, we can foster an innovative, market-based private-sector solution to computer networking that is appropriate for non-government networks.

  (Countries which continue to allow non-government usage of TCP/IP, such as supposed allies and well-known Islamist appeasers like France, should have sanctions placed against them, and we should declare war on them if they persist in this behavior).

Re:The ISPs were right all along

[lightversusdark]

Would you be OK with the postal services opening your mail.....

I recently discovered that this is now the case in the UK.
When I was growing up, the post was sacrosanct, and in fact being the "Royal Mail", opening someone elses mail was technically an act of treason. (Another nugget of trivia relating to this is that Royal Mail vehicles are the only vehicles on the road allowed to disregard traffic lights - emergency services must have their sirens on to do this).

Anyway, sometimes I am sent data that is covered by the NNPT, but last year was informed by several overseas agencies that they now could not send me anything further until I had filled out the "waiver" stating that I had just reason to request that my mail not be opened by any Royal Mail employee. They forwarded me what is apparently now their "standard letter" for UK nationals needing to be posted sensitive information, which includes the line:
"The nature of our business requires that you treat our communications as private".
That was the easy part: actually finding out what to do with this letter was the hard part, and of course, phoning around I was greeted with incredulity, and accusations of being some sort of conspiracy theorist.
In the end I discovered, you have to inform the police, who give you the other bit of the form and then you send the whole thing off to the Royal Mail, and a week or so later you receive acknowledgement that your mail will not be opened without due cause.

In short, postal privacy in the United Kingdom became opt-in a few years ago, and you had better have strong justification for requesting it - otherwise you're probably giving them more reason to check you out.
Nobody I have spoken to in the UK (excepting colleagues similarly affected) seems to know about this.

Re:The ISPs were right all along

[Shadowlore]

As long as you just stand somewhere swinging your fist, it may make some sense to say that I simply shouldn't go near you in order to avoid being hit, but if you deduce from that that you're always free to swing your fist, then do consider a situation where I'm in a group of people who're all swinging their fists, with nowhere left to go. Is it my fault then that I get beaten up?

So, yeah, I agree that it does fall under free speech rights, but I also think that saying "if it were a private company, nothing would be wrong with it" is fallacious.

There is a flaw in your analogy. You conflated public with private.
"private company" fits in your analogy by replacing the word company with property. If I have some land that has people swinging their fists you can choose to enter or not. If you choose to enter, you have no grounds for complaining you got your butt whipped by a group on that property.

If my property had signs saying "we don't swing our fists around" when in fact we did, then you'd have a case: it's called fraud. If I forced you onto the property, or forced my fist swinging crown onto public property, or your property where you don't have a choice in the matter, that's called force. These are the two things that libertarians are against as a rule: force and fraud.

What you are saying instead is that I can't swing my fists on my property. Now combine your two assertions:
1) Swinging your fists in public is bad and should not be allowed.
2) Swinging your fists in private is bad and should not be allowed.

That covers all situations. You've essentially argued for banning things from all spaces. So what happened to free speech? Change "swinging fists" to "making a statement others may not like" and you may see the problem with your apparent position.

It is made worse by the government's declaration that property that is "open to the general public" *is* public property.

Re:The ISPs were right all along

[Anonymous Coward]

they don't need to make a federal case out of the matter. it's municipal wifi, but municipal government is still answerable to the citizens of boston as we live in a democratic society. they need to write to their city officials or take it to the city council directly with a petition. there should be municipal policies regulating the administration of public wifi access that prevents city officials from employing political censorship. it's the tax payer's wifi system, so ultimately they have control over how it's run. It may be the taxpayer's wifi system, but it is my freedom of speech. Public will expressed through simple majority sentiment is the problem not the answer. Most people are most likely perfectly happy having automated software that blocks sites based on naughty or potentially naughty keywords. Just as most people are probably happy with a lot of things as long as it doesn't negatively effect them. That's the whole point of having broad freedoms protected from government intrusion written into the constitution. Simple majority opinions cannot be trusted with individual freedoms. Freedoms can't really be entrusted to anyone, Freedom isn't about finding some consensus, people have to fight for them. So yes, start with the representatives themselves and give them a chance to do the right thing under the law, but if someone cares enough about censorship of the Internet on this public system, then yes someone probably should make a Federal case out of this.

Re:The ISPs were right all along

[moosesocks]

Remember, we re-elected the goons responsible for the Patriot Act and Iraq.

Something like filtering a public network is small cookies compared to that.

Re:The ISPs were right all along

[mi]

You complaining that they created a product to achieve some goals they needed and let everyone use it.

I'm not complaining about TCP/IP at all. I'm glad and proud, that America's government (unlike most of the rest of the world), when developing cool technology for itself, keeps an eye on letting others use it. Besides Internet, GPS comes to mind.

This has nothing to do with the argument, however. EugeneK tried to ridicule my point, by equating the government's development of TCP/IP (for itself) with Boston's municipal WiFi service. Those were not comparable and Eugene is still searching for a better example — too little a man to admit, he was wrong :-) ...

If Boston developed the WiFi standards and protocols (for itself) and then decided to let others use it, I'd have no problems. But they took an existing technology and decided to compete with commercial service providers — killing or severely hampering them. Development never entered their minds — it was all about "providing service to the poor" (you know, those legions of disadvantaged, who can't afford Internet access, but can afford a computer) Socialist crap, along with the usual "think of the children" demagoguery.

Re:The ISPs were right all along

[Anonymous Coward]

that's saying that a public network in, for example, china drives away private alternatives?

i don't think so.

if filtration or other governmental interference sufficiently decreases the value of the "free" service, alternative "paid" service will be viable.

does boston have private wireless and if so how does the availability of service compare to other large municipalities without civic wi-fi? without data to those points, that argument is pretty empty...

Re:The ISPs were right all along

[Chandon Seldon]

It is unacceptable for the government to provide a censored service. Either they should provide uncensored internet access or no internet access.

Re:The ISPs were right all along

[EugeneK]

If Boston developed the WiFi standards and protocols (for itself) and then decided to let others use it, I'd have no problems.

Hmmm..I wonder how Boston would fund such a development? No doubt using our tax dollars to fund another pointless "research project" like the Internet, and you'd have no problem with this?

I'm just so disappointed to see fake libertarians like "mi" tarnish a good political philosophy. TCP/IP has destroyed a nacent industry of privately developed networking protocols that could have cured all of the problems we are now suffering with. Again just imagine a world with separate, competing protocols, each proprietary to their service provider. For example, you'd log on to MSN, and you'd use "MSNP" or you'd log on to AOL and use "AOLP". Each one would have its own, proprietary networking hardware and software stack, and each would have a thriving industry surrounding each layers of that stack. If you were on AOL, and you wanted to send a mail to someone on MSN, of course you'd need to pay a service charge to convert that message from one protocol to the other, instead of the current, oppressive, socialist scheme where you can just send an email from Hotmail without paying a dime to AOL. Admittedly, this is a small theft per email, but think of the billions of dollars that Microsoft has lost in revenue. It's a sad thing.

It's the same with the interstate highway system. Now, as I said above, I have NO PROBLEM with the government building networks like the highway system, or the Internet, to protect us from Islam, Communism and things like that. What I DO have problem with is, non-government traffic on those networks. There is absolutely NO justification for people driving around on the interstates for their private affairs. Look it up in the Constitution and tell me where it says people should be able to drive on the Interstate (I'll wait..) There should be a parallel system of toll roads and you should have to pay for the privilege of using them.

Re:The ISPs were right all along

[RecklessBushi]

Thank you, Stephen Colbert!

Re:The ISPs were right all along

[Zombywuf]

Any idea what this law is called?

Re:The ISPs were right all along

[Wolfrider]

+1 Troll (Effective/Humourous)

Re:The ISPs were right all along

[Anonymous Coward]

Give the guy a break. This can happen to anyone.

Especially a Kennedy.

Re:The ISPs were right all along

[cerberusss]

Thanks for the link, very interesting.

Query

[maxume]

Is there anywhere left in the world where the government isn't equal parts hilarious and incompetent?

Re:Query

[HerrEkberg]

I'm sure there are places where it's more like 40-60.

Besides, it's only hilarious until the incompetency hits you in the face.

Re:Query

[Constantine XVI]

Antartica's still an option. However, quite a few of the local inhabitants have sort of stopped progress-wise. One could say they have frozen to a halt.

Re:Query

[plasmacutter]

no, and be glad, jon stewart would be SO boring otherwise.

Re:Query

[Uzik2]

ATHF put up signs flipping the public the bird. People took exception to being insulted.
They smacked the perpetrators for their arrogance and bad taste. What part of this is hard for you to understand?
They deserved everything they got.

Re:Query

[maxume]

Words, I don't think they mean what you think they mean.

Re:Query

[The Wicked Priest]

The part where that's actually true.

I'm no fan of guerilla marketing, and would've been happy to see them charged with, say, littering. But no; it was treated as a bomb threat. That's just stupid.

Re:Query

[Original Replica]

Is there anywhere left in the world where the government isn't equal parts hilarious and incompetent?

Yes. In some places the government is terrifiying and immoral. Now if the guy goes to prison, particluarly a max security prison(bomb making terrorist), then our government will have taken another step in the direction of terrifying. Getting beated and shanked because you designed an advertisement for a cartoon isn't hilarious, it's awful.

Re:Query

[false_cause]

Was there once such a place?

Re:Query

[roadkill-maker]

If by "People took exception to being insulted" you mean "they thought some lights were bombs" then yes

Re:Query

[k1e0x]

Somalia.. as there is no government. haha.

Re:Query

[cyber-vandal]

And no gun control whatsoever. Why the Libertarians haven't moved there from the politically correct bureaucrat dominated hell that is the USA is a mystery.

Re:Query

[fred911]

here's the video direct link

http://zebbler.com/friends/ATHF/Ignignokt_and_Err_ Boston.html

Re:Query

[zippthorne]

It was an advertising campaign. That means the target was people that don't already watch the show. So it was a really stupid campaign to begin with: the devices in question would only be recognizable by people who already knew about the show.

Further, they deliberately chose provocative locations for their "mooninite invasion." Locations for which they did not seek permits, or otherwise notify the relevant authorities until well after the fact.

I'd say that Boston's reaction was the one they were looking for, as that was the one that got them a publicity multiplier of being on national news for several days, during which time the were able to expand the number of people who knew about the show.

Doing time for a cartoon advertisement isn't funny. Neither is scaring a bunch of people with mock terrorist activity all over a major metropolitan area for a cartoon advertisement funny.

What they did probably does call for jail time (though the advertising company should bear the brunt of it). The relatively harmless intentions of the actual stooges goes a way towards mitigating that, perhaps we can accept a community service penalty in this case however.

Re:Query

[Emperor Cezar]

Probably because the islamo-fascists moved in a took over large parts. Got to love religion.

Re:Query

[cyber-vandal]

And the Ethiopians drove them out at the end of last year.

Re:Query

[TheLink]

Yes. Singapore.

Where the Gov is competent and it's not funny. I bet if they wanted to round up the top 2000 "troublemakers" within an hour or so they could do it.

Re:Query

[Uzik2]

Thanks fred. Guess that puts that to rest.

Re:Query

[k1e0x]

Because this is MY country.

And we are moving somewhere.. New Hampshire.

Pols are figuring out how to get their "cut"

[Anonymous Coward]

"If we cut them off, they'll have to bribe^H^H^H^H^Hpay^H^H^Hmake campaign contributions in order to get turned back on!"

Meh..

[Svenne]

Where's your sense of style?

"Boston Bans Boing Boing Because of a Blog"

Re:Meh..

[Anonymous Coward]

As long as John McCain doesn't start singing "Ban ban ban, ban ban Boing Boing," we'll be okay.

Re:Meh..

[Anonymous Coward]

If the Herald runs with that for their cover, I expect the Globe will quickly counter with "Mumbles Menino Muzzles Mocking Mooninite Muni Message".

Re:Meh..

[Anonymous Coward]

why not

"Boston Brutally Blocks/Bans Boing Boing Because of a Blog"

Yes

[catbutt]

Sealand

Re:Yes

[maxume]

They think they are a country; that fills in each half nicely.

All over again...

[Shky]

The mayor was quoted as saying that a "'Boing Boing' is clearly some type of explosive device."




I say we commence remoonification.

Re:All over again...

[bhalter80]

actually is was more like "Boing Boing is uhhh c..cwearwy some type of expwosive dewice"

Re:All over again...

[wbren]

This has nothing to do with the parent's comment about Menino's pattern of speech, but it's damn funny: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORt5a4fDTVI

in other news

[Anonymous Coward]

in other news... Boston Bans Bloated Banter, Baked Beans, and B.B. King.

Never Dumb Enough

[CWRUisTakingMyMoney]

Sheesh, just when you think that Boston's government might have learned its lesson from this whole debacle, now they're doing something even dumber and more reprehensible by censoring? What a disgrace.

Re:Never Dumb Enough

[Anonymous Coward]

Did Boston's officials actually learn anything? Last I heard, Turner was trying to make amends and Boston officials were still undoubtedly in the right for their singular overreaction to signage that other cities dealt with much more calmly. Maybe I'm wrong, but even the national media only had a few people on the fringes point out the Boston officials' stupidity.

Re:Never Dumb Enough

[drooling-dog]

It's not unusual at all for government officials - or corporate executives too for that matter - to try to cover stupidity and incompetence with even more stupidity and incompetence. To do anything else would mean having to admit that you made a mistake. It's a long, descending spiral.

Re:Never Dumb Enough

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, they learned something alright...

The Boston mayor first attempted to outright ban the ATHF movie, but upon realizing that he couldn't actually do that (First Amendment and all that) demanded that theaters boycott it (by refusing to show it) and when that failed, demanded that Boston residents boycott the movie.

So, yes, they learned something... Nothing useful, but something...

Google Translate...commies

[luckymutt]

Someone in Boston WiFi area, try the Google English->English translation:
http://www.google.com/translate?langpair=en%7Cen&u =boingboing.net/
Not you should have to...fucking puritans. I thought the NorthEast these days was supposed to be the liberal ones? Is liberal really that far from Communism? Also, what does the Terms of Service say anyway? Pigs.

Re:Google Translate...commies

[The Second Horseman]

No, that's pretty much New Hampshire, Maine, Rhode Island and Connecticut - there's something of an assumption that people know best, your government probably doesn't, and even the well-meaning officials can be bozos, never mind the actual crooks. Maine is just kinda contrary, New Hampshire has the whole "live free or die" thing, and Rhode Island and the New Haven colony in Connecticut were started by folks who thought that freedom of worship only meant something if you had freedom of thought - not just think as Winthrop and the Puritans wanted. Took about an extra 100 years for the Massachusetts Bay Colony to start loosening up a bit on the issue. In the meantime (for example), Rhode Island had Quakers, Jews, etc. living there. In spite of everything, and all the immigration, etc., the government of Massachusetts still seems to want to get into people's lives more than most of the other New England states. Different history, different attitudes. Maine, although not a state until 1820, always had a distinct identity since it didn't connect with Massachusetts. Vermont, I can't speak to. It's the only New England state I haven't spent any appreciable time in. I grew up in Rhode Island, and the state's history helps explain the institutionalized contempt for authority (note, Bush has a 16% approval rating in Rhode Island). 1) It was the first state to declare independence 2) it was the last of the 13 to ratify the Constitution (forced, under threat of tariffs), and 3) a group of Rhode Islanders burnt a British revenue schooner in 1772. The HMS Gaspee is still burned in effigy every year.

Re:Google Translate...commies

[belmolis]

Vermont did Rhode Island one better. It refused to join the United States until 1791 and was an independent country for 14 years.

Lawsuit Time

[J2000_ca]

I think Boing Boing needs to get a lawyer and get to suing.

Re:Lawsuit Time

[benjiew]

Just what will they gain by a lawsuit? what % of their readers use Boston municipal WiFi? Sure censorship in any form sucks - but a lawsuit is not the way to go here.

Re:Lawsuit Time

[Chandon Seldon]

With enough money and proper coordination, a lawsuit might be the right idea. A sufficiently large legal LART could prevent municipal ISPs from implementing global filtering at all. In this case though, I doubt anyone's in the position to do that correctly.

Re:Lawsuit Time

[MightyMartian]

Maybe the ACLU might like to publicly spank the morons that run Boston. That could be amusing.

Yeah.

[WindBourne]

They just slow or block access to their competitors or anybody that they think that they fleece money out of. As to this issue, it will straighten out within a week or less.

Re:Yeah.

[Wonko the Sane]

I didn't mean that the ISPs are any better; but with government internet service you get roughly the same problems as a commercial provider, with the added benefit of political meddling

Typical behavior for

[Anonymous Coward]

Mayor 'Mumbles' Menino. I do like the bit where he puts his seal of office, and name, on the blockpage... Not shy about his inanity is he?

How's that dig thing coming along mayor? Oh, let me guess, straight info on the dig will be blocked next for policy violation?

Re:Typical behavior for

[Anonymous Coward]

Took a cab in Boston 2 days ago. Asked the driver about the traffic difference since the Big Dig (he's been a cabbie for 4 years). He said traffic is much better since; from South Station to the airport used to be 25-30 minutes, and he now tells passengers 15 but always beats that, sometimes beating 10 minutes.

Not defending the stupidity of putting in a major tunnel and not keeping the other road open at least for a little while to monitor traffic patterns; or a tunnel that was supposed to have around 100 leaks but has over 4,000; or the human-crushing concrete ceiling tiles which could have been made out of styrofoam; or the cost overruns; just repeating what a cabbie (who should know his shit) told me.

censorship

[coaxial]

boingboing finds itself frequently banned. One reason is their frequent links to circumventing censorship. Another reason is that they sometimes post NSFW links.

The fact that the government is censoring adults is offensive. But then again, Boston has had a reputation of puritanism.

Re:censorship

[garcia]

And this is exactly the problem that will continue to fester with municipal wifi competing with other residential connections.

Re:censorship

[natrius]

Well, there's a pretty good reason for Boston's reputation of puritanism.

Re:censorship

[Anonymous Coward]

Give me a break, conservatives don't have a monopoly on idiocy. I live in Boston and it's a very liberal town. And this is one example of the moronic "let the government protect you from yourself" policies that some liberals advocate.

Re:censorship

[Anonymous Coward]

But then again, Boston has had a reputation of puritanism.

This is what I love about Boston: the left hates them due to their puritan roots, and the right hates them due to their liberal tendencies.

So, which is correct? Based on what I know of Boston, both. Just pick whichever side of an issue is stupider, and that's the way Boston will lean. (It would explain the Big Dig: instead of attempting to improve their highway system, they buried it to improve the city skyline, paid with federal funds.)

Re:censorship

[Jeff DeMaagd]

I think it's kind of funny and sad that the sect that had the most progressive attitudes at the time gets the worst rap. Seriously. Puritans, compared to their conteporaries, were progressive. I've read a couple articles about this, the Church in Europe frowned on any non-reproductive copulation and they frowned on alcohol. Puritans enjoyed alcohol in moderation and sex, just within marriage. Even the bit about how they handled "witches", while unfortunate, it was very, very short lived (a small handful of cases), parts of Europe were still burning "witches" centuries later, and had been practiced in Europe to the tune of estimated hundreds of thousands of times.

Re:censorship

[pipingguy]

Is it ironic that the city best-known for their tossing of herbs and sparking something important is also the most conservative, old-boy-network-loving place in the United States? Most of the Brits I know LOVE Boston, they apparently feel at home and comfortable there in the core of, uh, New England.

Re:censorship

[demi]

Even with regard to sex, the Puritans incorporated premarital sex into courtship into a specific bedroom ritual between prospective mates. What's happened is that people have confused Victorian attitudes toward sex with the Puritans' rigid restrictions on many forms of recreation. And reports of Victorian negativity toward sex are probably overblown, even at that.

Re:censorship

[Anonymous Coward]

Link, please? Do you have any evidence to support your claims?

Puritans were so repressive that they did not celebrate holidays. (One of the great American myths is that the Pilgrims celebrated Thanksgiving. To the contrary, the local Native Americans essentially forced them to have a giant feast in order to cement their alliance. And we all know how well the Puritans kept that alliance...) They repressed colorful dress, they repressed games, they repressed just about anything that wasn't worship.

The idea that despite all that repression that they'd allow sex is just ridiculous and requires some form of evidence.

Calling the Puritans progressive is a joke. They were reactionary, to the point that they were trying to move the clock back to before the Catholic Church was formed.

Re:censorship

[Brandybuck]

Ummm, I hate to break the news to you, but Boston is as liberal as they come. While not as leftist as the left coast, Boston is still Democrat Central. It's the bluest of the blue cities in a blue state.

Re:censorship

[freeweed]

Regardless of whether or not your claims are true (and I find them pretty dubious, like another poster has already pointed out)...

The difference is that the Church in Europe GOT OVER IT. The Puritan influence in New England (and by extension, much of the USA) is still strong.

Re:censorship

[RomulusNR]

It's a publicly accessible wifi network. Meaning kids use it too.

Here we go again....

[zappepcs]

I'm going to start a list of incidents where governments try to censor the Internet, or some portion of it, whether that is for political reasons, or out of pure ignorance of the facts of how the Internet actually works.

I think I'll include a special section for 9/11 inspired idiocy.

Before long, the only place to get uncensored wireless access will be from some 'terrorists' open AP..... sigh

Re:Here we go again....

[Anonymous Coward]

Screw that. I had Boston up as one of the places to set up my business, having gotten pissed off at Pennsylvania's idiocy. Guess I'll revisit Tennessee and Raleigh again. Delaware is still there, just don't like their taxation lists (although implemented better than PA's it seems). I'll need to look into Vermont and New Hampshire to see how they handle businesses setting up shop. I may reconsider Oregon, just didn't anticipate going to the west coast.

California -- energy issues.
Michigan -- DNA collecting and retention practices. (Otherwise, really excellent. 2nd to the Boston area.)
MA -- The whole Adult Swim issue. Otherwise, top of the list.
PA -- Stupid taxation laws, targets businesses, corrupt magistrate and police, incompetent state legislatures. High land taxes. Screwed up taxation lists. Wanna leave the state or sell the business assets? Get threatened with a lawsuit from the state *before* anything actually happens.
Texas -- Great state, stupid gun/trespass law, great energy/conservation policy, not so happy about the government though (given their inject and kill them happy attitude).

Re:Here we go again....

[Unicorn Giggles]

go for NH, about as good a place to set as possible, with the exception of the fact that there are very few cities, and the cities are small. No sales or state income tax, as few state "protect you from yourself" laws as you will ever find, and plenty of room to move in. also, we are getting a lot of people moving up from boston and south and setting up here. The downsides, property tax is a bit high, as is the property itself, and we have the highest electrical costs in the US. that sucks a bit, also it gets really fsking cold. I believe i am done blithering.

Do they know for certain

[FlyingSquidStudios]

that it was banned recently? It might have been banned for ages. The local free WiFi banned Craigslist and this is L.A. where Craigslist is used by tons of people to find entertainment industry work.

political speech is our most protected speech

[artifex2004]

If they are blocking BoingBoing over the Mooninite issue, then they are censoring political speech critical of the regime.
If the project is funded with public monies, this will be an excellent case to push hard and loudly in court.

Re:political speech is our most protected speech

[Reverberant]

If they are blocking BoingBoing over the Mooninite issue,

Umm, I think the "Boston is banning Boing Boing because of the Mooninites" meme is just a joke (or at least I hope it is).

The more logical explanation is that the ISP who runs Boston free wi-fi is using on of the many filtering services known to block Boing Boing.

Re:political speech is our most protected speech

[hankwang]

... they are censoring political speech critical of the regime.

I don't think that Freedom of Speech in the US was supposed to be interpreted as "The government is obliged to use taxpayer's money to carry your speech and bring it out to the people". It basically means that you cannot be arrested for having and expressing an opinion. How you reach the people isn't the government's problem.

Re:political speech is our most protected speech

[The Wicked Priest]

It should be noted that the Mooninite link is pure speculation by the submitter (and based on a joke on Boing Boing). I think it's very unlikely to be the reason.

Re:political speech is our most protected speech

[The_Wilschon]

I don't think that's a healthy interpretation. It allows eg the municipal wifi to block all opposition political speech, but let through (or even push) friendly political speech on the web. This leads to a very gross imbalance artificially imposed by the incumbent government, even though nobody has been arrested.

I agree that the government doesn't have to facilitate political speech, but if they go out of their way to block some, they'd better have a very evenhanded approach, spreading the love to opposed, friendly, and indifferent speech alike.

Re:political speech is our most protected speech

[Anonymous Coward]

Before the government can use any power they must have had that power granted to them, at least in the US. Please explain where Boston has derived the right to censor their wifi system. I certainly hope you don't respond with something about the "public welfare."

To put it bluntly, the courts have stated and ordered that libraries do not have the right to implement filtering software of their free Internet connections. While you don't think the "government is obliged to use the taxpayer's money to carry your speech and bring it out to the people" the federal courts in the US disagree. If a library is going to use public funding to support their free Internet connections, they do not have the right to filter them. Whether you like it or not, it has been decided. This ruling obviously should apply to the city of Boston as well.

Re:political speech is our most protected speech

[NMerriam]

One of the fundamental aspects of freedom of speech is that the government cannot discriminate in services against certain people or groups based on their beliefs or politics.

No, the government is not required to set up wi-fi, or have libraries with free public internet access. But if the government DOES do those things, they cannot discriminate against people based on their beliefs or associations, nor restrict access to (legal) material based on the content of the material.

Re:political speech is our most protected speech

[Anonymous Coward]

The blocked page says the page was blocked due to a phrase found on Boing-Boing. Now take a wild guess as to what phrases might appear on Boing-Boing that the city of Boston might want to block?

(Also, if you want to try something fun, look up reviews of the ATHF Movie. It got around 2-3 stars from most news papers. The exception? All Boston papers gave it their lowest rank. Plus the movie was banned in several Boston theaters.)

So, yes, it's actually highly likely that Boston banned Boing-Boing over Boing-Boing embarrassing them.

Re:political speech is our most protected speech

[Anonymous Coward]

Now take a wild guess as to what phrases might appear on Boing-Boing that the city of Boston might want to block?

Goatse? Bong? Dildo? Shit? I dunno, your guess is as good as mine

Also, if you want to try something fun, look up reviews of the ATHF Movie. It got around 2-3 stars from most news papers.

"Most"? Are you sure about that?

Re:political speech is our most protected speech

[gad_zuki!]

Yep unfortunately the boingboingers and others who see a government conspiracy around every turn are going to spin this into "OMG they are censoring our tubes" instead of allowing this to open the debate on the usefulness on proprietary block lists and keyword blocking. Which is a shame.

Re:political speech is our most protected speech

[Anonymous Coward]

I know the show is stupid as hell, but if you look at it like this: do figure skating programs on tv cater to the action crowd of 24 or Battlestar Galactica? What kind of reviews, criticisms, and evaluations do you think *most* fans of said action and sci-fi shows would give something like figure skating? If I don't much care for figure skating (being compared to ATHF incase people haven't figured that out), yet for some stupid reason I go downtown where the baseball stadium is without knowing there's a game, and wind up going to the skating competition, of course I'm going to say figure skating sucks...

What I'm saying is, I can bet that the majority of people on the movie rating site you linked to had not a damned clue what ATHF was, walked into the movie randomly ("Crap, Big Movie X isn't showing - ATHF looks like it doesn't totally suck by the poster, lets go in.") - saw the pointless comedy of ATHF, and didn't understand that it was supposed to somehow be funny...

Re:political speech is our most protected speech

[Anonymous Coward]

You've never heard of Rotten Tomatoes? You're pulling our legs, right?

Re:political speech is our most protected speech

[The_Wilschon]

Well, if there were actually some effect upon the public welfare, for instance, if browsing to boingboing poisoned the municipal water supply, then yes, there would be a very good argument for blocking it from the municipal wifi... So, a "public welfare" argument does hold water, but only if what is claimed actually has something to do with the public welfare, which is very very rarely the case.

Re:political speech is our most protected speech

[heinousjay]

It doesn't matter if it's supposed to be funny. If the reaction of the people watching is "it sucks" then to them, it sucks.

Re:political speech is our most protected speech

[isaac]

If they are blocking BoingBoing over the Mooninite issue,

Umm, I think the "Boston is banning Boing Boing because of the Mooninites" meme is just a joke (or at least I hope it is).
The more logical explanation is that the ISP who runs Boston free wi-fi is using on of the many filtering services known to block Boing Boing.

So?

Who cares what the cause is when the effect is legitimate political speech being censored by the government?

-Isaac

Re:political speech is our most protected speech

[Brandybuck]

Wait, where's the conspiracy in that?

Re:political speech is our most protected speech

[bersl2]

I don't think opening that debate would be useful. In fact, I think would be very harmful.

Why is this? Because filters are the only thing holding back laws like the CDA and the COPA.

Or would you rather let the US Congress get their hands on a huge piece of the public Internet? I sure as hell don't.

Why we don't need terms of use.

[Anonymous Coward]

- Saying that you can't do something illegal is useless, because it is already illegal.
- Saying that you can't do something legal is wrong, because it is legal.

Re:Why we don't need terms of use.

[Anonymous Coward]

In general, various immoral, unfair, and unethical things might well be legal. No one's standards of behaviour should be set by what the legislature does, they are the last people you would want to take that kind if guidance from.

However I agree that all of those terms of use notices are silly and pointless.

Re:Why we don't need terms of use.

[Anonymous Coward]

Saying that you can't do something legal is wrong, because it is legal.

Ridiculous. People agree to not do perfectly legal things all the time.

Re:Why we don't need terms of use.

[MaceyHW]

Um, it's not insightful, it's wrong. Terms of use are similar to a contract (yes this is a oversimplification). You agree to do ( or refrain from doing) things that are "legal" (read not criminal) and they give you "use" of something.

Re:Why we don't need terms of use.

[TheoMurpse]

OK, how the hell did this get modded insightful? Parent literally just said that contracts are worthless.

speculation?

[notnAP]

Is there more to the story that truly indicates that the discussions on the great LED scare are the reason for the ban? How do we know the city didn't ban it for other, equally stupid reasons? I mean, really... unless there is more to the story, mroe reason to support the speculation, the author really seems a little childish making such a wild claim.

But really, what are the censoring for? I'm more worried about actual censorship than I am about a bunch of Adult Swim fans not being able to mutually mastubate over their pictures of Mumbles Menino.

Re:speculation?

[ResidntGeek]

You've gotta be kidding. Is this another joke? I got the mooninite one in the summary, but I don't understand this one. Could someone elucidate it for me, please?

Re:speculation?

[Zantetsuken]

perhaps Boing Boing was banned for having something up about the equally asinine event where the police were called in to a church which somebody as a "prank" had placed stereos with obscene music playing, and then detonated the stereos by means of bomb squad, yet claimed the 3rd as "evidence" - which I also believe was in Boston...

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20070223/071109.s html

"banned combination phrase found"

[rueger]

Yep. from the graphic accompanying TFA. That's it.

What was the phrase? Don't know.

Why was it blocked? Don't know.

Was the Mayor of Boston involved. Highly unlikely.

Was any authority or elected official involved? Highly unlikely.

Really folks, there is utterly no information here except that some filter somewhere blocked one page on Boingboing's website.

Hardly the First Amendment case that's being suggested and debated.

Re:"banned combination phrase found"

[Paladin144]

Really folks, there is utterly no information here except that some filter somewhere blocked one page on Boingboing's website.

Two points:

1. There shouldn't be any filtering software. If you have children you wish to protect by keeping them ignorant, go to the store and buy some filtering software. Don't censor everyone's connection.

2. The "one" page that was blocked was boing boing's home page (check that graphic again). It's fair to assume subsequent pages were also blocked.

Re:"banned combination phrase found"

[dirtyhippie]

Yup. This is highly unlikely to be censorship, it's infinitely more likely a bad configuration / oversight.

Don't get me wrong, it's good to make a ruckus until the problem is fixed, and if by some meteor strike it was intentional, I'll line up with the rest. But we have no indication this is any such incident - it will in all probability be fixed.

It must be a stressful job to write such filter code - make a mistake in one direction and you are exposing wee ones to pornography, make a mistake in the other direction and you've got blogs full of sheep on sites like slashdot complaining that you are "censoring" them.

Re:"banned combination phrase found"

[6Yankee]

Christ. I got "Weighted phrase limit exceeded" instead of a Slashdot article the other day. And I just happen to work for a UK government research council.

"Oh n0es, UK thought police are censoring Slashdot!"

Some people round here need to get a grip, definitely.

Re:"banned combination phrase found"

[Chandon Seldon]

Inadvertent censorship needs to be treated the same as intentional censorship - there's no way to differentiate the two, and trying to just allows the former to be used as an excuse to defend the latter.

Re:"banned combination phrase found"

[rueger]

Point is, the sensible response to this would be for Cory to e-mail them, point out the problem, and in all likelihood they'd say "Oops. Sorry. Fixed it." I suspect that the post on BoingBoing was intended to be humorous, not a Call to Arms...

Re:"banned combination phrase found"

[dr.badass]

I suspect that the post on BoingBoing was intended to be humorous, not a Call to Arms...

People that read BoingBoing frequently can't tell the difference. As everything posted there is either humorous or a call to arms, it's easy to confuse the two.

(Score: -1, Flamebait)

Re:"banned combination phrase found"

[deblau]

Assuming that picture isn't shopped, the Mayor of Boston was implicated. If he doesn't know about it, then the ISP is using his name and official seal improperly, and should be fined. Something is fishy here...

Re:"banned combination phrase found"

[Petrushka]

Really folks, there is utterly no information here except that some filter somewhere blocked one page on Boingboing's website.

That is untrue: the whole site is blocked. Note what the blocked URL is.

Re:"banned combination phrase found"

[Alsee]

This is highly unlikely to be censorship, it's infinitely more likely a bad configuration / oversight.

No, there is absolutely NO DOUBT here. The network is explicitly intercepting and blocking the webpage, and it is explicitly substituting a custom blocking page with the Mayor's name and government seal, and directly stating the fact that the page is being banned.

It must be a stressful job to write such filter code - make a mistake in one direction and you are exposing wee ones to pornography, make a mistake in the other direction and you've got blogs full of sheep on sites like slashdot complaining that you are "censoring" them.

Oh, I'm sorry... at first I thought that you merely didn't know what was going on here. Now I see it is far more serious double problem here. (1) You have the very peculiar notion that somehow censorship magically mysteriously ceases to be censorship when it is censorship something that you want to censor, and (2) you have the very peculiar notion that the filters simply aren't "good enough" yet, and that is AT ALL POSSIBLE to go in and fix some simple mistake to make them work properly, as if it were AT ALL POSSIBLE tweak and twiddle the filters until you get it right. It just isn't technologically possible. Aside from the blatant case of filters routinely blocking things like breast cancer information websites, absolutely any particular content that triggers the blocking of a porn site could potentially get copied into a legitimate and valuable scientific sociological paper, and in the opposite direction it is trivially easy to write the most blatant twisted obscene kiddyporn story without using a single word that would trip any filter. Automatic filters are too dumb to correctly sort even the most absolutely legitimate content from the most blatantly perverted... and even if you managed to pull full blown Human-level Artificial Intelligence out of your magic hat... even then there is is an immense gray zone where the most intelligent and reasonable of people can and will disagree. An underwear/lingerie catalog? A breast cancer self exam website with a huge number of "titillating" images of nude breasts? Famous nude sculptures and paintings from Greece and important artists like Leonardo DaVinci? Family photos of a naked or half naked toddler in the backyard or bath? General nonsexual family photos from a nudist colony? And on and on.

The idea that the filters merely need to be tweaked to get it "right" is laughable. It is a task that requires full blown human capacity Artificial Intelligence to handle the most clear and absolute cases in either direction, and even with human level AI the gray areas are ridiculously messy.

But heay, undercensorship and overcensorship, who cares about all that crap.... just so long as we ARE censoring stuff that we want to censor... because somehow censorship is magically NOT censorship when you are censoring the "right" things that you want censored. And while we're at it, lets censor the things that I want censored. You can censor the stuff you want censored, and we won't call that censorship, just so long as *I* also get the right to censorship the things *I* want censored, and we won't call that censorship either. I have a feeling you'll be none too happy with my contribution to the ban list.

-

Re:"banned combination phrase found"

[julesh]

Was any authority or elected official involved? Highly unlikely.

Highly likely. The decision to block inappropriate sites on the municipal wifi was almost certainly made by such an official. Did that official decide to block boing-boing? Probably not, but it is a consequence of that person's decision that this government sanctioned censorship (for whatever reasons the site is being censored, as you point out we don't know) is happening.

Really folks, there is utterly no information here except that some filter somewhere blocked one page on Boingboing's website.

Hardly the First Amendment case that's being suggested and debated.

"In 1998, a United States federal district court in Virginia ruled that the imposition of mandatory filtering in a public library violates the First Amendment of the U.S. Bill of Rights. [Mainstream Loudon v. Board of Trustees of the Loudon County Library, 24 F. Supp. 2d 552 (E.D. Va. 1998)]" (source).

This filtering is almost certainly unconstitutional, based on the same arguments used in that case.

Same Bums Give You Both.

[twitter]

At least the people of Boston have a chance to throw the bums out in the next election. If you're encountering censorship by a cable company given a legal monopoly to "serve" a certain region, you have virtually no recourse

It's funny how cable companies originally got their monopolies from local public service commissions and municipalities. By now the locals no longer matter, but monopoly service and bad government go hand in hand.

Re:Same Bums Give You Both.

[Anonymous Coward]

Ali Baba, where's the monitor?

Simple solution

[gEvil (beta)]

There's a really simple solution to this banning. Everyone in Boston should just use Distributed Boing Boing!

Domain name change

[iminplaya]

www.boston.cn

Re:Domain name change

[Falladir]

It's unregistered. I wonder if anyone will grab it, now.

We need Penn Jillette

[Anonymous Coward]

Penn Jillette is perfect to speak out on this because

he's from Massachusetts (Greenfield)

he's loves free speech

he's the H. L. Mencken Fellow at the Cato Institute.

he's farking huge.

He can get people to see past their own biases and have a glimpse of the truth.

Land of the free?

[MadJo]

or Land of the censors?

And I thought that China was the only country that censors websites.

bigger problem

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, this is funny and all, but proponents of municiple wifi take note -
if the taxpayers are paying for the bandwidth, they have a reasonable
expectation to control what goes over the wire(less) *they* own. Maybe the
Boston case is just a mistake, or a quirk of the local political machine, but
in many less tolerant places, the voting public themselves will choose to
censor the network. If free muni wifi really works, alternatives will be
driven out (no economies of scale), and residents will have no choice
to get around local censorship "for their own good" or "to protect the
community". I'd rather pay somebody for unrestricted access than get
half an internet for free.

No municipal Wi-Fi, no corporate business Wi-Fi

[Catbeller]

What a beautiful illustration of the danger -- no, the reality -- of having free wireless internet access provided by the government or a business. They WILL censor, and after they become ubiquitous, the internet won't be able to route around them.

Wireless internet should be provided by mesh networks, with perhaps non-profit associations renting or buying fat pipe for backbone. Do it the bad way, and the gubmint or Rupert Murdock or Clear Channel start telling us who's not to have access this week.

Re:No municipal Wi-Fi, no corporate business Wi-Fi

[bmajik]

Exactly. A few of us have been saying that municipal wifi is a horrible, horrible idea for a long time.

How many more things like this will have to happen before you are convinced that you DON'T want your neighbors (or worse, some unaccountable entity with no marketplace competitors, with no incentive to provide a valuable service) getting to decide on what you can get internet access to (and wether or not you can opt-out of paying for access that doesn't suit your needs?)

Big Brother Back In Action.....

[IHC Navistar]

Is this the kind of Government censorship that we are going to get when cities start installing WiFi? There should be a law that if public WiFi is going to be installed, nobody should be able to block any part of it.

Why should we be letting some bureaucrat telling us that our tax dollars are going to be spent giving the community free WiFi, and then telling us that our tax dollars are going to be spent restricting us from content accessible through a network that our tax dollars paid for in the first place?

If you really think about it, city officials decide how our taxes are spent within the city, not us. So, if they are going to regulate what is accessible through WiFi, why the hell should we be forced to pay for it ourselves? I mean, why should we be paying for something with compulsory tax dollars, and then have some worthless bureaucrat appoint themselves "Official City Parent" and tell us what we can and cannot access thought a publicly funded system?

If someone is going to regulate and censor public WiFi, then I don't want my tax dollars to pay for it. If people want to regulate and censor it, then they alone should bear the entire cost, and let us free thinkers fend for ourselves. Period.

I already have two parents, and that's more than I can take.

Re:Big Brother Back In Action.....

[k1e0x]

A law?

You want to fight government oppression with government? good luck..

Re:Big Brother Back In Action.....

[geekoid]

It works in the country pretty well,acutally.

Re:Big Brother Back In Action.....

[Anonymous Coward]

Fight bad government by replacing it with a better one.

!!huh

[Anonymous Coward]

OHHhh

For a second there i thought they banned the 'boing boing' ;-)

you know, sex.

oh. right.

Re:!!huh

[Anonymous Coward]

They do that too, but it only seems to last about a generation or so.

boing boing home page

[SeaHunter]

I went to boingboing.com and todays news is " Goatse.cx domain is for sale"

Boston T1 Party

[spezz]

We should all head down to the harbor and dump crates of routers into the bay. It worked before.

Corruption

[Quzak]

The first sign of corruption and incoming despotism is censorship.

Re:Corruption

[Organic Brain Damage]

I don't think so. It's golf and prayer meetings.

Start with Smartfilter!

[_KiTA_]

I think Boing Boing needs to get a lawyer and get to suing.

If they're going to sue, they need to start with those jokers at Smartfilter.

They use it at my workplace, and it blocks things completely at random. BoingBoing posted some critical articals on Smartfilter and instantly got on their shit list -- Boing Boing is now permanently blocked as "nudity", a blatantly false category designed to get people in trouble for even trying to view it.

If you report the inaccuracy, they claim to fix it, only to ignore it and keep them blocked.

I wouldn't be surprised at all if Boston was just using Smartfilter and this is just a symptom of a much larger problem. Smartfilter is, IIRC, the official filter of choice for the US and Iranian governments for blocking naughty content from their masses -- ever since the Republicans managed to con their way into forcing all library machines into being filtered ("Think of the Children" covering the fact that Libraries are poor people's only way to get on the net) Smartfilter has been a bit of a fun toy to play with.

In the middle of the 2006 elections, for example, out of the blue Liberal blogs and Political Canidate websites in Swing States suddenly found themselves blocked as being "curse words" or "mature" or "forums" or other similarly flimsy excuses. Pretty sneaky -- get a censorship filter installed where poor people (who typically vote Democratic) are going to be forced to go through it, then just start randomly blocking political "dissidents" that you don't like. And since Smartfilter has a very, very strict policy (now, anyway) about not REMOVING, only RECATEGORIZING websites... well, yeah.

Re:Start with Smartfilter!

[Anonymous Coward]

But you'll note that a DEMOCRAT are the ones behind this. Gotta give credit where credit is due.

Yet another example of Democrats censoring things they don't like.

Re:Start with Smartfilter!

[DamnStupidElf]

Smartfilter is an incompetent bunch of fucks too, with a heap of garbage for management software. We constantly have to get sites "recategorized" as you put it, because their censors are too lazy to do their job, and their software makes per-page exception lists impossible.

Re:Start with Smartfilter!

[mutterc]

In fact, the summary link (to Seth Finkelstein's blog) says exactly that. Their net-nanny software spotted a Google link with SafeSearch turned off (i.e. "safe=off" in the query-string). This caused the blocking software to kick in.

The real problem is that people think that this type of blocking software is anything but a blunt instrument. It'll always have lots of false positives and false negatives. I also doubt the people responsible for deploying the filtering software have thought through the constitutional implications.

this is not censorship

[Anonymous Coward]

this is not censorship. but then again, i don't expect logic, truth and honesty from the types of complete and total faggots who hang out around here anymore. you pathetic turds live in your own little world. and you're plainly wrong about 98% of the time because of it.

government run

[timmarhy]

people always get sucked in by the idea of free things, but in the case of government run comms, you are just now seeing the price y ou pay, and realising it's not free. governments on all levels LOVE the idea of controlling anything. never forget that.

Re:government run

[geekoid]

That's not true.

In fact, the most informative, honest and relevant news in the US was when the government(ewww booogymaaan) paid the broadcaster to carry the news.
Only when that stopped did the news becomes slanted in favor of ratings and to support the owners views.

Most government wi-fis are wide open.
This is probably the result of one person, who happens to be in the govrenment, being an ass. Which they will get slapped down for.

The government functions do to the hard working Americans who want the same basic things as you do.

Re:government run

[AncientPC]

I agree, if you ever watched PBS's News Hour they ironically have a less biased, more in-depth reports on the domestic / international news as opposed to CNN or FOX News that peddle to their viewers with sensationalism.

HAHA

[alx5000]

At least we can still bash 'em here in Slf$#!@^*NO CARRIER

But the difference ....

[WindBourne]

is that we have a say. When there is no competition AND it is a business, you have no say.

Maybe it looked like a bomb!

[nukepuppy]

I mean its boston afterall.. Maybe it looked like a bomb!

This is what they did

[fred911]

http://zebbler.com/friends/friends.html#

Pretty hard to defend against this. Assuming you should have to!

Net Jargon 101

[pipingguy]

In this case, LART likely refers to "Large Attitude Readjustment Tool" (for those not aware of pre-web lingo). It's generally used before, after or during application of the cluestick.

Three Cheers!

[Khyber]

Now let's get some smart people in Boston to file a class-action lawsuit on behalf of the entire city for Violation of the first Amendment, since this is being done with taxpayer money.

Well, in that case

[AndroidCat]

If someone could spend the time to figure out what the banned combination phrase is, everyone could post it to as many sites, blogs, message boards, comments and feedback entries as possible, so people will know not to use it. It'd be terrible if any site was blocked by accident!

Re:Well, in that case

[Kalriath]

According to the link in the update to the summary:

This is the message that appeared in the server log:

        http://www.boingboing.net/ *DENIED* Banned combination phrase found: google, &safe=off

It looks like the "Banned combination phrase" was the following link, because of the search with SafeSearch set to "off":

        Much more of Biskup on Boing Boing Link

all I can really say is

[alizard]

"People always get the kind of local government they deserve" - E.E."Doc" Smith

The Big Dig, complete with "THE SKY IS FALLING!!!" ceiling panels in the tunnel, LiteBrites shtting the city down, and a censorware loaded wireless ISP that every Boston taxpayer gets to pay for, even if they're paying for a real ISP. (Wireless access that can be unplugged site by site at the political whim of the bosses isn't what I'd call bridging the "digital divide"). A little digging and one can find plenty more hilarious (if one has the good judgement to live somewhere else) misfeasance on the part of what passes for their city government.

Why haven't the taxpayers showed up with pitchforks and torches to "kick 'da bums out"?

Is it the water?

One of my friends bailed out recently. She's in NH now, and she regards moving as one of the wisest things she's ever done in her life.

so unblock so easy

[talledega500]

http://www.mysecureisp.com/

Not been in Massachusetts lately, huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

The Senator's been clean since the late 80's. And every time someone hauls out Chappaquiddick, my BS meter flies into the red- if we're going to go into ad hominem attacks on our respective politicians, a 30 year old drunk-driving fatality is pretty minor. Hell, Cheney just shot a guy in the face, and had a failed cover-up of his own. I didn't see anyone making a federal case about that.

Massachusetts proudly re-elects Ted Kennedy at any opportunity, because he is among the most consistently outspoken liberal in the Senate. Even if he was STILL a drunken lout, I'd vote for him based on his record. He's not supposed to be a nice guy, he's supposed to be a good Senator. No, it's more important to have smart, effective guys in office, than friendly-seeming idiots or stainless paragons without morals.

Re:Not been in Massachusetts lately, huh?

[mccoma]

a 30 year old drunk-driving fatality is pretty minor. Hell, Cheney just shot a guy in the face

death > injury

Death is never minor. I don't care about your politics - this comparison could only happen in a political discussion by a fanatic (right or left - doesn't matter).

Dare

[kahrytan]

    It looks like Boston mayor should work along side the Chinese ruling party. He would fit in with their Censorship policy over there.

  You know something is wrong with your city when it follows the lead of a communist nation.

Actually I have...

[Anonymous Coward]

So, I guess Patrick's okay, as well as a lot of the things that're just fucked-up wrong like DSS'
activities (God, they were going on about the kids put into foster care by DSS when I got into
town on a contract- into CRACK HOUSES...).

The reality is, the people keep pissing, moaning and groaning about it being one of the most
expensive to live in places in the country (To the point of fleeing into New Hampshire...)-
but yet you KEEP VOTING THE PEOPLE THAT DID THAT INTO OFFICE. The reality is, people keep
pissing, moaning, and groaning about what's wrong with the state and then spread it elsewhere.

I guess I can't expect better from a state whose people consider being called a "Masshole" is
a compliment.

When you people realize that it's all that liberal crap that turned the "Spirit of America" into
one of the worse upside-down, forgot what this country is REALLY about places in the country,
we can talk. Until then, I've seen what's going on up here as an outsider for over six months-
and it saddens me to see what the place that birthed this nation has become.

See you at the harbor...

[Anonymous Coward]

I smell a TEA PARTY brewing!

Soo.....

[6Yankee]

"your right to swing your fist ends where my face starts"

So you wouldn't mind a swift punch in the bollocks, then? :)

If you ever read BoingBoing you'd guess the reason

[RomulusNR]

If you read BoingBoing, you'd know the sheer volume of NSFW stuff that goes through there, largely thanks to one reckless horndog well-connected wannabe geek freak-nouveau journalist.

And you aren't the least bit surprised that a municipal free public wifi would want to keep all of that off of its publicly accessible network.

The BoingBoingers have kids, so they should be able to guess the real reason why, too. But a cheap shot at Boston was too much for their ivory tower self-importance to bear without.

Boston is retarded.

[Anonymous Coward]

That is all.