Slashdot Mirror
House Might Mandate Net filtering in Libraries
Richard Finney
writes "US Congress expected to mandate censoship in libraries
in a CNET News.com article. "
Wonder how close Slashdot is to being banned. I think this
is great. We really have to prevent the children from learning,
as it would be terrible if they started thinking.
Not "a child is too young".
That should be "a person is too immature" - after all, there are mature kids - and immature adults...
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
No, we^H^Hthey just want to put significant blocks in the way of you thinking for yourselves. Then those that manage fnord somehow to think for themselves anyway can be recruited into the inner circles of fnord the Illuminati.
The scalloped tatters of the King in Yellow must cover
Yhtill forever. (R. W. Chambers, the King in Yellow
Perhaps End 'Censorship Through Bribery' over at E-the-People
It doesn't work for www.microsoft.com
:(
ha...
Nobody reads those magazines. Hadn't you heard?....
Instead of censorship, why not just log the sites accessed for each user id and post a public list of top 10 pervs or something? Of couse, for some, it might be a badge of honor to appear on that list :)
For schools, I could definitely see an argument for sending a report to the parents of what the kid is doing on line. Then the parents can decide what to do about it.
-- Zac Corbiere
A "site acceptor" company could be set up. They would own a trademark that could be used as a META tag. The company would post an "open contract" of an accepted use policy that would spell out what sort of content was and was not acceptable. This policy requires payment (per page per month, per hit, whatever) from for-profit users (such as corporate Web sites), but usage would be free of charge for personal or non-profit use (such as personal home pages). To use the tag for personal use, you print out the contract, sign it, and send it in.
Anyone can force their browser to react to the META tag. Given this, users can freely set their browsers to only allow pages with this META tag. People don't pay for this service.
Here's the trick, however: the site acceptor company doesn't span the Web looking for violators. That would cost way too much.
Instead, it works on a modified honor system. The contract puts the burden on the tag user to make their page(s) comply with the site acceptor's published standards.
The site acceptor learns of violators from the client base. That is, if I find some porn palace (or somesuch) with that META tag, I send email to the site acceptor. From there, they investigate. If the site is noncompliant, the acceptor contacts the Webmaster and asks that they drop the page or the tag. If they fail to comply, the site acceptor sues the user for breach of contract and/or trademark infringement.
I believe that this is all possible with our current IP laws. If it isn't, it might be a good idea for Congress to pass laws allowing this sort of business model to work.
Alternately, the Federal government can do it themselves. I recommend against this for two reasons. The first is the general principle that the Federal government should never do something that other entities can do properly, and I think that private industry can do this. Secondly, the concept of government-approved content is abhorrent to me.
This sort of site acceptor company would be no monopoly, either. The market is big enough for several of them, each with different levels of acceptance. Conservative parents, or those with younger children, might lock their browsers down to only allow KidSafe(TM) sites. More liberal parents, or those with older children, may switch that browser to PornProof(TM). Each one would have different standards of "acceptable", and sites could carry both tags if they met both standards.
This could be carried even to the libraries. For one to use a browser in a library, the user has to swipe their library card. Adult cards have free access; the browser clears all blinders and displays pages regardless of META tags. Childrens' cards start with no browser priveleges. Parents can add META tags to the cards, or even give their childrens' cards full no-blinder priveleges.
Congress talks about giving parents the tools they need to protect their children from inappropriate material. Their walk, however, has been telling parents (and the rest of us) what is and what is not acceptable.
The above proposal puts the decision, and the power, directly into parental hands. It even give parents the ability to restrict what their children see at the library. And we probably don't need to consult Congress or Gore to do it.
Mozilla, are you listening?
--The basis of all love is respect
No, this kid was not whipped - he was caned with a katana.
Have you ever felt/lifted a katana? These things can break bones.
Would you sanction a law that said someone convicted of graffiti would be sentenced to be beat with a board?
That kid did wrong to graffiti a building in a foreign country - he deserved punishment - maybe a hefty fine and cleanup duty for a week or so - at his expense. A brutal beating? No.
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
I doubt the federal government would like the implication on keeping a law that rewards institutions that break the law by paying them.
"Any nation that exchanges liberty for security deserves neither." -- Ben Franklin.
Nazi germany employed censorship on it's minions. Look where that got them!
I feel that way about gun control, as well as free speach.
I'm just curious, who here also strongly believes in both the first and second amendments? It seems the "fight for our rights" people always seem to pick one of them to believe in and pretend the other isn't important.
FinkPloyd
Your right, they aren't doing their jobs. So, what do we do about it?
-- 73 de KG2V For the Children - RKBA! "You are what you do when it counts" - the Masso
Does anyone know who will be the company that makes the filter to be used?
The economics of that could be more interesting than the article...
"A nation that exchanges liberty for temporary security neither haves, nor deservers either. "
I can be a nitpick, sorry.
The copper bosses killed you, Joe. 'I never died', said he.
Hate censorship? Help out here
There's no money in those people that run with filters anyway, they just draw traffic, and it draw attention to them that they don't want. Being registered with the filtering engines is also a way for them to "advertize" that they are really hardcore porn sites.
Lots of them also use PICT rating already. You'd do a lot more good by spending more time promoting PICT, than by trying to force people to use it or something similar.
Besides, forcing them to contain the meta tag would be impossible. What are you going to do? Send the US airforce to bomb any country that doesn't let your prosecute?
There's lots of countries with a lot more liberal laws than the US, you know. I believe porn with animals is still legal in Denmark, for instance.
You'd certainly not be able to get those countries to force sites on their soil to start using extra tags. All the big sites would just move.
Would be fun to see the changes in the traffic over the transatlantic links when all the big porn sites are suddenly in Europe...
And then you'd have all the sites that would use the meta tag just because they don't like it when people start forcing it down their throats. I'd put it up on all my sites at once.
As filtering software becomes more mainstream (the kind of thing that happens when more libraries are required to use it) it won't be controlled by a right-wing fringe. The classic abuses people are forever using to illustrate the flaws in the filtering software will fade away.
Now that would be fun to see them handling...
I don't think this is quite as bad as you do, but I do find it stupid and disgusting. I don't think there's a conspiracy to make us all stupid and enslaved - but the mentality that mandates these filters can grow into something more deadly.
The pardox of censorship and similar behavior is this: someone says they know how to run my life better than I do, yet if I am so beneath them, how do I *know* they are so qualified? Unless someone proves they can really benefit me and others (like an experienced doctor, etc.) I have no reason to trust them.
And I see no benefit in this censorship. Better to face unpleasant knowledge then cope with ignorance.
"The Sage treasures Unity and measures all things by it" - Lao Tzu
Public schools are government entities.
That's why there is this debate over religion in public schools.
Seperation of church and state."
"The Bill of Rights" applies to everyone, or at least it should. The Suprem Court can make bad judgments, have made bad judgments and will continue to make bad judgments.
Welcome to the land of the Free. (My Ass)
Censorship doesn't necessarily violate freedom of speech or makes it unconstitutional. There are those time and place restrictions that allow different organizations to regulate when and where you can do certain things, like protests and the like.
So you can't just hide behind the 1st amendment and say that all censorship is illegal and unconstitutional.
...at my local library. As well as the usual
sex, drugs, rock&roll ban, it also disallows
access to pages with a "~" in them,
e.g.
http://www.microsoft.com/~billg/
for the reason
"Uncategorised personal". Ridiculous!
And this isn't in America, it's in the UK!
The bastards!
Hello, tell me china isn't a totalitarian state, tell me Australian College professors aren't asked to refrain from using the word Pamela, go ahead talk to my 12 gauge!
You know I hope they don't waste time and lock this whole country up.
People like you are a bunch of illiterate couch potatoes.
The ship sank. Get over it. (This sig was cut out from another's shirt and painstakingly hand-posted)
I looked at it that way and I don't like it.
It's not someone else's property. It's public property. I helped pay for that megaphone!
If the hypothetical library depends on federal funds for its existance, that's censorship by brute force.
Censorship? Maybe not in the legal since of the word, but it is in effect censorship. I don't care what the legal terminology is here. Call it what you will, in practice though it still "looks" like censorship and that's what a lot of people will respond to, even though the argument wouldn't hold up in court.
Withholding funds is a great way for our elected officials to get things passed that normally won't stand up to any serious examination and this is no exception.
That last point is right-on though. Legally, you must define what it is what isn't acceptable. "Obscenity" has a definition, "indecency" doesn't. Do you judge by "community values" or the "reasonable party" etc.?
This only proposes to cover minors. Ok, fine. Does that mean we go with what's indecent for a 5-year-old? A 10-year-old? A 17-year-old? Something a 17-year-old can see with no ill effects might give a 5-year-old nightmares for a month. Yet the word 'minors' makes no distinction.
How enforcable is this? Let's ignore for the moment that the Internet exists outside the US. Someone decides they don't agree with a particular site's rating, and sues to get it changed. This will end up adding even more pointless lawsuits to the court system, and the particular definition of 'indecent' STILL goes back to the problems i mentioned above! There actually was a case like this at one point, IIRC someone in Tennissee sued the operators of a BBS in California for something legal in CA but not in TN. Even if you mandate one interpretation throughout the country, there are still going to be differences in interpretation of that interpretation between one area and another, and this is going to end up restricting web publishing to only those who can afford to have a lawyer check everything they want to put up. "You can't use that logo! Someone might consider it too phallic! We'd get sued!"
What happens when someone thinks that, for example, the pictures of bloody Kosovan refugees in Newsweek are unsuitable for minors? She sues, wastes the courts' time, and eventually gets a ruling that requires Newsweek to rate its stories. Since they don't want to lose readership, they stop writing stories with such content, as do most other news-related organizations. Suddenly, you can't find any important current events online. Someone else decides that those thin models are harming our daughters, gets them banned. No more pictures of people on the net at all, except on personal websites. Even there, the authors are required to rate their pages as "potentially harmful" just because they have a picture of someone thin.
Think this is a little over the edge? Maybe it is. But maybe it isn't, and do you really want to take that risk?
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perl -e'$_=shift;die eval' '"$^X $0\047\$_=shift;die eval\047 \047$_\047"' at -e line 1.
Posted by FascDot Killed My Previous Use:
There's a link to e-thepeople in comment #145...
--
"Please remember that how you say something is often more important than what you say." - Rob Malda
"People are being killed with guns. I know, let's blame video games, internet porn, and movies. Let's force censorship in libraries, and make public buildings post the ten commandments."
THEY ARE AFTER OUR FREEDOMS! BOYCOTT RELIGION!!!!!!
Hate to nit pick since I agree with most of what you have said, but it seems you feel that guns are the problem, not the rights we have. Gun ownership is a right also. The problem is we let kids do anything today and never tell them they are wrong because that would "hurt their self esteem" to have boundries.
The first two amendments working together are what guarentee the others.
Finkployd
>I don't particularly want a precocious 8 year old mixing ammonia and bleach in his elementary school
On the other hand, I'd rather have 8 years know that mixing ammonia and bleach is dangerous...
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
-- SARCASM ON --
Yep, that's right, every person who is unable to afford Internet is just a slacker suckling off of the welfare teet. And Internet filters only block porn. Of course, silly of me to think otherwise. You are right, censorship has a bad rap. It completely trust the government to determine what information I have access to
-- SARCASM OFF --
Listen: Not everyone out there has the skills to land a decent job in this thriving economy of ours, and raising a family on $8/hour with no benefits is not easy. These people do NOT need more roadblocks denying them access to the free information that can improve their lives. How do you expect someone to get an ISP connection when they can't even afford a phone line?
You can claim that these filter block only porn, but that is bullshit. The filters block real, useful content. There is no way current filtering technology can effectively deal with the constantly churning ocean of data that is the Internet. I've used them. Filters suck, at least on systems that will have a wide number of users with unpredictable information needs. They may work fine to filter your home PC that only has one or two users, but not on a library PC that needs to meet the needs of hundreds.
I really hope that some day you are forced to walk a mile in the shoes of those you look down on. I am a well paid computer professional now, but it was a long hard road getting there. Public libraries were a critical part of that journey. I take it very personal when someone tries break the library system by imposing censorship.
If a child is too young to sit in front of an uncensored Internet connection, than they are probably too young to let wander unattended in the library.
Thad
The Bolachek Journals
I think there is an important distinction between funding being tied to things the government is not empowered to regulate, and funding being tied to things the government is prohibited constitutionally from regulating. Besides, public schools are subject to the same constitutional restrictions as the federal government.
The federal government cannot bribe another government entity to violate the First Amendment
They can bribe/encourage a local entity to do something that's within their purview, but is not within the powers of the feds.
Isaac
This will be struck down so quick it won't even be funny. Censorship is unconstitutional in any form.
I know some of you see this library censorware deal as an OK thing. It may be for now, but it is merely a stepping stone for the government to censor further... Remember this one?
When they took the fourth amendment, I was quiet because I didn't deal drugs.
When they took the sixth amendment, I was quiet because I was innocent.
When they took the second amendment, I was quiet because I didn't own a gun.
Now they've taken the first amendment, and I can say nothing about it.
Same situation. We gotta stop it now before it gets out of control. Is it me, or is the government just doing waaaay too much catering to the 'soccer moms' and irresponsible parents of this nation?
p0d
I feel strongly on both! Not only do I own a gun and exercise my right to protect my life, loved ones and property, but I also exercise my right to free speech and speak out when things are wrong!
We need to take steps to stop these rediculous politicians that are constantly trying to eat away at our constitutional rights. This country (USA) is great not because of what the government has done for us, but rather, for what we've been enabled to do for ourselves!
HCI is unconstitional! If someone tried to create an organization called Free Speech Control Inc., they would get laughed out of town!
The role of the constition is to limit the role of the government in our lives! Long live the constitution! Death to the infidels!
I hope they do censor everything. That way, we can stage one of two things:
a) A huge boycott. Don't let us learn, we refuse to learn.
b) A read-in. Everyone go to the library and ask to visit www.house.gov. It will be censored (or should be) because of the Starr report.
Why do I say this? Well, this kind of thing happened in our high school when they put up censoring software. People who wanted to visit naughty sites did so while people in Government class could not view our great nation's leader's homepages.
Just think if the politicians' sites were banned. He he. That would change things quickly.
-B
As independent-thinking adults (whoops! danger! danger!), we see the inherent danger in such a situation. From here, it's just another generation to Nehemiah Scudder. But the average Joe for some reason thinks, "Hey, yeah, I don't want my kids reading that stuff!" And that's fine. But Joe doesn't realize that "that stuff" can include quite a bit. It's just like religion and morals: There are many religious-minded people who want their kids to learn those thing, but not in school. That is the responsibility of the family. And once kids reach adulthood, it's completely their decision.
The most ironic portion of all this is the inconsistency with the information the government already has available. And I'm not just talking about the Starr Report -- what about the Library of Congress? Anyone who cares enough to take the
time can easily figure out how to build, say, a nuclear weapon through materials available there. And no one objects to that. Why? Because it takes effort for someone to find it, so there's less danger. Now if someone wants access to information, it's easily accessible. And that should never be allowed in a free society.
At the rate this is going, Cuba will be freer than the US in a few years.
"You can never have too many elephants on your team."
Didn't the Supreme Court already rule that it was unconstitutional to use filtering software in public libraries? I'm only half-remembering, but wasn't there litigation in Viriginia that basically forbid a Library from using filtering software? I thought the Supreme Court was involved in that one, but I may be mistaken and it may have just been a Circuit Court case (in which case the ruling stands for only the part of the country where that Circuit Court has influence).
I know there are instances when Congress can overrule a S.C. decision -- if the S.C. makes their decision so narrowly that it states the law is being enforced beyond its original scope, in which case Congress just passes a law that specifically addresses what they want -- but I didn't think that was the case here.
Can someone point to a URL that deals with that decision so we can see exactly how Congress (bless 'em) can screw up our lives even more?
Eviscerati.Org: All Hail the Eviscerati
Greek and roman mythology is also religious documentation. They believed in it, and no one can prove that it isn't still viable and that Zeus isn't wandering around up there. So should greek and roman mythology not be allowed in schools? Should the bible not be taught as a viable historical document (It tells a lot about the social and political climates of the various eras it was written during). How could any sane person object to what the 10 commandments say? Does anyone believe that Murder or Theft is right? Should we abuse our parents and each other? Should we cheat on our wives and husbands? The 10 commandments seems to be mostly common sense (I'll grant the whole 'no other Gods before me' thing can offend people). Just because you disagree with the over all ideals of a group does not mean that that group has no useful or viable ideas or philosophies. I grew up in Georgia, raised as a Southern Baptist, I still consider myself to be a baptist. My girlfriend is a Wiccan, we have a lot of religious discussions and I can see valid and useful philosophies in Wicca. But that doesn't mean the christianity has no benefits. I still believe that despite being a wonderful person my Girlfriend is destined to go to Hell if she doesn't accept the gift of salvation from Christ. I don't believe this just because I was taught it by someone else. I've read a lot of religious texts and studied the subject for several years. My best message to unbelievers is something attributed to Pascal (The guy the language is named after):
"As I see it there are 4 possible options:
1. I do not believe in God and he does not exist.
2. I do believe in God and he does not exist.
3. I do not believe in God and he Does exist.
4. I do believe in God and he Does exist.
So to minimize my number of negative possibilities I choose to believe in God"
This seems to sum things up quite nicely to me.
Josh
sleffer@hotmail.com
sleffer@home.com
jwent@checkgallery.com
Could it be that Librarians want there to always be local discretion, rather than an anything-goes free-for-all?
Does the article say anything about local discretion? Isn't this whole thing about a law that has to be enforced? This didn't start with someone suing because they couldn't find Hustler! It started because Librarians have a problem with censorship!
Linux is only free if your time has no value. Windows is only free if you threaten to use Linux.
They all took an oath to uphold the Constitution. Plainly put, those that vote "yes" on any legislation of this nature are willfully and knowingly in violation of that oath. It's an issue of whether or not we should tolerate or suffer an elected body that would violate one of the central tenets of this country's government just to try to get re-elected (and this is all this is really about.).
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
Just in case you missed it, the Starr Report was about official misconduct related to the President getting his dick sucked in the oval office. Its difficult to go for a conviction unless you are specific as to what was being covered up.
As for filtering porns sites in public libraries, what is the problem here? My old high school had cable access, but they didn't have the playboy channel or skinemax. Was that censorship too?
If you want to look at porn, fine, I support your right, but do it on your own time and on your own dime
Posted by Mary CW:
If you oppose net censorship, look into the Electronic Freedom Foundation's Blue Ribbon Campaign. If you don't get involved on these issues, then there are plenty of other people who are only too happy to take over and get laws passed that support their concerns, not yours.
It's not automatically so
that a country with much freedom also has a lot of violence. Claims like that are typical from people in the US that haven't lived elsewhere... Actually, the violence levels of the US has always appalled me. But so has the eagerness of the US government to censor... You seem to keep trying to get rid of violence with censorship, instead of going to the root of the violence problem:
Your approach to social issues seems to me to be outdated, and something that might have been tolerably 50 years ago, not today.
I think that the comments there are a bit harsh - what could possibly be wrong with censoring out pornographic sites in a PUBLIC LIBRARY? There are times when the government is SUPPOSED to do things to uphold the morals and values of the land. That's kinda why we elect them into power.
Besides, I don't see many libraries carrying playboy or penthouse. Is that discrimination or censorship too?
Censorship: you're standing in public giving opinions I don't like, and I tell you to shut up.
Not censorship: you're standing in public giving opinions I don't like using my megaphone, and I take away my megaphone.
People need to stop whining censorship every time someone tells them they can't do something. Just because you have the right to free speech does not mean
The property in question is owned by the library. That gives the library full rights to say what the equipment can and can't be used for. Also note the goverment is not saying it is "against the law" to use the equipment in such a manner, only that the library will receive no federal funding if it is used in such a manner.
I have little doubt this legislation will eventually be shot down for the right reasons (defining standards by which libraries should operate are too vague... what's porn and not porn, etc).
This hopefully will not lead to a situation similar to that depicted in THX 1138...children learning from a bottle...the metaphor created here is quite strong. You will learn only what we want you to learn, free thinking is to be frowned upon. What happens to out of the bottle thinking? Curious minds demand information, and if they can't get it at school, where the heck are they supposed to?
I'm conflicted with these developments. On one hand, there's a distinct difference between kids being denied nudie pictures (gotta admit, it's kinda stupid to go looking for pr0n like that in a public library) and kids being denied other kinds of information which someone has deemed "unfit" for their consumption.
But do you think I trust the government to deem what's fit and unfit for viewing publically? What if I think the posting of the Ten Commandments in public schools and other public areas is unfit for kids? I daresay this omnipotent ability swings both ways.
I'm rather unhappy with this. And I know that there'll be kids gettin ready to defeat the blocking mechanisms from the word go. Information must be free, and all that.
Bah. Dumb govermnent.
Can we get them to filter out advertising? Slashdot is pleasanter (and loads faster) since I turned on WebFree again...
You will not drink with us, but you would taste our steel? - Walter Matthau, The Pirates
You sound like a religious zeolot attacking a person who just "insulted" God.
I rest my case about the dogmatization of "free speech".
Who are you talking about?
It's just that if they want to get extra federal money, they have incentive to install software barriers.
So even if it doesn't get struck down, librarians will have a choice.
J.
damned vulpine http://sb.drtwister.com/
Never!!! I would give my life to prevent that.
Everyone knows we should recycle...
If the alternative is I can't burn flags or Gore in office, I'll take the no flag burning every time. Somehow its not high on my list of priorities, but keeping Gore out of office is.
Lets see:
zero pop growth
anti industrialist
anti guns
pro censorship (at least his wife is)
One could have argued that kicking religion out of the schools (violation of free speech?) could have led America to kick religion out of society altogether. Your nightmare scenario is just scare-tactics. It won't ever happen unless the populous is a willing participant (america IS a democracy, with or without free speech). And if the populous is willing, then so be it. Censorship is back. The rights of the individual are determined by society as a whole. Ironic, but that's how it works.
Also, we can use this "give an inch, take a mile" scenario against free speech too. Allow porn, then also allow hate literature (banned in Canada, don't know about U.S.), child porn (ALMOST was made legal in Canada, but thankfully that decision was reversed), etc.
same way
l ?/features/990531ucita.htm
6 4542
We got what we're losing by secret conferences between the state senators exactly the way we're losing them. The secret conference is
http://www.nccusl.org
http://www.infoworld.com/cgi-bin/displayStory.p
The Uniform Computer Information Transactions Act (UCITA) began as a proposed change to the Uniform Commercial Code's Article 2, which dealt with the sale of
goods.
The Uniform Commercial Code (UCC) are laws designed to make commerce uniform from state to state. These laws are written by the National Conference of
Commissioners on Uniform State Laws (NCCUSL), a group founded in the late 19th century during the states' rights movement and approved by the American Law
Institute (ALI). The commissioners are attorneys, usually from small law firms, appointed and paid for by the states to represent them to the Conference.
Once NCCUSL approves a bill, it is very likely to be passed by state governments.
The ALI advises NCCUSL on creating amendments to the UCC. ALI is largely an honorary, academic organization of tenured law professors.
ALI officials called NCCUSL's 2B draft "unbalanced" and declined to put it to a membership vote at their annual meeting earlier this month. NCCUSL decided then to
make 2B a stand-alone bill, not part of the UCC. The proposed law then became known as UCITA. A current draft of UCITA was not available at press time.
Sign the fucking pettion
http://www.e-thepeople.com/petition.cfm?PETID=1
The ship sank. Get over it. (This sig was cut out from another's shirt and painstakingly hand-posted)
What was wrong with the 50's?
As a non-american, I find that if you take out the racism that was prevelant in parts of America during the 50's, you'd actually have a nice place.
I would love to live there.
Of course, the past few generations have brought up on new values, so I understand your chavinism towards the past.
What about sites advertising or advocating terrorism? Shouldn't we ban those too?
Maybe sites that contain violent images or concern guns.
What about sites that are anti-American?
Welcome to the 1950's!
If "my tax dollars" is the best reason you can find to not even consider such a plan, maybe you ought to just move overseas and start a porn site of your own...
;)
Remember, were talking about software. The government could pay someone (if that was even necessary!) to develop a filtering standard and open-sourced client software. Something like this would be so cheap and simple to do, its almost stupid.
All right, so some foreign websites and lazy operators (and all those other people who "just wont use it") will ignore it. So what? I think its still a workable and worthwhile idea. Especially if done not as a legal requirement, but as some incentive for "industry self-regulation", like the ratings system for movies and recently TV.
At the risk of sounding like a shrill PTA mother, "if even one child is saved from..."
Its not even like tobacco, where the manufacturers covertly market to children, not because theyre evil and want to corrupt them, but simply because it makes them money. Its not even like printed porn! With online porn, due to the credit card barrier, theres no money to be made from children, so there is no reason to even covertly market to them. And thus no reason other than (neglible) cost to not implement it.
Porn sites already use those age verification services, and they prominently say so, because its good for business. It makes middle-aged dad feel a little less guilty about downloading porn (and thus more willing to spend on it) if he knows that at least the kids dont have access to it. And besides, any site thats too cheap to put in a little META tag probably has shitty content anyway
As for your final remark, let me remind you that the whole issue revolves around minors, who legally CAN be prevented by society from doing or seeing certain things, because they legally DO NOT not possess the judgment to just switch the channel, or just dont go to that website, or otherwise "just say no." If you would trust your hormone-crazed teenager to stop and just go somewhere else after stumbling upon a hardcore porn site, well, you must be a better parent than Ill ever be. (Im nowhere close to being a parent myself, BTW.)
I used the phrase "minor cultural revolution" for a reason. :-)
:-) The younger generation is the one in control of the medium this time. That gives more of a sense of a lack of control. And thus, the greater fear.
You don't think that the way TV opened up your average American to the larger world, in an attractive, powerful format, had anything at all to do with the change in attitudes in the 60s/70s? Suddenly, we're *seeing* people dying in faroff wars and getting oppressed and starving, etc.
Instead of *reading* a dry, factual accout of, say, a civil rights march being broken up, you can see some poor guy getting the bejesus beat out of him while non-violently resisting. That's a much more powerful image, a much more powerful medium, to evoke a much more powerful response. Which equals a much more powerful counter-response to those who liked the old way just fine, thankyouverymuch.
Now think about the Internet in this light. Now, you don't even have to rely on the bias of the journalist present; you can get that kind of information and imagery fed back to you from anyone and everyone present; see a hundred points of view coming to you moments after an event.
And with television, everyone knew how to work a TV, and for the most part, the trusty news reporter was, well, trusted, so even the old guard wasn't scared of the medium itself. With the Internet, it's a whole different story - computers are for the young, the elite, them funny-lookin' kids with all the piercings.
Which comes back to the main point - the return of "book burnings" and censorship and "Let's post the Ten Commandments in the classroom".
The Internet does have a huge effect on our culture, as TV once did (but doesn't quite have any more, IMHO). For one small example that shakes the applecart of tradition, I was raised Catholic. Like my parents, like their parents, and AFAICT up the family tree on both sides for five generations. EVERYONE. And now, the sixth generation is Taoist. Because I met a lot of people just like me on the net, and a lot of them were Taoist/Buddist, and I was intrigued by their comments and I did some research on the net. Voila, a new religion of choice. And this generation thinks nothing of it, but how many Wiccans and Taoists and Buddhists would seriously be coming out of Middle America if they weren't finding communities across the net? How often would this be happening before we could link up with thousands just like us across the world and experience new ways of thinking that effortlessly?
Now, I don't want to give you the impression that I'm trying to make it sound like some big scary all-powerful 'whoooo!' magic, because I know the bad side of the Internet, too. It's no cure-all or magic wand for society's ills, by any stretch of the imagination . And there were Wiccans and Buddhists and geeks and outcasts and all that before the Internet, of course. It's just communication, and something our generation uses like others use the phone. And this is a good thing. But we have to realize that the older generation does not see it that way, that to them it's a mystical entity they can't control, and they're scared.
Maybe we can de-mystify it for them. Maybe we just have to ride it out. But to me, this feels like the beginning of some interesting (and probably serious) culture/generation clash.
-- Raven
Pardon me, but your ideology is spilling all over the place and making a big mess.
Why does all information need to be free?
(oh, and tell me again your bank account number, passwords, any unsual identifying marks on your lover, etc. It needs to be free.)
that's what i'm thinking, anyway
They also just voted to require the ten commandments be put in schools, so they have some experience with unconstitutional legislation.
Not exactly. The vote was to allow, not to require the display of the Ten Commandments. While it may still be unconstitutional (these being public schools and all) it's far less glaringly so. After all, far worse things that the Ten Commandments are routinely foisted on students. Like "Coke Day".
My personal opinion is that it's okay to allow the display of the Ten Commandments, or the Wiccan Rede, or the Ayatollah Khomeini's death-order fatwa on Salman Rushdie or the Coca-Cola logo. It's a free country after all. But that freedom should apply to any dissenters as well. If material is displayed for educational purposes, that's one thing. Learn about the world, including the world's religions and carbonated beverages. But it's quite another if the material is on display to be honored or worshipped. The latter should not be tolerated in tax-funded schools.
As for why our so-called leaders voted for this, it's nothing to do with actually passing it (they know it's probably unconstitutional) and everything to do with looking good and pure and moral for a certain portion of their constituents.
What you've described is single handidly one of the most troubling (and dangerous) aspects of democracy. I think a bit more vigilance is in order on our parts...
I noticed in the article, there was a lot of reactionary language because of the Littleton Massacre.
30 years ago Charles Mansion (and his followers) murdered several famous hollywood people(Sharon Tate.. the La Bianca's...). He painted slogans from the Beatles song 'Helter Skelter' in blood all over the walls.
If that happened today, the gov would be calling for the banning of the sale and broadcast of Beatles music since they incite people to murder. And all the talk shows would have Paul McCartney on, raking him over the coals, since it was obviously, at least partially 'his' fault for releasing such an 'irresponsible song'.
Just some perspective on how ridiculous our elected officials and the mainstream press have become.
Not much to add, except a big "You can say that again!" This is a great example of how and why people have so little control over how their own tax money is spent -- your federal taxes go to support someone else's agenda. Having my money squandered and wasted by government inefficiency is bad enough, but having it diverted to enemies who will use it against me, is infuriating.
The Libertarian platform gets extremely appealing in this light, since it gets rid of federal funding for almost everything. Want libraries? Pay for 'em out of your own pocket -- and you decide which ones are worth paying for and which ones aren't, not some politician who might buckle to some shady influences.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Let me see if I have this straight, if we don't allow the 11 year old to view fisting pix, we're controlling his thoughts and hindering his right to express himself.
So, if we prevent him from mixing ammonia and bleach together and poisoning the city water supply, aren't we also inhibiting his right to freedom of expression?
In the same way, can't a killing spree in your local high school also be considered yet another form of free expression?
If you follow this train of thought to its logical conclusion, we might all end up in a anarchistic world resembling the Road Warrior.
We need to draw the line somewhere. The government's solution isn't perfect, but at the very least, it would be nice when my teenager types "teen" in HotBot, he or she wouldn't be subjected to a deluge of pornographic web sites.
While such language is considered racist today, one must accept that it was perfectly normal and acceptable at the time the book was written. Some schools have banned such classic literature and that's bad. However, some schools have revised classic literature and republished it with many ommissions and pass it off as the original often without saying that it was abridged, and that's fscking scary. Where does revisionism end?
I have this feeling of deja vu all over again...see below.
This hasn't empowered local communities to do anything - this amendment restricts federal funding for local libraries based on an undefined standard of "harmful to minors". No one has told local communities that "they MUST expose their children to a completely wide-open Internet". Many communities already have filtering in place, which is completely within their discretion to do (pending further court action, of course, but the principle of locally defined filters seems a lot less controversial). Now the federal government is trying to prohibit any community from receiving funding unless they follow a certain federal standard.
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
As for public libraries not carrying visual pornographic material: That they already censor isn't a valid argument for extending that censorship further. By your argument, we could just as well close all public libraries right now, since they already censor.
Your analogy to Slashdot for instance is most flawed though. Slashdot is a private enterprise. It is not funded by anyones tax dollars.
Public libraries are. If they are supposed to filter porn because you and other people don't like porn, why shouldn't it filter the Bible because some people find the Bible offensive? What about any text about McDonalds, because some people find meat products offensive?
What would you say if some other government wanted to block access to sites with the US constitution because they see it as "harmful"?
I'm quite sure you'd dislike that.
Yet you have presented no argument for why you have more right to read the Bible or the US constitution than I have to look at or read porn.
You have just assumed that what is "wrong" by your definition is automatically wrong for everyone else too, but I doubt you'd like having my idea of what is wrong forced upon you... I can almost guaranteed that you'd find that highly unpleasant :-)
It is one thing if the library has a policy against "offensive" behaviour, as long as that is defined as "bringing up pictures that are usually found offensive in your community". I don't expect to be able to bring up porn pictures with children around, or people who dislike porn, as long as I sit in a public place where other people can see the pictures.
But I expect that rules like that are handled by humans, by someone from the staff telling me to stop if I abuse their trust, not by a filter that also filter sexual abuse sites, and other sites that a user are unlikely to ever dare asking for access for, and that have a clear value.
Just in the same way as I'd expect them to stop someone who brought a porn mag to a public place, and made a big point about letting everyone see the pics, but not prevent me from bringing a copy of a highly pornographic book that I keep to myself.
This is an interesting argument: is it worse for the state to engage in propoganda campaigns, or for private companies to engage in propoganda campaigns? Which, ultimately, does the most harm to society?
Society ultimately does the most harm to itself by intentionally becoming ignorant to it's surroundings. Some of the current problems today are a direct result things like voter apathy. People don't even give enough of a damn to vote, let alone force elected officials to keep their promises. A result of the self-induced ignorance is the success rate of mass propaganda campaigns. Most people (in America) are convinced that there are only two worthy political parties. Any third party is just a bunch of hippie freaks or skinheads. What they refuse to see is how both the Democratic and Republican parties have completely raped the country.
I'm sure "SlashdotMedia" will improve on all the wonders that Dice Holdings blessed us all with
BTW, I wonder if that decision would be have to be filtered out?
"You can never have too many elephants on your team."
There is an issue here about the level of control parents should be permitted to exercise over their children, of course. I find it a little terrifying, for example, to think that the parents of a girl aged 13 or more could deny her access to truthful information about birth control. I don't know what the constitutional limitations are with respect to such things. I would certainly be interested in hearing about potential solutions to this problem.
What constitutes a state religion?
If the government "shows favoritism" towards a particular religion enough the only difference would be whether or not some official document state on behalf of the government that it is the state religion.
I'd expect the supreme court to take attempts at that for what it is: an attempt to "work around" the intent of the law. It isn't always enough to follow the letter of the law - if you deviate enough from the intent you'll still lose.
The whole point in laws like this is to empower local communities to show discretion
Nope, that's wrong. The local communities can show discretion on their own without any help from the Feds. The whole point in laws like this is to force the local communities to adopt whatever standards Washington considers appropriate. Look at the legal min drinking age. The Feds cannot legislate it, but they shoved it down the throat of every state (do you really want federal highway funds? Here is how...)
The system works when local communities aren't told they MUST expose their children to a completely wide-open Internet.
I don't even know where to start. First, communities do not have children, parents do. I very specifically do not want my local community to tell me what I should teach my children. I am perfectly capable of taking such decisions by myself and do not need help from local politicians.
Second, what do you think the point of the Bill of Rights is? Community is a relative term, the Federal government is as much representative of a community, as you local town hall is. The whole point of the Bill of Rights is that people, individuals have rights that no government, including the local community one, can take away. Maybe my community wants to exercise discretion and forbid me to read Cosmopolitan (speaking of sex in the libraries [grin]), or to read Karl Marx or Ayn Rand or fill-in-the-blank -- well, it cannot. And why? Because I, as a person, have rights that my local community cannot take away.
Now, it's arguable whether absence of restrictions to access the Internet is a basic right. But that's not the issue. The issue is that the system does not work when the local communities can impose whatever idiocy the local politicians can come up with (and call it discretion) onto their population.
Phew, I am getting off the soapbox now...
Kaa
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
By the way, even though Norway for instance, has a state church, the Norwegian government still seems a lot more secular than the US. I've always been amazed at the extent of the religiousness of the US government... Even the Christian Democratic Party which currently has the prime minister in Norway is way more secular than even most of the liberal democrats in the US.
My school system (miami-dade public schools) has implemented SurfWatch to filter the internet content coming into each school. Unfortunatly for me, Surfwatch is a proxy server, so I cant hack the local system. Also, it checks all text coming to the client. This prevents the user from going to a site not on the list, if surfwatch even has a list.
I have a chat room (that uses a META Refresh (no java) for the interface) and by naming the file chat.html, surfwatch blocks it. Now I know that this is done on-the-fly because I can open up a Java Telnet session and rename the file to food.html and it works like it should.
FYI: To hack these types of filters, your best bet would be to put a java web browser in a page, and use the java browser to get the porno. Although I havn't tried it yet (off for the summer), I seriously doubt that technologies like Anonymizer.com (which I admire) will provide any level of success in thwarting the censor.
---We love dictation software...------------------
Wow John, this new DragonDictate is really cool.
Yeah hey, get that slash-crap of the screen.
Don't say that, it's typ- oh shit!
I have a most excellent idea. You run your country your way, and we'll run our country our way.
Sheesh - no wonder Europeans have been massacring each other for hundreds of years; they seem to be genetically unable to stop themselves from telling other people what to do. If I lived next door to people as annoying as that, I'd probably kill them too.
Going back and reading my previous post, I see that I kind of missed your point about "anything less than free", since in this case it might it would actually cost extra to limit access, and that's certainly a bad idea.Perhaps if you had phrased it "I refuse to pay MORE money to get LESS..."
On the other hand, considering the cost of fighting silly lawsuits and that would no doubt emerge from unfettered access...
So don't flame me too strongly about that stuff.
I still do react strongly against the "not with my tax money" mantra, though. And I do think a voluntary, bilateral, server-side filtering scheme is a good idea. And I still think the page-ripping analogy is absurd.
Fuck Orwell he didn't bother to let us know that the reason the unconscious never revolt is cuz they like it.
Sorry, but in spite of weak fucks like you I my self am not afraid of crime, impoliteness, or accidental death if it grants me that I won't be a whiny ass purity, eficiency, morality, loyalty dependent NAZI addict like you.
Fuck respect. Resperct is earned. Courtesy, which is what you really got, is just a sign that people don't give a fuck who you are, they just like to see you aliens. You're a fucking circus show.
The ship sank. Get over it. (This sig was cut out from another's shirt and painstakingly hand-posted)
I think sometimes we (slashdot readers) forget
human nature when we argue ideology.
A lot (not all) of readers of slashdot are
non-conformists, from a society-at-large
perspective. That means we'll think for ourselves
more and perhaps be more prone to debating, since
we don't want to give up our own opinions.
But really, most people don't think for themselves. (if we even do.)
Most people just do what everybody else is doing,
and "everybody else" is defined to the basic things
done within their own community.
When people decide to make a new rule or law to
force everybody to act a certain way, they're
doing it for their own protection. Subconciously
or conciously, they know how they think: they
would do anything that seemed relatively
acceptable within their own culture.
That's why they make these laws: they don't evaluate things on a logical, individual basis the
way we do, and that gets them into trouble sometimes. They're trying to protect themselves.
we get ourselves into trouble, too, but in a way that's harder to predict, since it's individualized.
So you're opposed to paying taxes to the library if they provide anything less than complete, unfettered access to everything available. Well then, you better start donating your entire income to your local library -- they've got years of Hustler and Penthouse subscriptions to catch up on.
No. I'm opposed to paying taxes to the library if they spend that on technology to restrict or limit what they already have in the library. Paying money for a full Internet connection and then paying more money to limit that connection is foolish. Ditto for paying money for a full encyclopedia set and then ripping out all the pages that discuss sex, nudity, explosives, etc.
Hopefully you realize that Pascal's wager is based on the vindictive human-nature atribted to the Christian God. Not all religions attribute eternal damnation to failing to heed the word of some messiah.
Moreover, I question that Pascal would be able to "choose to believe in" every god whose religion threatened post-mortem doom. Remember, just because Chrisitanity calls their god "God" doesn't make him some sort of meta-deity over all other religious entities.
To bring the conversation back on-topic: The ten commandments are primary texts used by a dominant religion. I am far more afraid of the use of this document as a form of oppression than I am some third-hand mythology that is taught jokingly in English class.
Consider how you were taught greek and norse mythology: "What a bunch of wacky people! Man-boy love, Gods on Mount Olympus... Crazy neanderthals--though the Greeks were on to something with that democracy stuff."
I just read the first amendment last night. It's short--45 words covering 5 topics. It is tough to ascribe the 16 words concerning religion their broad public impact. However, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion..." certainly applies in the case of this particiular amendment.
Finally, I hardly disagree with some of the 10 commandments as text, indeed, Jesus had some good things to say about the meek and respecting others. However, these moral lessons can be taught independent of religion. Not everyone needs the fear of eternal damnation to behave in a civil and respectful manner to their fellow humans.
The constitutional amendment.
The unconstitutional amendment.
I don't need large brains to have a good time.
>It's been a while since my Constitutional Law :)
:) But I could teach it . . .
:)
:)
:) ]
>class.
I don't seem to want to admit how long it's been
>"Federalism" in the context of the Constitution
>has a different meaning than what I intended.
"Federali*zation*" has a meaning close to what you intended, as well. Come to think of it, I don't think I've ever seen the term used outside of U.S. political & constitutional discussions . . .
Madison, Hamilton, and Jay all used the pseudonym, and scholars agree on which wrote most of them.
At the time, I'd probably have been in the anti-Federalist camp with Jefferson & Paine, though over the years I'm seeing my sympathies switch from Jefferson to Madison.
"New Federalism" was a term from the classic liberal faction in the Reagan administration for the process of returning usurped functions to the states. Generally, it was the effort to swing the pendulum back to the states. It wasn't entirely the same issue as deregulation, but the camps overlapped. I have no idea where Reagan himself stood on the issue (or how much he really had to do with the administration, for that matter), but his rhetoric puts him in this category. His rhetoric was generally classic liberal, but governance tended more to the right wing.
>Please disregard these questions if they will
>result in my being billed.
Awe
But this is your big chance! My hourly doesn't double from $200 to $400 until the middle of next month when I successfully defend the Ph.D. [If "$10,000 + $400/hour" makes you blink, you're not big enough to have an anti-trust problem needing a lawyer-economist
The purpose of government, as stated in the declaration of independance is to secure the rights of the people, NOT implement the will of the people. If the will of the people were simplistically implemented, a tyranny of the majority would be short following.
The problem, of course, lying the fact that that the right that the people want secured is exactly that: what they want. It was the whole purpose of having elected leaders. When the elected person wasn't voting for what the people wanted, s/he would be replaced.
And although I hold to my belief that people, in general, are idiots, I would rather listen to a whole lot of them then a few people who might be gone in a year tell me that it's not ok that my kids can blow stuff up or learn about different religions that fit them better than Christianity.
It is precisely the will of the people that we hired those boobs to uphold, mostly because those people don't want anything bad to happen to themselves and in the process, securing their rights.
What I don't like about this is the fact that people would rather use their elected officials to get a blanket movement to cover something that the parents themselves should be doing anyway... that way they can keep working until 8 at night and say "My kids are taken care of."
And at least everyone in that mass making up "the people's will" is looking out for themselves. And since they are, and they are still "normal" people, then if they want something protected for them, they protect it for me too. A dictator looks for himself. I'm not a dictator, so it's unlikely that what he wants is what I want. A farmer in Ohio wants lower taxes, well... what can I say. Doesn't everyone?
And if the majority is tyrranizing, at least most of the people will be happy.
The Happy Blues Man
I accept on blind faith that Cincinatti exists.
Since an election year is up-and-coming, we're going to be seeing more of this type of push for "values" legislation. Even ol' wooden Al "I did the net" Gore is distancing himself from Clinton by harping on "family values" and bringing them back into the gov't. The moral reaction to the Clinton administration is going to be frightening, so keep a sharp eye out and don't be surprised at anything the Washington folks dream up.
"shop smart:shop s-mart" ash
I'm sorry, but I have to laugh. Common sense rarely prevails (see above - come on, there are gay teens). TinTin in Africa is hiding behind the desk at a Toronto library...and in Northern Alberta, an entire town stopped a series of textbooks from being used because they contained "witchcraft" (same goes for textbooks in the States where the Klan has gone in and removed books that were "communist")
I've seen it too many times - parents and politicians who go on power trips to control the flow of information.
Literary merit is the only community standard for readers and writers. Unfortunately, there are some in this province who are quick to condemn Of Mice and Men because it had too many gee-dee "swears".
Don't even ask what happened when Angels in America came to town, esp. since Alberta has the only second Mormon Temple in North America.
I know libraries where the staff black out swears, and silently drop books if there is so much as one complaint.
Unless a library has a formal censorship-handling policy, then they are in deep trouble.
And I'm not hiding behind my keyboard. I worked for the public library and I am a library technician. Every March and April I resurrect a large section on censorship for Freedom to Read Week.
Use all the filtering you want, just don't call it "Public Internet Access". Call it "The Anytown Library's Computerized Information System" or whatever.
Filtering porn in Public Libraries shouldn't *have* to be legislated, it should be common sense.
**>>BELCH
Posted by FascDot Killed My Previous Use:
I oppose censorship on principle which is why I am careful not to make overly specific arguments against it.
For instance, many here are using the argument that "Internet filters block too much" to say that censorship in libraries is bad because it can block "useful" sites. WRONG!
Censorship in libraries is bad PERIOD. Libraries are respositories of information and I, as an adult, should be able to access all of it. If a library decides to link itself to a larger resource (such as the Library of Congress, or the Internet) then I should be able to access all of THAT as well.
Arguments based on content are null and void.
Many respond to this by asking "so how do we keep non-adults away from things like porn?" I have two basic responses:
1) Not my problem. My rights cannot be infringed just because they make it easier for YOUR kids to do something YOU don't like.
2) Nonetheless there are specific solutions for specific situations. For the example of libraries, why not divide the library into children's and adult portions? (many libraries already do) Attach the PCs in the adult area to the live Internet, no filtering. Attach the PCs in the children's area to an Intranet setup by the library/city/local ISP (or to nothing at all). If a child requires real Internet access, the child must be accompanied by a parent or guardian.
--
"Please remember that how you say something is often more important than what you say." - Rob Malda
The Cable TV in the school example is not appropriate for the following reason: Playboy and Cinemax cost extra. This is a strong incentive against the school buying them, just as strong as not letting little kids see the naughty bits. It's more akin to choosing to buy paperbacks instead of hardcover books, or buying a simple board with hooks on it for the football scoreboard instead of an electronic display. That is very different from blocking something that comes at no extra charge and is part of the standard service.
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
I read the comments, and see the individual
outrage at any beginnings of Orwellian oppresion.
Everyone seems to cry out against the government.
Everyone seems to denounce it's propaganda,
and how it controls the masses.
But as one moves back to look at the bigger
picture, these cries of individuality grow
together, becoming a cacophany of bleating
"Baaa...Baaa...Baaa...". No one is going
to change anything. Howevermuch I wish it were
so. How do I know this? Every election year,
we vote them back in. Unless EVERYONE votes
for some third party, it's either Republican
or Democrat. I'm reminded of a Simpson's
Halloween episode, where the aliens are the
only two candidates. Individually, they complained
about the situtation, but no one had enough independence of thought to go past simple complaints, they simply continued along in the
same voting process they had always done.
Sigh.
-Just Another Anonymous Coward
If they are worried about terrorism and all that bullshit so much then why the hell are they making laws to promote terrorism. The more oppressed a person is the more likely they will be to kill. Every little piece of shit legislation the governemt passes usually just adds onto the big mound of oppressive bullshit. The more bullshit that's shoved down the citizen's throats the more bombings and killings we will see, and I can't say that I give a rat's ass.
Secure Computing's SmartFilter blocked most major mirrors of the Starr report and some newspaper articles containing lurid excerpts of it. It was listed in their "Sex-related" category soon after it was released. The report fit their strict guidelines for inclusion, and when some customers complained, they were given a list of URLs which they could exempt on their systems.
myth.
Read a few BOOKS not prescribed by your gov't, church, parents, media, school boards, boss,
God you people make sick!
The ship sank. Get over it. (This sig was cut out from another's shirt and painstakingly hand-posted)
hehe oops.. I had meant to include that I did vote for Ventura (now you know where I live ;).
:)
He may be a redneck ex-wrestler, and have some really F-ed up ideas, but I do like him better than any of the others (that includes US gov, not just state).
Time to get rid of voice votes, if they can use it as a way to avoid accountability.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
This is a touchy issue. While I certainly don't want to have to see visual pornography displayed on web browsers in the library, I also have to respect the fact that its a public building and any censorship is a bad thing.
Anything that is text based should not be censored AT ALL. It is, after all, a library, and banning text of any sort would tend to go against the basic philosophy of a library. However, I would probably be willing to go along with banning pornographic pictures in an environment where shoulder surfing would be prevalent.
But in any case, this should not be mandated at all by the federal government. And I somehow doubt its such a big problem that it needs to be regulated anyway.
Another point of view, however, is that the government is not outright requiring it by law, only that they will withhold internet based funding if these conditions are not met. Internet is not THAT expensive, and your average library doesn't require T3 access to the net. I don't think its in the best interest of any library to conform to this censorship for a few measly bucks.
-Restil
Play with my webcams and lights here
There are certainly valid points to the strict constructionist viewpoint of the Constitution, but on the other hand things are a lot different now than they were in the 1780s. Most people receive more benefit than harm from such extensions of federal authority like the FCC, the Interstate Commerce Commission, and so forth. I don't think the founding fathers intended their descendants to be stuck with exactly the same balance of power that they set up back then - due to modern technology and changing perceptions, the executive branch has gained a lot of power and the legislative branch has lost a little. In general these changes have worked out OK, since they are subject to constant legal challenge and review in the Supreme Court as well as the press.
I'll be the first to agree that the Constitution should have been amended as these changes occurred, rather than simply bent and forced into a new shape. However, it would be a mistake to return suddenly to the strict constructionist view now - the country would collapse fairly quickly without the more centralized federal control we have now.
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
Yeah, just ignore the bit about how they started a war with just about everybody else.
It's not about porn. Although I think my tax money speaks just as loudly as the next persons and I want mine to go to Libraries that do NOT censor. But it's about the sites that are not porn but judged by the software to be harmful, anything gay related, stuff related to abuse issues (sexual or physical domestic abuse), why not stuff related to police brutality or stuff like that (the "community" decides). Now stuff related to chemistry that could possibly be harmful (although since it's software it would just be chemistry..), anything related to alternative lifestyles.
As we slowly crumble into a police state (more prisons! more police on the streets! less social programs!) we can kiss our freedoms goodbye.
As a side note I want a tax form where I can select what my dollars go to. No more military industrial complex subsidy, no more subsidizing agro-business or guerrilla warfare in foreign countries.
gid-fu
windowlicker
Free speech is so important because once you start limiting it, every special interest group will come running after you requesting censorship of things they don't like.
It might start with just porn. But what is porn really? Maybe they should start banning Henry Miller, Anais Nin and D.H.Lawrence again? Not to mention that pesky Nabokov (who wrote "Lolita")... And when we've first started censoring controversial books, why don't we remove the sex. ed. books as well. And since we don't just censor entertainment, but other books as well, what about finally burning that copy of "Mein Kampf"? After all, the nazis supported book burnings, so it can't be that bad to burn their books...
Oh, and since we've started taking away political books, what about Capital and the Communist Manifesto as well? And maybe some more of that terrible leftist propaganda?
And maybe it's time to get rid of "Origin of the Species" by Darwin again?
Need I go on?
Give them an inch, and they'll take a mile.
In the last century, free speech has come far. This is not the time to start limiting it again, just because someone are afraid that their children may see a naked body, or a sexual act.
If their kids get problems by seeing that, then the parent has failed, by not letting them know that the human body, and sex, are natural things.
That kid will have way bigger problems in life than seeing some porn.
Get the point? How many books do you think would be left in your local library if everyone was alowed to take away the books they found harmful?
And no, I wasn't joking about finding the Bible harmful to kids, but that still doesn't mean I'd ever support censoring it, nor any other books or "offensive" magazines. I'd understand it if they don't keep every book available, though, because that would take space and money, and I even tolerate that not everything is available to kids.
But once they start censoring, all kinds of groups will come whining to have their most hated literature censored.
Who should be allowed to decide what is allowed and what not?
I'm no expert on censorship or the government. I have seen the give an inch/take a mile pattern in action too many times to trust censorship of any kind.
Given today's political climate, I don't think this view is extreme, either.
There were books that we were not allowed to read in English class or have in the library. This had been going on long before I got there.
Not that I'm for net filters, but I think we should stop schools from banning books first.
Hehe. But I guess the Illuminati wouldn't want us to think for ourselves.
This sig is false.
As is most porn-filtering software. And that's the big problem with this fucking stupid law. It's the same problem with the recent Australian law too:
- It is not possible to filter 'bad' words without intelligent context-sensitive reading (a human). A program trying to block out text about breasts would end up also blocking text about breast cancer and cookbooks with scandalous passages describing chicken breast meat, for example. Whether you desire to have this stuff blocked or not is irrelevant if it isn't possible to do it right.
- In light of #1 above, it is completely unfair to hold the library responsible for the content it receives from outside sources. It is exactly like finding a pornographic magazine in a plain brown wrapper in the mail, finding out that it was ordered by your son, and then choosing to blame this on the postman who delivered it to your house, who couldn't have known what it was without breaking it open and reading your mail.
There are two reasons for disliking this bill. On the one hand the censorship it is trying to accomplish is inexcusable, and on the other hand it isn't even practically enforcable anyway. Seeing as how we don't stand a snowball's chance in hell of convincing people that the first reason is sufficient to shoot it down, I reccomend concentrating on the second - the practicality of enforcement.Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
Disclosure: I am an employee of Secure Computing Corporation, the makers of SmartFilter. The opinions in this letter may not represent the views of my employer, but I'm not lying either.
:) ) We tested it for months and as soon as it makes just ONE bad call, we'll take it offline and make it more conservative. So far all the miscategorizations have been by humans, but nobody's perfect.
You are right when you say that filtering is done broadly. For instance, even though the content on the hundreds of pages at hustler.com changes all the time, the entire site is blocked in the sex category without reviewing its content regularly. However, we do frequently review sites that are already listed, usually based on customer feedback. Mormon.com was recently blocked.. because it used to be a sex site, until the Mormon church purchased it and called us up to have the listing changed (not deleted though, it's now in our politics and religion category -- something which employers may decide not to allow during business hours).
But you are incorrect when you state that the censoring is done by computer. We have a staff of humans who review most of the sites that are blocked, placing them in 27 different categories including sex -- no computer program we know of is capable of doing this. We also have an AI which catches only the most obvious porno sites, acting in an extremely conservative manner (basically, knowing how dumb it is and leaving tough decisions up to humans). Such an AI would not cause this comments page to be listed (even though you said fuck, huh huhuh...) because it doesn't "look like" a sex site (that shouldn't violate my NDA
Slashdot -- because of its computer and Internet related content and up to the minute industry news -- is exempt from being blocked by SmartFilter according to our guidelines, unless the local sysadmins add it themselves. So are almost all ISP's (though sections of the sites may be blocked).
Some of our competitors use other methods to list sites, including word searches and links to naughty sites. We may use methods like these to get lists of URLs, but we don't enter those into our product without checking them extensively.
(this message does in fact coincidentally represent the official view of my employer, Secure Computing Corporation)
The federalist notion is to keep things at the lower level, only giving the central government the power to do that which can't be done efficiently by the states. (The anti-federalists took it farther, wanting to yield essentially nothing to the center except on a case-by-case basis).
Increasing the number of decisions made by D.C. flies in the face of federalism (and in that of the "New Federalism," too, for that matter).
On top of all that from my previous post, and even though the high end commercial censorship software is often not as bad as anti-censorship groups tend to think, I still don't support American libraries or schools being required to have filtering software to protect children (in order to get needed federal funding). It's just obviously not fair to place uncalled for restrictions like that on returning taxpayer money to the community.
I do think that community standards ought to be able to dictate children being restricted from accessing some material from a public library. And some filtering products provide acceptable quality where local citizens want to limit public access to net porn. But the federal government is not part of my community. In fact it mostly isn't even in the same state as me -- so they shouldn't be setting standards for acceptable behavior here and using taxpayer money to do it.
The way I see it, as long as the Feds are paying for this stuff, they have every right to dictate how the money is spent. The real solution is to stop relying on Federal funding for everything, and start funding these things on a more local level.
Of all the comments I've ever posted, this is definately one of them
The Australian Library Association has a policy they call Freedom To Read. In summary, this policy states that censorship of material on the grounds that it's objectionable is incorrect. Does the American equivalent have a similar policy?
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
You are assuming a slippery slope phenomenon that if anything gets banned, all will get banned. I don't think this is necessarily a danger. Libraries can still be an educational resource without providing porn to kids. Libraries can set up computers in a seperate area with no restrictions for adults to use.
Libraries are a public resource paid for by everyone. Those parents who don't want porn available to their kids have a valid concern and shouldn't be dismissed automatically.
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Does your local library have a video collection? How many pornos does it contain?
At the library I used to work at, we had a very nice collection of children's videos, pbs type videos, and then a range of G to R movies. Never once did I see a porno on the shelves. Does this count as censorship? Personally I don't think so. Your opinion?
I'm no constitutional scholar, but where does the first amendmant say libraries must provide everything under the sun? Is the library actually preventing free speech by using filtering software? If the library doesn't carry the book you want, go get it from the bookstore. If the library doesn't carry the internet smut you want, go get it at home.
It isn't that long ago that books like Lady Chatterlys lover, Lolita, Days in Clichy etc. were banned, even though their sexual content is minimal compared to the average Hollywood movie.
Who will make sure that the filters doesn't block more than they are allowed to?
Lots of the filter programs have already been shown to block sites of people protesting against them, and to block sites on womens rights, gay rights, atheism, and lots of other politically oriented sites they don't like.
Do you really believe you have the right to prevent people from seeing that?
There's a word for that: Fascism.
My best message to unbelievers is something attributed to Pascal (The guy the language is named after):
"As I see it there are 4 possible options:
1. I do not believe in God and he does not exist.
2. I do believe in God and he does not exist.
3. I do not believe in God and he Does exist.
4. I do believe in God and he Does exist.
So to minimize my number of negative possibilities I choose to believe in God"
Well, by this logic, which God(s) should I believe in? The Christian one? Jewish? Muslim? Hindu? Buddhist? etc. After all, I'm sure a number of religions say "if you don't believe in our particular God(s), you are going to our version of Hell."
Furthermore, wouldn't God be able to tell that you were simply believing in him to "play it safe" and thus send you to Hell anyway?
I am also appaled that you can believe the person you love is going to spend an eternity in Hell, the worst place imaginable, for simply being "misled" and not believing in the "correct" God. It raises a number of interesting questions:
Personally, I am an atheist. I find it curious that we are taught (via logic and the scientific method) to critically challenge everything we are taught -- except for religion, which must be accepted by blind faith. However, I do not force my view on anyone else, and I do not appreciate when another religion tries to force their view on me by posting a religious document on a public building (even if they do have a majority). I find it laughable that they think posting this document will solve the problem of violence in schools.
besides thomas, there is a resource available from the ACLU for some votes. it may be wise to form your own opinions, though it is nice to see what the ACLU has to say.
http://scorecard.aclu.org
they haven't updated it for the 106th congress last time i checked. but it's there.
- pal (a card carrying member)What the hell is "Coke Day" ??
That's about as far from a bedrock principle as you can get :)
I am a lawyer, but this is not legal advice. See a lawyer in your own jurisdiction for that.
The Bill of Rights does not apply directly to the states, but only by way of the 14th Amendment and by "selective incorporation."
The particular restraints that kick in are those "fundamental to the notion of ordered liberty." Trial by jury applies, but the jury size of 12, and unanimous verdicts, only apply to the feds. States can have preliminary hearings rather than grand juries in felony cases. The free exercise clause applies, but applying the establishment clause is rather new (state-supported churches existed not only before the fourteenth, but two states continued to have an established church afterwards).
Some pieces apply, some don't. Libraries selectively providing access could go either way (they're not required to provide any access), but I'd expect (but wouldn't bet) that the federal limits would apply to states and their subdivisions.
hawk, esq.
she's been campaigning on this issue for the past 3 weeks (she also died for your sins). you degenerates need a NEW ATTITUDE.
Not true -- it's fear that motivates one to carry a concealed weapon in the first place.
I know the area where that happened very well (I've spent large parts of my summers there for years). The bend in the Rifle where the guy started his rant has amazing acoustics - you can hear for miles what someone is saying there.
He clamed that he couldn't see any children, but just a little way away on the other side of a ridge is a beach which is always packed with little kids in the summer.
Personally, I fully understand why he was arrested (and convicted) and I agree with the decision.
I also think censorware is a very BAD IDEA. The difference? This man was forcing his offensive speech into the faces of children, censorware stops peopel from finding what they seek.
Democrats try to pass more laws regulating guns, despite the fact that there are already plenty of laws that were supposed to have prevented things like school shootings.
Republicans try to pass more laws to "improve morals", oblivious to the fact that moral instruction by government is an oxymoron.
It's an out-and-out culture war, and it's being played out on the battlefield of the Bill of Rights.
And we're *all* losing.
--
Get your fresh, hot kernels right here!
But you're right, there is a cycle to rebellion about 30-40 years long. In fact, we should be heading into a new cultural revolution pretty soon now, in reaction to reagan/bush/clinton, unless TV has completely destroyed the minds of our youth already, which it may have.
It's possible that resisting pop-culture will be the next revolution.
Thats what the whole goverment is! Why should the FCC be any different? The US government has allways been a tool of the rich entities of the nation. When the constitution was originally written, only landowners(white males as well, but that was implied, and a different post alltogether) could vote. The US senate was chosen by the elected officials at the state level. The people didn't elect the president, they merely elected people to vote for him(still true), and all of this was done because the framers didn't trust the average citizen to make inteligent choices. Now, even though most of the above has been amended, it is nearly impossible to be elected to a higher level office without money. There are exceptions but not many. Someone with money and is being supported by moneyed people and commercial industries will hold their intrests at heart while passing bills. Ugh, I'm so worked up I don't even want to finish this ramble...
Your password has expired, please login to change it.
Five state senators have recently proposed legislation that would REQUIRE the prominent display of the ten commandments in public schools. There's an article about it here. The opening sentence (a product of its author, I admit) is quite humorous in an of itself:
Five Republican state lawmakers Thursday proposed posting the Ten Commandments in classrooms across Colorado as a way to make schools safer.
The Columbine shooting, though inexcusable in my opinion, taught us that the social hell faced by many students can lead to tragic results. So how do we solve the problem? By giving students yet ANOTHER way to call into question individual differences. Problem solved. NOT!
If anything, this article points to a very corrupt practice I see in our government - the tendency to tack on amendments that have *nothing* to do with the original legislation. The *national* proposal to *allow* the ten commandments to be posted in schools and other government buildings was proposed as an *amendment* to laws being considered for gun control. What does religion have to do with (illusory) gun control?
These lawmakers need to find another job. Ideas are welcome.
The US government dumps billions of dollars each year into the echelon project, and into the NSA. Yet I have no say as to what they do, even though that equipment supposedly is 'owned by *me*' (as you say).
Let me alter my example:
Censorship: you're saying something that a government finds offensive, so they shut you up.
Not Censorship: you're saying something (over a government-owned megaphone) that the government finds offensive, so they take their megaphone... forcing you to buy your own if you want to still be heard.
Another example: Playboy has the right (under the constitution) to print their soft porn nudie magazines and sell them. That does not mean the government is obligated to provide printing presses or retail outlets for playboy magazines to be printed and sold.
This all hangs on one issue: I have the constitutional right to free speech... does that mean the government is automatically obligated, at its own expense, to make sure that each and every american hears it (or is at least able to)? If I want to get up in front of the LA Watts district and preach about the KKK (which I seriously don't), is the government required to pay to set up a podium, microphones & speakers... or am I required to provide my own?
On your first comment - yeah, kids will find a way. When I was younger cruising BBS's it was easy for me to get at the bomb making info and nudie pics - did I blow up my school or become a serial rapist? Of course not. I became a coder instead...
Wicca harmful? I dare say Xtianity is much more harmful than Wicca - but I wouldn't want to deny anyone access or affiliation with either...
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
Thank you for the clarification, though with the influence religious zealots have in some communities, allowing will have the same effect as mandating. I'm not opposed to the ten commandments per se, (I think they're pretty good ;^) but I do have a problem with the motivation behind the amendment and despite what the backers of the legislation might say, it's a religious document and doesn't belong in publicly funded schools. To use this as a tool to reduce school violence and then turning around and voting for easier access to guns is ludicrous. But that's off topic. As long as I'm off topic, the reasons these folks continue to vote for legislation of dubious constitutionality is nothing but pandering to voters and a short-sighted need to "do the right thing." I mean, how many times can they bring up the flag burning issue?
"Society ultimately does the most harm to itself by intentionally becoming ignorant to it's surroundings. Some of the current problems today are a direct result things like voter apathy. People don't even give enough of a damn to vote, let alone force elected officials to keep their promises. A result of the self-induced ignorance is the success rate of mass propaganda campaigns. Most people (in America) are convinced that there are only two worthy political parties. Any third party is just a bunch of hippie freaks or skinheads. What they refuse to see is how both the Democratic and Republican parties have completely raped the country."
:P
:p
A couple of points here, and I might slip into a bit of a rant. Bear with it.
First off, I am a registered voter. But more often than not I do *not* vote because even if I do, I'm just casting a ballot for some prick I've never met, and am not likely to either. And aside from that, (s)he's gonna change viewpoints immediately after the election bullshit is over anyway. So from my standpoint, what's the fucking point of it? Nothing changes! We (the "average" citizen) always end up getting fucked over one way or another.
Secondly, if you are so ignorant and introverted (not you the writer I'm replying to) as to not see through the propaganda and haven't got brains enough to follow up on an interesting story with other publications of it (read the onion or utne reader for instance) than you deserve exactly what you get: Controlled.
Thirdly, in my opinion all the 'parties' *cough* string themselves up in front of us with clever lies intended to make us think they are our best friends. This is bullshit as you well know. And as anyone with a moderately intillectual mind, and any inclination to actually venture outside (sorry) knows too.
I think that's enough for now..
I think it's best to start from the assumption that all sites are potentially harmful to children without parental supervision, and let anyone who wants to warrant their site as child-safe -- whatever that means -- do so at their own risk.
Oooh... this is just great. Of course, what's special about web sites? Nothing really, so it much for the best to start from the assumption that all books are potentially harmful to children, so children should not have access to books unless the publisher legally certifies that there is nothing in the book that could potentially harm even a single child. What, the publishers say they don't have suicidal tendencies? Too bad, too bad... But there is nothing really important in books, anyway, right?
And movies! No, movies are definitely potentially harmful to children. And don't start me on TV. I suggest that our wise legislators should pass a law to embed a chip in each TV set that will scan the age of people in the room. If any of the present is a child (say, under 21 years of age), the TV should automatically and immediately switch to the Disney channel. Technical problems? Ah, don't bother my little pointy head with these complicated words!
But these are all half-measures. If we think about it, life is potentially harmful to children so why don't we just collect al the kids and put them in nice institutions where the government-certified nurses will make sure that nothing harmful (like an idea) ever approaches our little angels...
Kaa
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
Josh,
I'm sorry you feel like I'm slapping you around.
I will grant that almost all of the Christians I know are nice, friendly, generous, helpful people. That said, many of the nice friendly generous helpful Christians I know now, as an adult, believe that I, as a non-Christian, should be
required by law to adhere to the tenets of their religion.
I have no problem with Christians who believe deeply, who have undergone a serious spiritual transformation and become a better person for it. What bothers me is people who won't give me my own spiritual space --- and when I see that the government has approved _posting a Christian religious text in state offices_, I feel like that's exactly what has happened.
It seems like you are saying that propoganda works because people are deliberately ignorant.
...
I think it's more true that people are (deliberately or not) not paying attention because of the propoganda.
When television, radio, and newspapers all blare either outright lies or half-truths designed to make you want or not want to buy particular things; when there is no reasonable way to rate the veracity of a source of information; when your experience tells you to trust neither politicians nor reporters because they're invariably wrong
why should you pay attention to the news if you can't believe it anyway?
I agree with the gov't on this one...with some reluctance. In an ideal situation we should allow as much freedom of info as possible, but I don't really relish the idea of walking into my local library and finding some 11 year old cruising the fisting pics on the net. I don't particularly want a precocious 8 year old mixing ammonia and bleach in his elementary school (never mind kerosene and fertilizer).
On the other hand it would be great if they found filtering software that didn't block out things like Wicca.
Restriction of dangerous info, YES.
Restriction of freedom of religion, NO.
Anonymous Borg
A society with free speech, but no respect or concern for the welfare of others, isn't maintainable for very long. Either we (speaking as a US citizen) will repair our mistakes, or we will fall, like the Romans before us.
It's the same old song and dance, my friend...
Taking Government funding is, essentially, an invitation to regulation. Consider, for instance, federal transportation funding. While the Constitution does not clearly grant the Federal government the right to impose intrastate regulations such as those regarding minimum ages for alcohol, it *can* threaten to withhold funding for transportation funds from states which fail to comply. In the non-Government world, this is known as blackmail.
Now, by inviting Government intervention, you cannot reasonably expect bureaucrats and politicians to exercise restraint and refrain from regulating you; after all, few, if any, agencies have anything to gain by reducing their control over your lives. If you really want school networks and so forth to be free of interference from Washington, do _not_ partake of its lure.
Invite _private_ funding, with explicit requirements that no strings be attached. Ideally, a 'blind' fund could be established that the recipients would not even be aware of who their donors are, but that's a bit far-off.
It is illegal for the Fed to tie the receiving of state funding of any kind to certain legislation which the state must pass to receive the funds because essentially it amounts to the Fed writing state laws.
Wasn't this issue settled once and for all when the 55MPH speed limit was untied from being a requirement to receive highway funds? The result only proved that Feds were making local state laws since loads of states raised their speed limits once the highway fund cutoff threat was removed.
Well, if you don't block slashdot, then if I post a list of porno sites and some dirty jokes in the comments section, kids will be able to see it. Isn't that a failure on the part of your software?
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
**INDEPENDANT THOUGHT ALARM**
**INDEPENDANT THOUGHT ALARM**
"There is no spoon" - Neo, The Matrix
I'd like to see a politician-burning trend start...
I agree that our society is far too puritanical about sex -- all the while being strangely obsessed with it.
9 -06/15/150l-061599-idx.html
The real problem, though, is that the Internet is becoming a mirror of our social reality. Just as it was a place of trust and social goodwill in the 60s, as its techno-hippi e creators intended it to be, less-than-desirable elements of our society have seeped in simply because they have a right to a presence on the Net. Bigots, the religiously intolerant, sexual predators, Multi-Level-Marketers -- all have a place now on the web. The true issue behind the drive to control internet content is the government's need to control the representation of reality. Congressmen fancy that a world without pornography or anything remotely offensive would be a better world, "better for us". They misguidedly choose to treat us like children by installing the metaphorical equivalent of those annoying little spring-leashes that parents cuff on their children's wrists, forgetting that they are our representatives, not our masters. But at heart, what they are attempting is the suppression of undesirable elements of society, and to hopefully put those elements at a disadvantage in the real world. As the Internet becomes more and more a part of everyday lives, those businesses, sexually-oriented or no, and those facets of society who are denied access to a voice on the web will be that much closer to being totally eliminated from any participation in this "democracy". This is why the disparity in Net access according to socioeconomic group is so important and disturbing -- when the homeless and welfare mothers can't get online, it's much easier to ignore them, isn't it?
In case the article link doesn't come through, here is the URL (Also linked off of yesterday's Hacker News Network to the Washington Post):
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/199
The principle of aggrandizement is the fundamental law of every government. - Frederick the Great
Fine, ban the porn. But do not do it by installing filtering software. What if my kid wants to read alt.atheism in the library or visit an atheist website? These are banned by most filters, while Christian websites are not.
Why should a right-wing Christian agenda be forced upon everyone's children?
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
no you're not. :)
FinkPloyd
because they're going to face filters at work when they grow up too.. and monitoring of their email and web content, online sessions, etc.
I don't know exactly what they want to pass/strikedown, but I volunteer at my library, and they have 4 central computers that's free to the public, and one "adult" computer, as long as the library has a computer that they don't censor at all, for adults, they can censor any or all of the remaining computers. This basically comes down to the libraians just looking over yer shoulder. You wanna know how this came about? Some 13 year old was caught masturbating at one of the computers, was told to stop, and then went back in the "quiet area". Yep.
SpamMan
Thanks for the information, Ivan, about how some porn filters actually did block the Starr Report, classifying it as the Congressionally-published pornography it was.
There you have it -- an impartial computer determined that the Starr Report was indeed pornography. These Congressmen who released it (and gave its pathetic author Starr a standing ovation) are in no moral position to force America's local librarians to do anything at all regarding internet access in local libraries.
Who is more moral, upstanding, and able able to regulate library internet usage? (1) your average librarian; or (2) your average Congressman, as exemplified by Henry "Homewrecker" Hyde and Helen "Love Those Married Men" Chenoweth, who released the pornographic Starr Report.
Marjo Wycam, Master of the Programming Arts
If "my tax dollars" is the best reason you can find to not even consider such a plan, maybe you ought to just move overseas and start a porn site of your own...
Remember, were talking about software. The government could pay someone (if that was even necessary!) to develop a filtering standard and open-sourced client software. Something like this would be so cheap and simple to do, its almost stupid.
Software costs are negligable. The cost of installing the software and maintaining those installations is not. I refuse to pay money to get less from the Internet access. What's next? Pay the librarians overtime to rip out pages in books the government doesn't like?
>Is it?
>
>What constitutes a state religion?
As with any consitutional issues, you have to look at the history and background of the time and motives to understand the meaning behind the words.
What the "state religion" part was written to prohibit something like the Church of England, which was where the head of state was head of church (when the CoE was established, the King was meant to have the same power as the Pope in the Roman Catholic Church) and Parliament made theological decisions. This made England basically a theocracy. This is quite different than allowing religion to be prominant in the public forum.
Of course, recently, the Supreme Court has been quite fast and loose on it's interpretation of the Constitution so as to push a political agenda, so it probably will be struck down, but on quite shaky grounds.
Thomas O'Rear
tomed@radiks.net
Your overlooking something quite important. Under the Independent Consul act, Starr was *required* to put in all that information as part of the investigation, and the Congress was required to release the report under the Freedom of Information Act. Now, seeing some of you other comments, it seems that your main problem with the Starr report is less the "pornographic content" and more it's conclusions.
Thomas O'Rear
tomed@radiks.net
Has it occured to you that you haven't provided any argument for why not having Hustler would be ok?
Has it occured to you that several others have noted that it is available in some libraries?
Has it occured to you that there is a difference between subscribing to a magazine that costs you more money that not subscribing to it, and filtering internet access, where filtering, and thus censoring, costs you more money that not censoring?
Has it occured to you that there are no flawless ways of filtering only porn? Filtering in any form means that you also block access to lots of other sites.
Has it occured to you that most of the filtering software vendors doesn't give out data on what sites they block? And many of them actively block sites on womens rights, gay rights, atheism, and sites which inform people about the implications of their software. In other words: Anything they don't like.
You may think you're saying yes to block porn. But in reality you are saying yes to start block anything controversial.
To me, that is pure fascism.
Is there a site on the net which lists the votes
cast by each member of Congress, and the text of
the bill voted on, soon after the votes are cast?
I haven't seen one around, but such a thing would
be useful for sorting out who is responsible for
what silliness.
John
Fine, so the kid goes to the books and looks up history of erotic art or dozens of other books about famous painters who happened to think that the naked human body was a beautiful thing and painted it as such.
:-)
Why not? It was good enough for me
...and I turned out okay (I know, they ALL say that...).
Actually, yes, that _was_ censorship.
Actually, once the ball starts rolling on censorship, a dialogue begins. Once that dialgoue is going, common sense will previal (as always) and controversial works of merit will not be censored.
It's all about good judgement, people. If you're so afraid good judgement won't be excercised, you're certainly encouraged to become involved the process.
Hiding behind your keyboard and screen bellowing about 'Freedom' isn't enough.
altavista:
t ml98/porn_112498.html
+unconstitutional +library +filter
http://www.seattletimes.com/news/nation-world/h
Yea, the FCC really contributes to the nation. Bullshit. FCC caters to big business not individuals. Why do you think there are ridiculous regulations on part 15 spread spectrum shit? Because it's in the interest of telecom companies. Same goes for low power FM broadcast. They're in the back pockets of corporations. I hope the FCC burns.
If God exists and needs me to believe in "Him" then "S\He" has problems and I think I'd be better off without a God of that sort.
Choosing to believe in God for your reasons is the same as blindly following any Icon because it is easier. If there is a God, assuming It is "greater" than you (by definition) don't ya think It would be mildly pissed at some one so weak willed that they deliberately chose to take the easiest path just to be safe. Do you have such a low opinion of your god that you believe this is what you are here for? To be a sycophant.
Nice God.
Yes it is indeed sad. People need to start standing up for themselves by *any* means available. The US government now looks worse then it did before 1776.
In a few years we may have software that can be truly accurate in stopping the filth.
And a good way of helping get that software in place is to start working with it. It won't be created in a vacuum and then magically appear. It has to be hammered out in a public environment, and allowed to evolve.
Otherwise, soon there just won't be public support for Internet Terminals in libraries anywhere.
Apparently, you don't trust your kids to be able to think for themselves, and form their own beliefs.
Sure, I respect your right to protect them from physical harm, and to have some control over what they do under your roof. But it's far from that and to supporting filtering software that impose a certain set of morals both on your kids and everyone else. It's also foolish to assume that the filtering software will only block "objectionable" material. You have no direct control over what they block.
Will you complain when someone decide to block gay rights sites?
What about womens rights?
Or atheist sites?
Or what about sites that try to inform you about the extent of the filtering? Such as Peacefire.
Lots of the filtering software already block all of the above.
What if they start blocking sites about non-christian religions?
Maybe you'd prefer it if they started burning books again?
Coke sponsored a bunch of school stuff in some place (forget where it was). As a result, they got their logo on everything at the school, lots of propoganda extolling Coke force-fed students, exclusive Coke deals, excetra, excetra. I don't make it sound so bad...if you read the original article you'd see. It was downright sickening. Well, privatization and capitalism are nice things most of the time, but they do have a dark side.
www.e-thepeople.org
The ship sank. Get over it. (This sig was cut out from another's shirt and painstakingly hand-posted)
Flawed filtering software and know-nothing politicians looking towards the next election aren't going to stop violence. It's another publicity stunt, an unconstitutional one at that (if the government is the protector of our freedoms, what does this say?).
The communists are gone. Gay people are being accepted. I guess the net and its users are the last thing politicians have to blame. Hopefuly the supreme court, which keeps surprising me, will strike this measure down and strike a blow for sanity.
Remember who worked on this people, remember it next election.
"The Sage treasures Unity and measures all things by it" - Lao Tzu
My bet is that most of the companies that make filter programs will be sued out of existence in short-order if this thing stands.
A) They will never be able to filter everything "smutty"
B) They will never be able to filter only things "smutty"
What happens when little Johnny sees naughty things on the computer? Parents sue company, library, county, state.
What happens when big amazon.com gets blocked for selling a Biography on Joe Cocker--or any other business gets blocked?
BUSINESS: "You've prevented me from expanding my mind share, let alone the actual lost business/advertising. Where are my LAWYERS?!?!"
Eeeew. You *want* mass incest and polygamy (like those people in Utah) all over? Just not a goal worth fighting for, you know?
I mean, heck. When it comes down to it, I have the right to say whatever I want and bear guns. I'm required by law to attend school. Therefore, I can say whatever I want and bear guns there. Not. But...would the alternative be better?
> Well, the case is a bit different here. There is no :( -- or ever
;) ), so they use funds from the income tax which, unlike other direct taxes, they do not have to distribute to the states according to popluation, to bribe the states to pass them.
> constitutional right to drink before you're 21
> after 21 for that matter -- so the Feds can force the
> state/local governments to make these laws.
The Feds can force state/local governments to make these laws only by using the 16th amendment ( income tax ) to get around the 10th amendment. To continue the drinking age example, the constitution does not authorise the Fed to make a law establishing a drinking age, and it does not prohibit the states from doing so. According to the 10th amendment, this means that a law establishing a drinking age is the states' business. But, the Feds want to stick their noses in the states' business (and anywhere else they can fit them
> However, from the Bill of Rights point of view there is no
> difference between the Feds, the states and your friendly
> local town hall -- it's all "government"
From the Bill of Rights point of view, there _is_ a difference -- the 10th amendment.
> and government's ability to trample/ignore/go around the
> Bill of Rights is quite limited (subject, of course, to the
> whims of the Supreme Court).
The Feds routinely use the taxation powers given by the 16th amendment to go around the 10th.
I really don't understand why this is such a Bad Thing. The bill isn't saying that you can't look at porn; it just says that I don't have to pay for you to look at porn.
Libraries already don't carry Hustler. Does any other than the most close-minded ACLU types really feel that that's censorship? No. Everyone of legal age is still welcome to go down to the corner Quickie Mart and buy a copy, albeit without the assistance of a subsidy from my taxes.
In think it's too over-reactive to think that SlashDot would be censored. I don't recall any nudie pics or violent content (if you're willing to overlook Linux vs. BSD, that is).
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
This is to prevent children from accessing pornography at public libraries that recieve federal funding, and frankly, I'm all for it. This doesn't prevent adults anywhere from getting their porn, so I don't think there is anything to worry about.
Andrew Gardner
Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside a dog, its too dark to read.
Speaking of cable TV, you may remember last Fall, when Congress released a sexually explicit videotape of Kenneth Starr's minions grilling President Clinton about what parts of Monica's body he had touched and about who touched who's genitalia.
Some hypocrite Congressman, perhaps Dick Armey, said at the time that if people were offended by the sexual nature of the testimony then they did not have to watch it.
Fast forward to today and this legislation. It is interesting how these Congressional hypocrites seem to change their principles as it suits them. If people don't want to view sexually-oriented sites at the library then they don't have to. Same principle that Dick Armey enunciated with respect the video-tape that Starr made of Starr's victims being forced to talk about their own sex lives.
Don't you agree it is the same principle? No public funding for viewing porn in libraries ought to mean no public funding for Congress to release the pornographic Starr report and the perverted videotape that Starr made of Starr's victims being forced to talk about their own private sex lives.
Marjo Wycam, Master of the Programming Arts
cuz its where i do all my free porn surfing.
i like a seat in the corner where i can get my hands in my shorts and really enjoy the show.
when someone takes that seat i think "the nerve! taking a seat in perv row to do legit research!"
when was the last time someone invoked free speech to actually defend speech? more like the freedom to show off 15-year old pussy in the library.
i'm all for it!
The majority of the flaws we've found at censorware.org are errors related to how poorly computers parse natural language. The standard example is that "breast cancer" and "chicken breast" considered smut until a special case is made for them.
Right-wing biases show up also, it is true, but the main source of the problem is that the miraculous breakthrough in A.I. just hasn't happened yet.
Jamie McCarthy
Jamie McCarthy
jamie.mccarthy.vg
Well, I'm as much against censorship as the next guy, and a full out ban of anything some computer considers obscene from the library obviously is a bad idea.
Totally open Internet access in a public place does open its own can of worms though... ignoring the fear of children accidentally coming accross a porno site - which really doesn't happen that often, what about some mischivious teenager coming into the library and looking at porno sites. Is that allowed? I don't know how the laws really work, but alot of sites suggest that it's illegal for a minor to look at porn.
Or what about an adult looking at porn? He has every right to be able to do it, but what about other people in the library that don't want to see it. That's also their right. At least in our local library there is only one computer with Internet access that sits centrally located where just about everyone can see the screen. If someones looking at porn, when a couple kids walk into the building that's the first thing they'll see. An obvious solution might be to put the computer in the back, or in a seperate room, you could even put blinders around out - turn it into a nice peep show setting.
I dunno... I think there really are problems, or at least the potential for problems, and the answer probably isn't as simple as "censorship is bad", but neither is the answer "censor everything".
These sites present cases that the problem with censoring software isn't that they block porno sites, but that that they have a tendency to be overbroad and block lots of non-porno sites, for a variety of reasons.
The ONLY time I've EVER been offended at ANYTHING on TV is this. The damn censors covered up her cleavage! So my conclusion is that censorship only causes things to be offensive.
I can't be the only one with "Another Brick in the Wall, Part II" stuck in my head, eh?
Thanks for correcting my misuse of "federalism". It's been a while since my Constitutional Law class. :)
:)
"Centralization" or "central government" would have been a more accurate choice of words. "Federalism" in the context of the Constitution has a different meaning than what I intended.
What is "New Federalism"? Also (just to get more off-topic) wasn't Madison the original author of the Federalist Papers?
Please disregard these questions if they will result in my being billed.
Save the whales. Feed the hungry. Free the mallocs.
It's like we've been time-warped back to the 50s, though, where no one minded a little book-burning, should the occasion present itself. Except this time, it's the Internet.
I would ask "Why are they so afraid of information?" but we all know the answer to that. Is this some kind of breaking point we're going to keep hitting as time goes on? Will our horizons keep expanding so fast we can't keep up with it, until finally a minor cultural revolution takes place, breaks the dam and we start the process of filling the reservoir all over again?
TV comes along, and suddenly a generation is exposed to ideas and information they never would have had otherwise. The result was the 60s and 70s, where the adults struck out in fear of the unknown and the lack of control inherent in the new information age.We just started evening out again in the 80s. Are we encountering the same issue with the Internet in the 90s, to come to a head in the 00s?
Maybe with the rapid technological turnaround time we now have, with new development "generations" getting shorter and shorter, we'll get to the point where none of us can slow down enough to fear change, because we all remember a big advance that changed the culture from our own youths...
-- Raven
all the 'parties' *cough* string themselves up in front of us with clever lies intended to make us think they are our best friends.
This is bullshit as you well know.
Um - for the democrats and republicans, I'd completely agree. They are overinflated public opinion windsocks who routinely make idiotic and nation-destructive decisions. But do you really believe that it is impossible for a group of people to get together who all believe the same thing, and are simultaneously sick of this bullshit? I don't see it happening en masse, but it IS possible. See french revolution. I think there are parties out there who at least deserve to be given a shot. Instead of throwing your vote away (either on a republican or democrat who everyone assumes will win by inertia, or by not voting at all), why not check out the other parties and see if there is a candidate, however unpopular, who you actually agree with? Don't be complacent and depressed, do something. I'm a registered libertarian and I truly believe what they are looking to create is much better than what we have. I'm not saying you should vote libertarian, you may be of a different belief set than me. Check out all viewpoints, some of them don't suck.
the democrat-republican monopoly is very, very similar to the microsoft one: useless tech support when things go wrong, 50x more effort spent on marketing than producing good results, permanent overwhelming control over their customers takes precedence over quality.
You probably agree with me, but we DON'T need ANY sort of government control of information. I'd trust the judgment of a 20 sided die to raise my kid more than an elected official in this era anyway.
congress is full of perverts and freaks.. not that
theres anything wrong with it, it just pisses
me off they are so mean to everyone else for doing the same things...
ps. who is responsible for every child in america knowing
that president clinton got his dick sucked? i think
you know how. its all those upright conservative christian coalition
republicans. but if Tulip down at the PussyFoot wants to suck
a dildo, no, we cant have that get out to anyone.
fuck you j edgar hoover masturbating transvestite bob packwood adulterous jack off butt patting motherfuckers.
go into any supermarket in america.
on the front of cosmo you will see
'try the new butterfly sex position. youll be huffing
and puffing all night long'
'how to tease, please, torture, and satisfy your man'
etc etc etc.
several public libraries carry playboy, among other things,
including marquis de sade and nabokov which involve
rape and underage sex.
now how the fuck are you gonna ban the internet in places like this?
When a library opts not to purchase certain publications (perhaps pornographic magazines or books about unpopular political parties), they are saving taxpayer's dollars. When a library spends extra money to censor a publication they have already bought (by tearing out pages in an encyclopedia, or filtering certain Internet sites), they are spending taxpayer's dollars. The software, equipment, and time required to enforce Internet censorship all cost money.
The Supreme Court has ruled that the first type of censorship is OK under certain circumstances. They have also ruled (in the Loudoun County case) that the second type of censorship is not OK. Nobody should have to pay for censorship.
What can one expect from a 'government' that is basically a tool of the corporations? With this and the $@*%ing anti-flag-burning bull$hit, the corporations can better try to turn the United States into a big pool of good, little workers that never challenge their superiors. Hell, take away the machine from the Borg and you got a description of what gov't and big business want!
Say No to Micro$haft!
If you're concerned about this issue, and are a voter in one of the following US states:
Arizona
Alaska
Georgia
Hawaii
Kansas
Louisiana
Massachusetts
Michigan
Mississippi
Montana
Maine
Missouri
Nevada
North Dakota
Oregon
Tennessee
Texas
South Carolina
Washington
West Virginia
Then you have a Senator on the Commerce Committee. Give them a phone call and let them know how you feel about this issue.
Arizona
U.S. Senator John McCain
241 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20510
Phone number (202)224-2235
Fax number (202)228-2862
Alaska
SENATOR TED STEVENS
WASHINGTON, DC, OFFICE
522 HART SENATE OFFICE BUILDING
UNITED STATES SENATE
WASHINGTON, DC 20510
PHONE -- (202) 224-3004
FAX -- (202) 224-2354
Michigan
Senator Spencer Abraham
329 Dirksen Senate Office Building
Washington D.C. 20510
(202) 224-4822
michigan@abraham.senate.gov
Montana
Conrad Burns
Washington Office
187 Dirksen Senate Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20510
202/224-2644
202/224-8594 fax
202-224-8616 TDD line
Washington
Slade Gorton
Washington, D.C. Office
730 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20510
(202) 224-3441
(202) 224-9393 (fax)
Mississippi
Trent Lott
Washington, DC
SR-487
WASHINGTON, DC 20510
(202) 224-6253
FAX (202) 224-2262
Texas
Kay Bailey Hutcheson
Washington Office
284 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510-4304
202-224-5922
202-224-0776 (FAX)
202-224-5903 (TDD)
E-Mail: senator@hutchison.senate.gov
Maine
Olympia J. Snowe
Senator Olympia J. Snowe
250 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510-1903
202-224-5344
In Maine, dial toll free: 1-800-432-1599
Missouri
John Ashcroft
Hart Senate Office Building
Room 316
Washington, D.C. 20510
(202) 224-6154
Fax: (202) 228-0998
Tennessee
Bill Frist
416 Russel Senate Office Building
United States Senate
Washington, D.C.
Phone number: 202/224-3344
TDD number: 202/224-1911
e-mail address: senator_frist@frist.senate.gov
Mailing Address:
Senator Bill Frist
United States Senate
Washington, D.C. 20510-4205
Kansas
Sam Brownback
Senator Sam Brownback Hart Senate Office Bldg.
Washington, DC 20510
Phone: (202) 224-6521
Fax: (202) 228-1265
South Carolina
Ernest F. Hollings
Washington, D.C.
125 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20510
(202)224-6121
Hawaii
Daniel K. Inouye
Washington D.C.
722 Hart Building
Washington, D.C. 20510-1102
202-224-3934
West Virginia
John D. Rockefeller IV
Washington, DC Office
531 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
(202) 224-6472
fax: (202) 224-7665
Massachusetts
John F. Kerry
Washington, DC
United States Senate
Washington, DC 20510-2102
tel:(202) 224-2742
fax:(202) 224-8525
Louisiana
John B. Breaux
WASHINGTON, D.C.
516 HART SENATE OFFICE BUILDING
WASHINGTON, D.C. 20515-1803
(202) 224-4623
(202) 224-1986 (TDD)
HOURS: 9:00AM-6:00PM (EST)
Nevada
Richard H. Bryan
Washington, D.C.
269 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20510
(202) 224-6244
North Dakota
Byron L. Dorgan
WASHINGTON, D.C.
713 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
(202) 224-2551
Fax (202) 228-4466
Oregon
Ron Wyden
WASHINGTON, DC
516 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
(202) 224-5244
Georgia
Max Cleland
Washington Office
461 Senate Dirksen Building
Washington, DC 20510
Phone (202) 224-3521
Fax (202) 224-0072
The world will not get better through technology. We must seek to be better people.
Here you are espousing free speech as loudly as possible, yet you want to deny me my right to walk through a public building that my tax dollars paid for as much as yours did, carrying a large poster of the 10 commandments??
This is absurd. Free speech is for everyone, not just non-christians!!!
Josh
sleffer@hotmail.com
sleffer@home.com
jwent@checkgallery.com
They want to block "child pornography and obscene content", eh?
:), Stephen King books, war novels, chemistry books, newspapers, magazines, etc could be defined as containing "obscene content" (especially considering the post-Littleton context in which this is being proposed...I remember reading about the VietCong's homemade weaponry when I was a kid; we don't want kids learning how to fashion weapons, now do we?)
Well, I can agree with not wanting child porn available to children, but, as a one-time library employee and current library volunteer (as well as a person capable of rational thought), I must say that this is a Bad Plan.
It's a Bad Plan because libraries are meant to be educational resources. Once we start banning "obscene content" from the screens of library computers, we have precedent to start banning "obscene content" from the shelves of the library. Which means that any overprotective mother who finds her child in the reference section browsing art books could sue the library for having books with pictures of Michealangelo's sculpture "David". (and wasn't the person who modeled for said sculpture only about 15? making it child porn, in a sense?) That's *just* what we need. Some of Picasso's works (if I'm identifying them correctly as his) have bare breasts represented. Can't have that, now can we? Our library carries movies too, including _Pleasantville_. In said movie, there is a painting of a nude woman. Need to get rid of that movie too.
And that's not even a very broad definition of "obscene content". Depending on how you interpret it, all of the trash romance novels (big loss, i know
Granted, this law may not specifically endanger our book collections, but it's only a short step further. Also, I grant that censoring public library collections isn't a new thing, but it's something that (in my opinion, at least) we should not encourage with laws of this kind.
Does anyone know of any petitions we can sign against this?
One step closer to communism. Trying to regulate what we can see and learn, dont want us to learn anything that might harm them... oh no.
That's because children have no rights according to the government...
There's a serious problem with Pascal's Wager. According to Pascal, one is better off believing in God because of the potential bad consequences -- going to hell -- of not believing.
... which god? Pascal's Wager is just as applicable to Allah, the Jewish G-d, Ahura Mazda, Zeus, or Amida-Buddha, as it is to your Baptist God. If you believe in the Baptist God and it turns out that Ahura Mazda (the Zarathustrian God) is the real god, you get to go to Zarathustrian Hell. Pascal's Wager gives you no reason to value the one over the other.
... didn't Jesus himself preach against public displays of holiness? "When you pray, do not do it in the streets as the hypocrites do ..."
However
The fact that some of the ideas in the Ten Commandments are good ideas does not mean that the whole document is valuable, nor that it should be taught in schools. Remember that the Ten Commandments begin with "I am the LORD thy God who brought you out of Egypt; thou shalt have no other gods before me." This is an explicitly Judeo-Christian message (actually, an explictly Jewish message that's been co-opted by Christians). While "Thou shalt not murder" and "Thou shalt not steal" are very good ideas to teach children, it is utterly inappropriate for the government to teach children Judaism or Christianity.
Further, it is inappropriate in an ostensibly free country for the government to teach people that religion is coextensive with, or necessary to, ethical or moral thought. Religion is too often and too easily co-opted by intolerant and theocratic movements, as one can see in the case of the Southern Baptist Convention (which I know does not represent all Southern Baptists) and the Religious Right. This is anathema to the republic.
For that matter
Since when is the internet a 'Government funded network' ?? The library is paid for by me, my parents, my friends, the people I work with every day, you, your friends, etc... Shouldn't we each get to choose what he see or don't see? The 'government' doesn't pay for ANYTHING, we do.
Josh
sleffer@hotmail.com
sleffer@home.com
jwent@checkgallery.com
Well, unfortunately, all the money I have to spare to have forcibly taken by me by my govenment has been taken up by federal taxes. I usually end up giving 10 to 20 times as much to the US as I do to California, though California gives me ALL the benefits I might hope to recieve for paying taxes. There needs to be a tax revolution where people give their local govenments enough money to be independent, and screw the feds.
Somehow I am skeptical that this government filtering software is going to be as restrictive as the vast majority of paranoid Slashdotters seem to think. I suppose I'm in a minority here, but I think the government probably should try and restrict stuff like white supremacist literature and "Shots of my wife I tied up out back and beat with sticks". If my 10-year old asked me to rent him a porn video, I'd likely say no. Admittedly, there's easy possibility of disabling the software by savvy young minds, which renders the whole idea useless....
Wah!
Correlating CDA votes to Starr report release votes yielded the 285 Most Hypocritical US Representatives tasty bit.
Set one of these up ASAP. It helps you walk right through most proxy-server based censorship. The proxy server is Free Software. Anyone can download it, modify it, share it with their friends, and set up their own proxy.
...the 10th is overridden by 1-8.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
"Just in case you missed it, the Starr Report was about official misconduct related to the President getting his dick sucked in the oval office. Its difficult to go for a conviction unless you are specific as to what was being covered up."
In case you missed it, the report showed that Clinton was fingering Monica each time she was caressing him..which showed that he DEFINATELY lied about not having sexual relations, even under the limited definition. That and the cigar incident proves that he committed purjury.
But the part that people miss (on purpose), is how Starr proves the pattern of the Jones sexual harassment case...showing how Clinton used the powers of the government and government officials to get Lewinsky different jobs that she wanted..how she got preferencial treatment in government affairs in exchange for sex. It's great for us to know that if any woman wants preferencial treatment from the president and the government, all she needs to do is sleep with the president. THAT was the point that the report made so well, but of course, we didn't want to hear it and admit that our form of government is a sham....
but that's what you get from idiotic collectivism.
Hopefully it will still be found unconstitutional. Some filtering in grade schools I can understand, but it should be left up to individual schools to determine their policy. Censorship in libraries, however, is absolutely abhorant. Censorship at the highschool level is also a Bad Idea. Even at the grade school level, the best filter is teacher involvement in the web surfing experience. Making the computer an unattended *replacement* for adult supervision is almost as bad using the television for that (at least with small children).
And what about this possible ban on Internet gambling? The way I read it, it is really the casino industry trying to protect their business. I don't gamble, but I am annoyed that the government feels they need to *protect* me in this way. Just more errosion of our freedoms.
Thad
The Bolachek Journals
What is it with the christian bashing here? I noticed from another thread that there are a LOT of christians who post here and they never seem to bash other religions, but we get slapped around and no one seems to mind.
If parents would teach children what is right and what is wrong then the 75% of our problems would go away. Murder = Wrong, Rape = Wrong, Theft = Wrong, who's going to disagree with that? Why is having 'christian' values veiwed as such a bad thing? Wiccans hold many of the same values 'Do what you will, so long as it harm none'. I don't see the conflict here. No religion I know of except maybe radical muslim teaches violence against other people.
Josh
sleffer@hotmail.com
sleffer@home.com
jwent@checkgallery.com
Then again, any censorship is a bad idea. But in libraries it'd be even worse. The point of a library is to be a collection center of information. If we begin cutting out anyflow of information, no matter what the content maybe, we're losing something. We used to have a list of banned books, because we feared what was contained within them. Many of those banned books were also great literary works by some of our most celebrated authors, and are now not only allowed once again, but required reading in many school's English classes.
On a similar note of censorship... If we did allow this bill to pass, what sites would be blocked? Those which contained "Sexually Explicit or Violent Material" is how they usually phrase it. I think I saw that in this article too. Does that mean every news network on the web would be blocked? Thenews is certainly one of the greatest sources of violent content in any media. We have wars, rape, killing, terrorism, and other atrocities occuring in the world. Preventing people from seeing it doesn't stop those from happening. And removing said content from the web greatly reduces a person's ability to research using the web, since most research topics probably have at least one violent aspect. Do we next cut out chemical health advisories because the chemical may be fatal, and therefore used by some sadistic kid? Granted, this is a slippery slope argument, but the real problem here is not the slope. Normally these arguments run along the lines that if we continue, it will lead to absurdity. This one begins in absurdity. Keeping this content out of libraries does little to help anything (especially those adults who may need access to potential censorship canidates, depending on exactly what gets shut out), and is potentially very harmful for anyone wishing to do research at libraries. Granted, libraries should probably filter out the porn sites (that isn't precisely a good use of a library computer anyways), but using a gov't mandate to do so, and also remove other sites will not help. If ids really want to get on the internet to see something, they will. I'd think it better if they did it at a library where they havea greater chance of being seen, than at some kids house when the parents are out, or watching the news or otherwise ignoring their kids. That's where we need to focus. Kids can't be quite so violent if parents are a little more watchful. Again, granted, that isn't the whole answer, but it is certainly better than loosening gun control up at gun shows to a 24 hour limit on a background check, to be performed by over-taxed law enforcement officers (not the gun retailer), and then placing a worse than useless ban on a library research tool.
~Anguirel (lit. Living Star-Iron)
"Veni; Vidi; Vi C++"
~Anguirel (lit. Living Star-Iron)
QA: The art of telling someone that their baby is ugly without getting punched.
I remember hearing a report on some news show or another (NPR?) where a new method of filtering is being tried out. Essentially all minors must use the filtering program until they get a parental consent form to use an un-filtered version. All non-minors are allowed un-filtered access.
It seemed to strike a quite agreeable compromise between First Amendment rights and parental responsibility.
Everything that exists in society or on the Internet is not appropriate for kids, especially at the high school level where maturity is in short supply.
That's what parents are for. I'm sick of seeing the government try to raise everyone's kids for them. I don't want my tax money going to libraries where I have to have the content filtered for me. If they are concerned about children, try spending more on education rather than making it more difficult to access information. Maybe if parents were better educated, they could actually take care of their children. Maybe if children were better educated they would be less inclined to do stupid things. Unfortunately, I suppose that they don't want to do that because it isn't what the nuts have been screaming about lately and it costs money that they would rather squander on something that will have much less effect on the country. There's also the problem that education produces people who can't be herded like sheep. That must scare the hell out of politicians.
There's also the practicality issue. I haven't seen a filter yet that actually worked properly. They don't exist. There are plenty out there that can be customized, but you can't customize them to the point where they only block out the "bad stuff" and not other stuff as well. Then there's the problem of the software makers providing defaults that block out sites that they simply don't like because they criticize their company or filtering software in general, among other things.
This bill is idiotic. It will do nothing but force libraries to censor all sorts of things that should not be censored. Why do adults need filtering software anyway? Are we not mature enough to decide for ourselves what we should or should not see or read? Congress is trying to (once again) end-run around the Constitution by using this kind of extortion to beat libraries into submission. I don't want my tax dollars used like this. I don't see how anyone else could either.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
I think it would be good to censor libraries.
I can't walk into the library and look at a
copy of penthouse in the magazine section,
I can't even look at a copy of Playboy or
the graphic magazine Heavy Metal. Why should
internet use in the library be any different.
It comes down to this, like everything else
the only place for uncensored viewing of anything
is in your own damn home. That is the way the
world is. Some people might think its performance
art for a guy to hang a hose out of his ass on
stage, but for me to just run up at some event
and disrobe and do the same thing is not likely
to endear me to the populace.
The library is a public place, it was never meant
to be a place that was totally uncensored. If
it was free of censorship you would see stacks
of Oui and Cherry in the magazine section. Guess
what? You don't. But you can usually look at
Redbook or Field and Stream.
This is just incredibly ridiculous to even
talk about. Of course, there are so many sites
that don't have a particular porn associated name
that I can get to real fast and make a picture
of a cock in a female's mouth appear, that
censoring become's almost impossible anyway.
Do you honestly think that we are not censored,
everytime we walk out of the house, everywhere
we go? You can't even talk in a movie theater,
why the hell should the library have uncensored
internet use?
krom
It is not a democracy, so it should not be implementing the will of the people when that will conflicts with the Bill of Rights. Representatives (including the President) who implement that will at the expense of constitutional rights should rightly be considered traitors.
--
Get your fresh, hot kernels right here!
"Society has a serious problem with sex. Some demystification and letting go of archaic Victorian values and a little dialogue between parent and child would allieviate the need for the government to play GOD. "
Isn't it strange how it's 'OK' to show someone getting shot 15 times in the chest on TV, but it's 'BAD' to show a woman's breasts (But ok to show marilyn manson's surgically implaneted breasts)? We fear our children will have sex more than we fear that they will become violent.
Josh
sleffer@hotmail.com
sleffer@home.com
jwent@checkgallery.com
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
For the adults out there, what would of you done had they taken away the ability to research what you were interested in when you were a kid? How many of you would of let them do it? I know my parents tried a couple times when I was a kid. Wasn't pretty, but they learned. :-)
So, I got to read what I want, learn what I want, even experiment with bombs, and the such. I sure learned a lot while I was a kid. Thank god for that. If I hadn't been able to, where would I be? Probably flipping hamburgers with my other high school friends. I never killed anyone, never even hurt another sole. Having that access was the greatest thing in the world.
Please don't take that away from our kids today. Instead, TEACH them how to be good kids. Don't just force it on them. It just doesn't work that way.
The way I see it, as long as the Feds are paying for this stuff, they have every right to dictate how the money is spent.
'Scuse me. Where do you think the Feds got the money in the first place? That's right... TAXES. Who pays those taxes? You and me and everyone else with a job. They don't have any right to try to end-run around the Constitution and use the money that US citizens gave them to impose their morals on our local libraries. Our libraries are controlled by our communities, just like they should be.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
But when Looney Tunes were originally aired in theatres, they were uncensored. Now when they air on TV they are censored. That's the exact opposite.
As Chomsky points out, regimes like the Soviet Union ruled directly by force - in America, propoganda is used to control people. No other country engages in such dubious exercises in public disinformation and misinformation as the US.
I don't mean filtering, I mean altering and filtering of content so you only think you're free.
If a local community wants to filter or not filter internet access at their local library, I don't see where it's any of congress's d*mn business.
What exactly are they filtering out? The article doesn't seem to be clear on what kind of material is being censored. If they just wanna keep 14 year olds away from porn at the library, I think that's understandable, isn't it?
I would rather have kids looking at porn than watching Barney...
Never mind that the courts have already determined that requiring filters on internet access in public libraries is a violation of the constitutional protection of freedom of speech.
But then, the current congress has never given a damn about the Constitution or the Bill of Rights.
They want an ammendment to the Constitution to protect the flag (and promote nationalism), but trample on the Constitution itself (and the civil liberties it was designed to protect) every chance they can get.
I say we fire 'em all in the next election.
The way I see it, as long as the Feds are paying for this stuff, they have every right to dictate how the money is spent.
But I fund the Feds! I have every right to voice my opinion about how that money is spent since I am required to pay it. And I don't agree with government censorship of any sort.
I had this letter published in my local newspaper two years ago, but it's just as relevant today. Thoughts, anyone?
(Quad-City Times, Davenport, IA, July 29, 1997, p. 6A)
Censorship is no remedy
Re: "Internet is uncensored in Q-C libraries," July 21
This front-page story suggests that Internet censorship is a panacea that protects children from the millions of pornographic web sites and other ailments of the Internet. This incorrect view is based on a public moral panic, created by an alarmist media. Blocking tools may block indecent web sites, but they also blacklist websites based on ideology alone.
Current blocking software blocks web sites from the Boston Coalition for Freedom of Expression, to Nizkor (a Holocaust remembrance page), to Pathfinder (Time-Warner's news and entertainment site), to the National Organization for Women. These web sites are blocked purely because they contradict the conservative ideology of the software developers. In fact, developers of the popular CyberSitter software are so paranoid that their software blocks access to Peacefire ( http://www.peacefire.org), an anti-censorship alliance tha thas publicly criticized the extent of CyberSitter's filters.
Because of the overreach of filtering software, the American Library Association ( http://www.ala.org) adopted a resolution on July 2. It stated that "the use of filtering software by libraries to block access to constitutionally protected speech violates the Library Bill of Rights (a 1948 ALA document affirming that libraries are forums for the free exchange of information and ideas)." The policies of the public libraries in the area fully comply with the ALA's resolution. In light of these facts, local libraries should be praised, not criticized, for their choice to implement full Internet access.
Ryan A. Park
There's a very simple solution to this whole "filtering" debate: require adult oriented sites to note as much in some META or other tag, and have all filtering software check that tag.
If an adult-oriented site does not label itself as such, they should be prosecuted. What adult site would _not_ do this? What adult site is targeting children?Contrary to popular moralist belief, the motivations of these sites are not to "corrupt our babies", but to MAKE MONEY.
Yes, we have "ratings services", but why jump through hoops just to state the obvious? If you know damn well your content should not be viewed by children, just add such a content advisory.
Instead of such simplicity, we have massive lists of sites probably long-dead, and filtering of words branded "naughty".
Someone bonk the government with a clue so we can "protect the children" without resorting to blind (or blurred) censorship.
--
#19845
With all the pro's and con's running about on the subject, I'm surprised nobody has suggested that libraries restrict themselves to a text based browser like lynx, and not hooked up to a printer (well, at least some of the terminals in my local library are). While I enjoy the the bells and whistles and the pictures, I usually go looking for information.
The appeal of the pr0n sites is the pictures, and as a lot of the posters have pointed out, if someone wants to find info on bombs or "feelthy" pictures, there's always the hardcopy.
(of course I'm an anonymous coward, do you know how many userid's and passwords I have to keep track of already?)
what an evil dirty word...
What makes you loosers think you deserve to go into a library to get your dose of porn? What's to stop you from getting your OWN PC and ISP? Can afford it? Well then, get a JOB!! Maybe then you can enter the real world and not have so much time to complain about my taxes not paying for your habits.
I get sick of hearing all these ingrates whining whenever our leaders decide to restrict handouts. Here's a clue or two. Cruising the web for free in a public or school library is NOT guaranteed by the Constitution. It is very unlikely that the valuable data that would be restricted by filtering software isn't available in other places! It is possible, even easy, to get what would be restricted in other places. And finally, it is not your RIGHT to have me and other American taxpayers pay for your entertainment (apologies to all my international aquaintances 8*).
It is your right to speak. It is not your right to have your speech dissiminated by either me or the government. Limiting what can be viewed with government funded facilities doesn't limit anyones ability to speak out. Does this mean that duly appointed government leaders and officials get to decide what is proper to be destributed on government funded networks? Yeah, so what? He who pays the piper gets to call the tune.
So cut the bitching and whining and go hire your own piper!!
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
Woooo! I just checked the voting log for the bill, my uncle voted "Nay" to it ;) Go Ed!!! hehe
Now just need to make sure he keeps supporting the deregulation of crypto standards.
And I would quote pascals wager right back at you... every religious group wants you to pick THEIR god above all others...I can't follow all religions at the same time...and I would be forced to make a guess on what religion is the "correct" religion.
:P
gee..you think that a "loving" god would give us a very explicit sign on what religion is actually "right", so I don't pick the "wrong" religion and go to hell.
Fine, so the kid goes to the books and looks up history of erotic art or dozens of other books about famous painters who happened to think that the naked human body was a beautiful thing and painted it as such.
I don't particularly want a precocious 8 year old mixing ammonia and bleach in his elementary school
Fine, so the determined malcontent, bent on blowing up his school, checks out a slew of chemistry textbooks, and figures out the recipes from there.
Where there's a will, there's a way...but I'm sure you know all that...
North America got off the communist kick in the 1970s, give it a rest. Cuba's communist, and the average Joe (Juan) there is doing a helluva lot better than he was back when Batista was in power. I think you've got enough paranoia there. Get some exercise.
Wah!
A katana is a japanese long-sword, no?
Anyhow, he was whipped with a cane. A hard one.
I really don't care for him. Sorry, no sympathy from me. IF the consequences of the crime were not
well known, i.e. if the punishment was determined on-the cuff, then I would have a problem. However, the law of the land dictates that the boy had to be whipped. So be it. I gaurantee you this...that boy will never ever do what he did again. And if he did...he would DESERVE to get whipped again. This time...HARDER.
That's crap. Many people (myself included) carry
a weapon because we believe it is our responsibility
to protect ourselves. Am I afraid? No, my
personal demographics paint me as an extremely
unlikely victim of violent crime. I'm armed
because it's the responsible thing to do (think
of jumper cables in the trunk).
I have known people who were armed out of fear.
In my experience, these people were in the
minority.
"If the government does not have a right to "determine morality," then how can we justify murder being illegal? After, some people may have no moral objection to murder."
Because it is a coercive act that violates the right of the other person to live. You don't need to be religious to realize why it is wrong...
I just read the first amendment last night. It's short--45 words covering 5 topics. It is tough to ascribe the 16 words concerning religion their broad public impact. However, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion..." certainly applies in the case of this particiular amendment.
Not necessarly. One thing that many like to overlook in studying the constitution is "original intent", trying to deduce what the Founding Fathers meant to have happen.
To give an example of this, I give you this quote:
"The First Amendment has erected a wall of separation between church and state, but that wall is a one directional wall; it keeps the government from running the church, but it makes sure Christian principles will always stay in government."
-Thomas Jefferson
Jan 1, 1802
Address to the Danbury Baptists
Now, there are other quotes and writings by the Founding Fathers that also illustrate this, but this is one exampe that shows that the idea of "separation of church and state" as many assume it means doesn't exist.
Now, then, will this amendment be declaired unconstitutional by the Supreme Court? Probably. But, with a sound constitutional basis? Probably not.
Thomas O'Rear
tomed@radiks.net
Myself, I'd rather live in a society where I was more accountable for what I said and did, but didn't have to worry so much about getting ripped off or assulted when I left the house.
Let's get back to the topic of censorship. Starr and Congress wrote and released in HTML format the pornographic Starr report which described in detail a man "fingering," as you put it, a woman.
Don't people who rely on public libraries for their access have a right to know that Congress is misusing their money in this way? Shouldn't they be able to see this evidence of Congressmen wasting tax dollars producing pornography?
Do you think that only people with home internet connections should be able to read the pornographic Starr report, and those who rely on libraries should not be able to do so?
Do you mean, like, collectively deciding what people can read in public libraries, and what they cannot?
Marjo Wycam, Master of the Programming Arts
>Well, if you don't block slashdot, then if I
>post a list of porno sites and some dirty jokes
>in the comments section, kids will be able to
>see it. Isn't that a failure on the
>part of your software?
Not as I see it. Kids don't usually look for that type of thing on SlashDot, as far as I know. And SmartFilter doesn't block pages just because of porn links -- instead, the sites linked to are listed in the Sex category. Dirty jokes are sometimes in assorted categories because of sexy material (Sex category) or insulting racist/sexist (Hate Speech category) or disgusting (Extreme category) content, but when SmartFilter occasionally needs to add dirty jokes sites to the list, search engines can find many new ones. No need to focus on blocking already-moderated public forums.
The opinions expressed in this email may or may not represent the views of Secure Computing Corporation or its affiliates. I'm on a smoke break right now, except I'm posting on SlashDot instead of having a cigarette.
print "Libraries already don't carry $magazine_i_dont_read. Does any other than the most close-minded $group_i_done_agree_with types really feel that that's censorship? No. Everyone of legal age is still welcome to go down to the corner Quickie Mart and buy a copy, albeit without the assistance of a subsidy from my taxes."
...where I work there was a movement to prevent bad pictures and content on the web and a draconian filter was in place. Many technical sites were banned for reasons I do not know. I guess the information was deemed dangerous and too advanced for our minds. One of the sites blocked was the entire dejanews! Those newsgroups people can say anything and must be offensive... What pissed me off was when I tried finding technical literature for a printer in front of my boss and the site was blocked...
What was interesting is that no gun sites were blocked, so an NRA buddy of mine was having a good ol time in his NRA chatrooms.
I did find a way to get around the blocking software. Going through www.anonymizer.com got around anything.
Blocking software is impersonal, inconsistant, and not very smart. If a kid wants to look at titties, its better to have a person intervene in the disruption than some stupid unproven snake oil blocking software that can only be marketed by hype.
Ivan has already posted that porn filters when left to their own devices judge the Starr Report pornographic and filter it out. If the pornographic Starr Report was "necessary" then that is all the more reason to permit patrons of public libraries to read this "necessary" pornographic report. We will not be able to read it and be proud of the great porn that Kenneth W. Starr was able to write if public libraries are required to filter out pornography.
Marjo Wycam, Master of the Programming Arts
North America got off the communist kick in the 1970s, give it a rest. Agreed. However... Cuba's communist, and the average Joe (Juan) there is doing a helluva lot better than he was back when Batista was in power. Are you ignorant, or just stupid? I don't think that some of my best friends would've risked their lives crossing the ocean in a rubber raft just to risk being kicked out of Florida if Cuba weren't such a miserable hell-hole.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
I've often wondered if anyone has proof that letting 11 year olds see fisting pictures (or pornography in general) is actually harmful.
:-).
I'm inclined to think it isn't, but I'd be willing to listen to any counterargument. Everything I've read on the subject just takes for granted that it's Bad For the Kids. I'd like to see some solid proof before encouraging policies that severely damage people's freedom to learn about all topics, fisting included.
I think the theory is that children are creatures of innocence, but based on the kids I've met, I think that theory has no basis in fact.
As for the making of bombs, I've seen some of the material on the net on this topic, and I think most of it is bound to dissuade more than encourage readers. The truly determined psychopath will have no trouble getting this information, whether through the net or through books and magazines readily available. You might also bear in mind that it's a human tendancy to want to crash through these barriers; interest in bomb-making increases exponentially when someone tells you it's "forbidden". My advice would be to encourage your unruly adolescent to make all the bombs he wants; then it won't happen
Just because someone got the information through the net doesn't mean they wouldn't obtain it elsewhere if the net didn't exist. I think the probability that the Columbine High School kids' violence could have been prevented by censorship is laughably low.
Finally, the type of person who likes to censor would most likely consider wicca harmful. So you have a choice: Let people see Wiccan information and everything else, or most likely deny people wiccan information for good. I know which one I'd choose.
D
----
Not that it matters much anymore...
IIRC, a katana is a reed "sword" - that is, a "sword" shaped out of reeds - it actually doesn't look like a sword, more like a short lance - it is conical in shape, the reeds coming to a point at the tip, and spread out about a hand width or so at the hilt. If what I have described is _not_ a katana, then I apologize - but I believe this is what they whipped the boy with.
These "swords" are mainly used as practice swords, but they are pretty effective even when used as real weapons. I have seen them used in SCA tourneys (along with other type practice weapons), and they are heavy and hard hitting. Like I said before - they can BREAK bones.
Is this fair for such a crime? Maybe if he was whipped with a belt - that would be ok. Maybe even a leather flail? But in your opinion, you would have him hit with something that amounts to board, or a pole. Why not just shoot him in stomach and let him bleed to death while spitting on him?
Go back to your hole.
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
Right, as the guy who replied to this said, this is NOT democracy... the US is a specially formulated blend of government, a sort of democratic republic.... If allowed, Christians WILL trample the rest of the religions in the country, and do so under the name of government and freedom, and so on and so forth. What prevents this is the system set up by the Founders which allows the will of the people to implemented in an INDIRECT manner... There is an intentional delay, a buffer... Maddison states somewhere in the _Federalist Papers_ that the ideas and desires of the people should be passed through a body of wise and just people, not immediately implemented... As for the people being wise and just, the founders realized this was frequently not the case, so they made provisions for the will of the people to be implemented regardless of ANY opposition from the government, but such an implementation DOES take time. So, basically what I was trying to say is that we should keep in mind that the people in power are not there simply to reflect whatever the people who elected them might have been thinking that instant--they are in fact frequently the opposite: a brake on the desires of the people...
Berck
Posted by FascDot Killed My Previous Use:
But that doesn't make it right or even legal.
Example: I walk into the house and find my wife in bed with another man. Well, I want to kill him, naturally. Perfectly understandable. But wrong and illegal.
--
"Please remember that how you say something is often more important than what you say." - Rob Malda
here's a very simple solution to this whole "filtering" debate: require adult oriented sites to note as much in some META or other tag, and have all filtering software check that tag.
Two problems: 1. people won't use this tag, and 2. software to check for the tags will have to be paid for with my tax dollars. I object.
If an adult-oriented site does not label itself as such, they should be prosecuted.
The United States Department of Justice can not prosecute people outside of the United States.
What adult site would _not_ do this?
Adult sites outside of the US. Adult sites owned by lazy operators. Adult sites owned by cheap operators.
What adult site is targeting children?
Since not very many children have credit cards, probably very few.
There's a simpler, more cost effective, more reliable way of handling this. See that little X in the upper corner of your browser window?
I've read about all of these new ideas for top level domain names -- why not add one to the list which generally specifies material which is useless to most library-goers. Of course, no one would be required to append '.pr0n' to the end of their hostname, but I'd bet that most would do so voluntarily (since it obviously lets everyone know where to go) and it could be easily filtered out without impacting the rest of the net.. ..
Other ideas:
*.teen
*.hardcore
*.nerdsAndSheep
etc.
Alex Bischoff
---
Alex Bischoff
HTML/CSS coder for hire
You obviously havn't been to other countries. Almost all countries engage in this kind of propaganda campaign aginst their own citizens continuously. Some countires go as far as to require all media to be state-controlled (including the internet, which is why network access is so hard to come by in these countries). You can't seriously think that the Chinese government is more forthcoming to its people than the US government? We still don't know how many people were killed in Tienamen Square.
I read the internet for the articles.
{Slightly off-topic rant following... my appologies}
Here's another one: A senator from Georgia suggested that the Columbine High School shootings would not have happened if the 10 Commandments were posted in the school. So, the Congress passes a law allowing schools to do so, thinking this is a solution to violent behavior in children. On the same day, they pass a National Rifle Association-backed bill that weakens the background checks on firearms purchased at gun shows. Hello?? Are you kidding me?
Teenager #1: "Hey, want me to get my friend to buy us some guns down at the gun show so we can bring them to school tomorrow and wade through the blood executioner-style?"
Teenager #2: "Nah, we'd have to wait a whole 24 hours to get the guns, plus don't you see that poster over there? It says 'Thou shalt not kill'. We wouldn't want to go against that, would we?"
OK, I may have drifted slightly off-topic here, and I don't mean to make a joke about the Columbine shootings, but the point is the same. Congress shouldn't attempt to solve the morality problems of America until they come to terms with their own morality issues, and until they can manage to stay in touch with the people they are supposed to represent.
-- Mid
thomas.loc.gov looks exactly like the site I was :)
looking for. How nice of Congress to provide it
for us.
John
That bill will (almost certainly) be passed by the House within the week. It then gets shot back to the Senate, which has already passed a similar form; they too will have to vote on the modified bill.
There are numerous other amendments that make this bill a bad idea. Children as young as 13 will be tried as adults. Judeo-Christianity's Ten Commandments will be posted in public schools (though apparently Buddhism's Four Noble Truths are still unwelcome).
But the worst part of it will be the censorship of every federally-funded school and library across the nation. To be precise, we will be turning over responsibility for that censorship to unaccountable third-party software companies who use computers to scan for naughty keywords. (Information on this shoddy and biased software is available at censorware.org.) Third-party censorship is the worst threat that the net will face in coming years, because everyone thinks computers can magically determine what's porn.
Don't get complacent and think it will be overturned. This bill may well be Constitutional because it is tied to federal funds. Find your representatives, find out how they've voted, and call them at (202) 225-3121.
More info on the bill is at the ACLU.
Jamie McCarthy
Jamie McCarthy
jamie.mccarthy.vg
Their Hatian neighbors also want out. Let's just say blaming it purely on communism is propaganda, not the whole truth.
Why not just place the monitors in plain view? That way if someone wants to view porn, everyone else (including a librarian) can see what the perv is doing. Nothing like a little public humiliation to enforce public (or pubic) decency, eh?
"Sometimes you have to listen to a lot of useless
talk" - Rush
But of course they'll censor it, Heaven forbid we should have access to useful information. Especially the writings of those utterly confused 'Founding Fathers'. What would we do if people read that it was not only their right, but their duty to tear down the government and start anew once corruption set in? The big question: When this happens, how will the military split?
Enforced morals via censorship is bad, but there is also a time and a place for everything. Most libraries don't carry visual pornographic materials (one of the local libraries where I grew up used to carry Playboy, not sure if they still do) and thats their right. It shouldn't be the governments job or responsibility to provide, enforce or mandate filtering however.
Some people are going to have a problem with libraries censoring or discouraging pornography as well. Get over it, go buy a magazine or rent a video. Most forms of media or libraries are censored in one form or another. Slashdot is censored in the form of having editors. The editors only post articles which from their point of view fit in with the editorial guidelines they've set forth: News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters. I might feel that to me "The Internet Archive of Invasively Nude Female Geeks" fits in with the mandate, but its up to Rob and Hemos and others whether it gets posted.
Likewise I can walk down the hallway to our company library and look at the magazines: IEEE Circuits and Systems yes, Hustler no. Do I feel offended that I can't get pornography here? Nope, I'm free to do that on my own time. I would be offended if the company decided to filter out certain websites. I wouldn't be offended if I were repremanded for visiting them on company time though.
School Net filtering bills are nothing new, but the recent carnage at the nation's high schools has no doubt intensified concern about minors' online habits. The Juvenile Justice Bill is stacked with provisions in reaction to the incident in Littleton, Colorado, which left 14 students and one teacher dead. The incident also brought children's Net use into sharper focus, because the Littleton killers reportedly were heavy online users.
/. 'em come election time (it's how our system works, remember?)
Fallout from the disturbed. The only reason that this legislation is being brought up was the above mentioned event (as well as new attempts at laws to limit mass media). This makes even less sense b/c I seriously doubt the columbiners did their research at school. Wouldn't it make more sense to leave it open and then track usage through user id's? This allows educators to monitor usage, punish abusers, and would work to identify troubled students. It's much easier to identify erratic behavior when the behavee is given freedom as opposed to strict boundaries.
Another issue is that it would take place in libraries. I thought you went to a library to research and learn. Having access limited is like cordoning off entire wings of a library because of two or three bad books. The good is mixed with the bad and cutting out the "bad" results in excessive collateral damage.
Monitor your reps. votes and
+&x
The Supreme Court is not doing its job when it allows the federal government to unconstitutionally link areas where they do have authority to other areas where they do not. This is somewhat like a company that holds a monopoly in one business "leveraging" that strength into another market -- with one important difference. The government does it with the implicit backing of guns.
Either the Constitution means nothing at all or it means what is says. For government to use other means to accomplish goals forbidden in the Constitution is *exactly* the same offense as violating those prohibitions directly. If the government is to be allowed to do things via other means that it is forbidden to do directly, what good is the Supreme Court and the explicit limitations on federal authority?
Geeky modern art T-shirts
There's very little crime, and just as little freedom. No unions, no gum chewing, no protests against the govt. But it certainly goes against everything that America was created to be.
Posted by FascDot Killed My Previous Use:
You drive on roads, walk on sidewalks, sit in parks and attend public schools that aren't mandated by the Constitution either. Why do I have to pay for you to do THAT?
Because it furthers the public good that there be publicly funded and owned resources.
And the only way to be fair with these resources is allow them to everyone for whatever use they see fit (as long as the resource is not depleted/destroyed or reduced for others by that use).
No one is arguing that libraries should setup special "Nude Nude Nude" stations. But we are arguing that putting restrictions on content is inherently wrong because these resources are publicly owned--so the usage is up to the individual.
Instead of blocking MY use of the libraries connection to the Internet, why don't YOU keep an eye on your kids at the library or better yet, keep them at home watching Barney?
--
"Please remember that how you say something is often more important than what you say." - Rob Malda
Critical thought is an essential ingredient for progress in human society. Censorship is based on the diametrically opposite notion that others (politicians, clergy, royalty) have better judgement than I as a regular citizen. They don't. Being taught not to think critically, but simply follow others' judgement, order and orders is what brought the world the crusades, gulags, apartheid, Auschwitz and the killing fields.
Now the same congress that just awarded Rosa Parks a medal for thinking critically, and acting on it, is actively working to prevent the development of critical thought?
It's days like these that make me pessimistic enough to fear that reality isn't as far away from dystopia's like 1984, Fahrenheit 451 and the American fundamentalist theocracy in Heinlein's future history.
If it passes, it'll be shot down in court in a heartbeat. There are plenty of library systems that'll challenge it.
They were debating this on C-Span a couple of days ago. Part of the past few days debate on juvenile crime since they want to act concerned about what happenned at Littleton. And they still miss the point.
Today they are debating gun control.
Watch C-Span, and you'll see how idiotic our legislators are.
If the decision in Loudoun County can be taken as an indication, then yes, library filtering is grossly unconstitutional. But don't get complacent. Loudoun was just the first battle; the war isn't over.
More information on censorware is at censorware.org.
Jamie McCarthy
Jamie McCarthy
jamie.mccarthy.vg
The Federal government took it from you in form of taxes, and now will only give it back if you follow their rules? That money should never have left the local gov't. I'm convinced the dickheads in D.C. are clueless....Vote Libertarian
Blar.
Man, the responses to this seem to remind me of Soc.religion.x
Please, people, stop pretending like it's some dogmatic neccessity to keep our libraries porn-free (which is along the lines of why people want to filter net content, NOT to prevent our children from learning). It's this kind of over reaction that makes the notion of 'free speech' a bit hoaky. Free speech is pragmatic. It has benifits. We don't *need* to make it into a dogma. I hate to say it, but the bleed-heart liberals who are so opposed to this move seem so...so...right-wingish.
> The whole point in laws like this is to empower local communities to show discretion.
It sure looked to me like the law was going to restrict libraries, not empower them. Whether you agree with the measure or not, it certainly isn't about empowerment.
--
What bothers me is the legislators thinking that they can/should mandate this at a federal level. This is an issue which is best dealt with by the communities. I at least have a chance of being heard by my local library and school district.
Unfortunately, many Americans don't seem to understand that there are, by design, several "governments" in the U.S. Some laws should be federal in scope, some should only be state or local laws. Problems arise when the federal government starts meddling in affairs best handled at a local level. Community standards are not a "one-size-fits-all" matter.
I am also concerned about the TYPES of "solutions" legislators are pursuing in the wake of Littleton. Why is it that all of these solutions seem to involve restrictions of personal freedoms and/or legislation of dubious Consitutionality? Don't they have anything constructive to add?
Shame on you, Congress -- especially those of you who claim to be for less federal government. I guess growing federalism is OK when it furthers your own agenda.
Save the whales. Feed the hungry. Free the mallocs.
Where will it end? That is the question. We can easily pick out the obvious, but from net porn it will fall to sex books (which kids CAN take out and look at!) then to art (as usual), or say, "pornographic" authors like Anais Nin or Henry Miller.
Once the ball starts rolling on censorship in a library, it can be pretty hard to stop. Basically, once again, government is seeking to abscond responsibility. Let's filter the library since parents don't want to teach their kids respect and responsibility, or even talk to them about naked people. Crumbs, we don't need regulations, we need parenting skills! A library is more vulnerable because it is taxpayer funded, and usually it is a low priority on most budgets.
This is an interesting argument: is it worse for the state to engage in propoganda campaigns, or for private companies to engage in propoganda campaigns? Which, ultimately, does the most harm to society?
(In other words, who do you trust more, the federal government or microsoft, time warner, and the coca-cola corporation?)
1. Aren't these the same people who keep telling us that the state and local governments should be running everything, rather than "bureaucrats in Washington"? And didn't the Supreme Court rule that the definition of pornography (i.e., items "of prurient interest") was to be determined by each community on their own? Then why are these folks trying to impose censorship from on high?
2. Of course, the traditional media outlets are in the hands of a very few, very large companies (and getting to be fewer and larger by the day). Those companies are controlled by wealthy, powerful people. So the traditional media's content almost always serves the needs of the wealthy and powerful (i.e., they try very hard to avoid hiring and/or promoting employees who fail to represent their interests). The internet isn't like that, so of course it's going to be censored, demonized, and regulated until it is either a) irrelevant or b) just another traditional media outlet, owned by a few corporations.
3. To my fellow Americans: please remember these shenanigans when next it's time to vote. Vote in some people who actually represent our interests, rather than those of multinational, multibillion-dollar companies.
-Joe
School Net filtering bills are nothing new, but the recent carnage at the nation's high schools has no doubt intensified concern about minors' online
habits. The Juvenile Justice Bill is stacked with provisions in reaction to the incident in Littleton, Colorado, which left 14 students and one teacher dead. The incident also brought children's Net use into sharper focus, because the Littleton killers reportedly were heavy online users.
An eye for an eye...The Moral Right want blood and there ain't no commies or fags to blame. Let's get those paedophile touting subversives on the Internet. The last bastion.
The problems with any filtering agent is the blurred boundaries. Will my site with pussy [cat] caption be screened as it sets off the filtering software alarms? Filtering software is a crock..there are just too many grey areas. No-one wants children to be subjected to pornography, but if they're really looking for it they're going to find it on the net, in their parents or siblings bedrooms, on TV... It's easier to regulate these things on a grassroots level...Start closer to home.
Society has a serious problem with sex. Some demystification and letting go of archaic Victorian values and a little dialogue between parent and child would allieviate the need for the government to play GOD.
BLAMMO shaken not stirred
I've always believed that people who are denied access to something they know exists, they'll overcompensate later for it.
;-) But I'm guessing a very large amount if not all. -- Are any of us sex offenders? (Don't admit that either.) I'm guessing a very small amount if any are.
I'm assuming for the most part, we all have seen, grown up on, whatever, Road Runner, Bugs Bunny, Tom & Jerry cartoons. (I've seen all of them numerous times when I was young.) All of those had violence in them, right? Parents were probably more involved, too, in our lives. Explaining to us that it's not real. Wile E. Coyote is dust in one scene and functioning in the next because an artist drew it.
Who hasn't seen a pr0n movie or magazine at an early age (i.e. before 15)? Don't admit it here though
The problem isn't the content, the problem lies in explaining to children what they have seen. Glorized violence of today (in the movies, in the videogames), are no different today than then. There is more, sure. But the responsibilities lie and always have lied with the parents or guardians.
Odds are the time I hear my son or daughter see an X-rated film, I'm not going to scream to them to scare the living bejeses out of them, I'll explain it to them. see what they thought of it, and tell them that it's something "grown-ups" do.
The government is only doing the censorship thing because no one is taking responsibility for their actions anymore. It seems though it may be too late now for people to suddenly become responsibile, which is just as bad.
Filtering in libraries would not survive a court challenge without a constitutional ammendment to add limits to the first ammendment. So all they're doing is wasting your tax dollars. They're wasting some of them debating this in the first place, because a yes vote on it means they can say they're for "Family Values" in their political commercials. Then they can waste your tax dollars some more when the law is challenged in court, struck down, appealed, struck down again, etc. Why not just drop it now and give all the money they're wasting to my phone company so that maybe I can get some fucking DSL this year.
Brief note on family values: Whose family? The John Gotti crime family? It appears to me that for most Americans, the families seem to value most neglect and abuse. Maybe if Congress would stop passing the crack pipe around, we could get some important issues dealt with.
"Any nation that exchanges liberty for security deserves neither." -- Ben Franklin.
Nazi germany employed censorship on it's minions. Look where that got them!
They can say that there is no manitory censorship, you just won't get any money from them. The Feds do stuff like this all the time. Why do you think the drinking age is 21? The Feds can't mandate a drinking age, so how do they get around the 10th amendment. Simple, we won't give you highway funds if you don't have a 21 drinking age.
:( -- or ever after 21 for that matter -- so the Feds can force the state/local governments to make these laws. However, from the Bill of Rights point of view there is no difference between the Feds, the states and your friendly local town hall -- it's all "government" and government's ability to trample/ignore/go around the Bill of Rights is quite limited (subject, of course, to the whims of the Supreme Court). So the issue has nothing to do with Feds forcing local laws -- if the measure is declared unconstitutional (hopefully), it doesn't matter if it's a public school/library that made this regulation, or the Federal government.
Well, the case is a bit different here. There is no constitutional right to drink before you're 21
Of course the Bill of Rights does not apply to private entities, school and libraries included, but that's a whole different can o'worms.
Kaa
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
"People are being killed with guns. I know, let's blame video games, internet porn, and movies. Let's force censorship in libraries, and make public buildings post the ten commandments."
I am so sick of this Congress. I am never voting Republican OR Democrat again. I vote for fiscal conservatives, but I wind up with the Christian equivalent of the Taliban. THEY ARE AFTER OUR FREEDOMS! BOYCOTT RELIGION!!!!!!
or Farenheit 451 anyone? Next they will be burning books...
Large print giveth, and the small print taketh away
This is a fun one. On the one hand, a similar case of "mandatory filtering" in a library has already been shot down by a Federal judge in Virginia. On the other hand, this one talks about Federal funding, which I think adds a new spin to it (IAMAL, of course).
:)
I always thought that the easiest solution would be to have two types of access terminals: full-access, and youth-restricted. Send minors to the youth-restricted, filtered, monitored, whatever terminals. Let adults choose to use the full-access terminals, if that's what they desire. Keep the full-access terminals oriented in such a way that the screens aren't visible to everybody that wanders around the room.
But that's just me. And I don't have a lobby to back me up, so I guess that will never happen.
Hmmm.... the Slashdot Lobby.... Hmmmmm....
--
Ernest MacDougal Campbell III / NIC Handle: EMC3
Ernest MacDougal Campbell III
geek ramblings
The problem is not only with the Feds. There is a great deal of local-level cluelessnees and fear of open information. Note that in the Loudon (sp?) library case, it weren't the Feds who forced it to block access to uncomfortable material, but the library itself, a bunch of moralizing assholes that they all are.
Recently my daughter who is in second grade brought home a note from a teacher, which basically said: "Dear parents, it came to my attention that boys tease girls. Teasing is illegal (no, I'm quoting and I'm not making it up) so please talk to your child so that he/she does not do this any more".
Washington is bad, but local morons can be much, much worse, especially if they see encouragement from the Feds. Hell, if my local library implements filtering, I'll be the first to hack around it and post the instructions on how to do this around the neighborhood.
Kaa
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
Yes but in these other countries the control is overt - its obvious information is being controlled. This is sloppy propoganda.
You probably don't even realize how "cleansed" your morning paper is here. Its certainly done more insidiously here. Most Americans don't even suspect it.
You are right, public libraries are no place for true pornography, by which I mean the complete nasty-ass shit that you can find everywhere on the net these days. However the software to block these sights is not nearly sophisticated enough yet. They all miss really bad sites, and block innocent ones. (I've seen a site about the Latin language be blocked because in latin the word for the number 6 is "sex")
In a few years we may have software that can be truly accurate in stopping the filth, but until then I say we just keep the library computers out in the open, embarassment will "censor" the viewers.
"The Supreme Court is not doing its job when it allows the federal government to unconstitutionally link areas where they do have authority to other areas where they do not."
IANAL. Note that in this case, it will be the libraries that will be found to be engaging in unconstitutional behavior if they add the filtering, not the Feds. The Loudon County courts ruled that the libraries could not use filtering software. Therefore they cannot use it (at least wherever the courts rule similarly), whether or not there's a carrot from the Feds to do so.
So more bleepin' useless nonsense from the Feds. Seen any flags burned recently? No, yet an anti-flag burning amendment is one of the all-important platform elements of candidate George W. Bush. (And probably several other Republican candidates.)
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
The property in question is *not* owned by the library, it's owned by *me*. And by *you*. If you want to give away your right to decide how you want your money used, that's fine with me. I'll *not* give up mine.
"Those who would give up essential liberty for temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety" - Benjamin Franklin,
Information should be free, goddamnit! I do not give a rats ass if its Porno, how to make a bomb, or how to murder someone - ALL information NEEDS to be FREE, and if the braindead morons in congress who don't even know what the hell the interenet or even a computer is, should just keep their over-aged mouth's shut!
i'd be very surprised if any library chose to censor Sartre or Camus, Darwin or Freud. what is more likely is that offensive sexually explicit materials will be blocked. (unsuccessfully, i might add, but that's a technical issue.)
unless human physiology has radically changed since i was an adolescent punk, sexually explicit materials tend to divert blood flow to the primary male attribute and away from his brain.
i've found that cognitive functions are reduced when the brain is drained of blood in this fashion.
thus, censorship of sexually explicit materials as being more likely to *encourage* thinking.
what adolescent punks do at home with their own time is their business and not mine. it is my business when they use my tax dollars for bandwidth that *discourages* thinking. i don't want Algore to tax me just so some pimple faced kid can get a hard-on. If the kid wants to *think* he'll find Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Hume, Voltaire and Descartes w/o any impediment.
Better yet, give the kid Perl. That'll encourage thinking.
Say, do you think these nitwits will filter out their own pornographic Starr Report? They chose to encourage Starr to write it and then they released it on the web where kids could see it.
Why is it okay for Congress to let kids look at sexual literature, but not okay for public libraries? I understand that Kenneth Starr intended his report to titillate Congress rather than kids in public libraries, but what is the difference?
"When people read this, they will want to throw up!" -- Kenneth Starr describing, approvingly, his report just prior to its release.
Marjo Wycam, Master of the Programming Arts
It is sad that legislators vote to support such obviously unconstitutional laws. Unfortunately, this is not a new practice. It's all about posturing and "looking like you're getting stuff done". They don't care that it's unconstitutional. They want to be able to stand up before the voting parents and say "See, I tried to protect your kids from smut." How much money is WASTED by judges and their staff in overturning laws that are so blantly unconstitutional? The legislators who voted for such laws should foot the bill for the expense of overturning them. What's worse is that even the overturned laws seem to come back again and again. CDA? CDA II? And next, CDA III? How many times does the Supreme Court have to say "you can't do that"? It gets worse, though. Often laws are prevented from being challenged in court just so that they can remain active and on the books. Anti-bigomy laws come to mind. Many religions permit marrital unions of 3 or more persons. Yet there laws that make bigomy a crime. How can this be when Amendment One of The Constitution gurantees freedom of religion? Now if one person among people who believe in monogamous marriages marries someone else they will be busted under bigomy laws. But if word of a ploygamous marriage involving a mormon family out in Utah gets out. The gov't will try to convince one of the members to file a complaint and if all parties let themselves be busted they will. But if everyone sticks to their guns demands an end to this religious persecution at the hands of the gov't, the gov't will definately halt their actions before the law can be challenged in court. Why? So they can posture and claim to support "family values" to the monogamous voting public. The law is still unconstitutional but it stays on the books because the gov't will not allow it to be challenged, and is still able to use it to squeeze those who unknowingly allow themselves to be squeezed. Sad is it not? And I won't even get into the unconstitutional seizure of the assets of those merely accused of dealing drugs, who if found innocent, still do not get their assets back.
I just have no leadership abilities, fuck grammar school and high school, you never learn how to beat the system
The ship sank. Get over it. (This sig was cut out from another's shirt and painstakingly hand-posted)
You're joking, right?
The censoring will be done by computer (because no humans can read the 1,000,000+ URLs added to the web every day). And it will be done broadly (because no human or computer can visit a site ten times a day to review what has changed).
Cyber Patrol, the most popular censorware program and widely regarded as one of the best, decided to block over 50 ISPs in their entirety. The whole domains. Gone. Often because of a few naughty words - or because of links to naughty sites - or sometimes not even for any reason we could figure out.
Slashdot does not have a naughty-words filter, so I can post the word "fuck" as much as I want. And it allows links to naughty sites, such as your link to Hustler. So slashdot.org will surely be blocked, in its entirety, by any censorware program that discovers it.
Jamie McCarthy
Jamie McCarthy
jamie.mccarthy.vg