As of today, 14Sep2003, the ACLU list 162 communities that have made resolutions (or, in a few cases, binding ordinances) against the USA PATRIOT Act. See their list here.
The VICTORY Act (Vital Interdiction of Criminal Terrorist Organizations Act of 2003) would appear to be a retargeting of PATRIOT II. Quoting the article linked below:
[The VICTORY Act] seems to be an attempt to merge the war on terrorism and the war on drugs into a single campaign. It includes a raft of provisions increasing the government's ability to investigate, wiretap, prosecute and incarcerate money launderers, fugitives, "narco-terrorists" and nonviolent drug dealers. The bill also outlaws hawalas, the informal and documentless money transferring systems widely used in the Middle East, India and parts of Asia.
See the article in Wired
for a quick summary, and google VICTORY Act for a longer list of items to check.
This looks like a bad one - who in power will choose to denounce the war on (some) drugs?
There is one more point under the Miller test that has failed to be mentioned anywhere in this discussion. The Miller test is to be applied by a court.
For an item to be declared obscene, it must go through a court trial. Filtering software does not fulfill this requirement. A librarian looking over your shoulder does not fulfill this requirement.
I've been working to uncover another possible objection to filtering/blocking that has to do with copyright.
I'm not a lawyer (just a lowly librarian), so this may not fly, but:
filters work by changing the text of an online document.
Current copyright law reserves copyright in "derivative works" to the holder of copyright for the original work.
My guess is that the implication of the above is that copyright holders must be consulted before derivative works can be published.
Now, some problems creep into this online world, like this:
Filtering software does not alter the original work, but only the presentation of the original work. In the offline world, this is a big distinction; in the online world, original work/copy/modified copy are indistinguishable. Bits is bits, that is.
The CIPA has been worded so that it actually refers to "visual depictions of" the various categories of material to be filtered/denied for viewing. Does this mean text and images (still or motion?), or just images? On screen, pixels is pixels.
If there are any real live copyright attorneys out there, I'd dearly love to hear what you have to say about these matters.
Scott
Assistant Director, North Bend Public Library
North Bend, OR 97459
Slashdot Mirror
www.forteantimes.com Chock full of oddness and humor.
As of today, 14Sep2003, the ACLU list 162 communities that have made resolutions (or, in a few cases, binding ordinances) against the USA PATRIOT Act. See their list here.
There is one more point under the Miller test that has failed to be mentioned anywhere in this discussion. The Miller test is to be applied by a court.
c onlaw/miller.html for the full text of that decision. They key bet is in the use of the phrase "trier of fact" and mention of the jury.
For an item to be declared obscene, it must go through a court trial. Filtering software does not fulfill this requirement. A librarian looking over your shoulder does not fulfill this requirement.
See http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/
Scott
I'm not a lawyer (just a lowly librarian), so this may not fly, but:
My guess is that the implication of the above is that copyright holders must be consulted before derivative works can be published.
Now, some problems creep into this online world, like this:
Filtering software does not alter the original work, but only the presentation of the original work. In the offline world, this is a big distinction; in the online world, original work/copy/modified copy are indistinguishable. Bits is bits, that is.
The CIPA has been worded so that it actually refers to "visual depictions of" the various categories of material to be filtered/denied for viewing. Does this mean text and images (still or motion?), or just images? On screen, pixels is pixels.
If there are any real live copyright attorneys out there, I'd dearly love to hear what you have to say about these matters.
Scott
Assistant Director, North Bend Public Library
North Bend, OR 97459