View from the Censorware Trenches 468
The conservative community isn't the only reason that the AFA has chosen the Holland area, in my home state, to be one of its important fronts in the library blocking-software war.
There is an unusual law in the city of Holland that allows any measure to be brought to a ballot vote by petition. This is good in that it brings democracy directly to the people. Unfortunately, if a couple thousand people signed a petition demanding that the mayor must part Lake Michigan or forfeit his salary, that issue would go on the ballot. Democracy doesn't always make sense.
You may have seen press about the Republication presidential candidates campaigning in our fair state. This is because our governor pushed the primary ahead this year, so that we are now one of the first states to cast a ballot for the nominees. Registered Republicans will be going to the polls on Feb.22 to decide which candidate they like best.
Registered Democrats don't get to vote on GOP candidates and largely don't care. But in the city of Holland, thanks to a last-minute petition drive spearheaded by the AFA, there will be one additional issue on the ballot: mandatory blocking software in the city library.
Ironically, the surrounding townships help pay for the same library, but because the petition-to-ballot law applies only in the city, they won't be voting on how their money will be spent.
Holland Republicans, already at the polls to nominate a candidate, will merely have to check one more box. Holland Democrats, assuming for the sake of argument that they exist, will first have to learn that they can vote on Feb.22, and then take the trouble to drive down to the polls for the sole purpose of, as the AFA will surely characterize it, forcing children to look at pornography.
Not that it's quite that simple - the issue surely doesn't break precisely across party lines - but: Ouch! Putting the issue on the ballot on the same day as the Republican primary was a brilliant strategic move. If this is what local politics are all about, maybe I'm glad I haven't gotten involved before.
But if last night's meeting at the library is any indicator, it's not over yet.
The meeting was sponsored by Families for Internet Access, a small Holland group working to oppose library blocking software. Roughly 200 people showed up in the basement of the library to discuss the issue, including at least three Slashdot readers. The large majority were clearly opposed to filters. Luckily, the minority was vocal enough that at least some of their views could be heard, so it wasn't too one-sided.
Don Wildmon, president of the Tupelo, Mississippi-based AFA, says "a community's taxpayers own the local library," and it's going to be interesting to see if that's true. The Holland library has had few problems with inappropriate material to date. The computers in the children's section are not on the net. The internet terminals in the adult section are clustered closely in a well-lit area; patron sessions are limited to 30minutes once per day, and library staff walk through the area frequently to enforce this rule. Even with access restricted to brief sessions, there is almost always a line waiting to use the next computer.
In the four years they've offered internet access, there have been a total of six incidents where a patron had to be removed for causing a disturbance. Of these, only one involved viewing of inappropriate material (it was unclear whether or not this was pornography). To put this in perspective, there were 26,000 patrons who used the internet last year alone.
It seems a bustling, crowded public area in a public library, in front of a big window facing a busy street, is not an environment where people commonly go to look at porn. Imagine that. As one of last night's presenters said, "there is an effective filter in place already, and that is the good people of Holland." It seems clear that censorware is a solution in search of a problem - at least in this community.
But the AFA knows how to look for a problem. The pamphlet that they circulate on library "safety" suggests some ways to determine whether a library has "come under the influence of the American Library Association." The "citizen activist" is urged to "use these helps to learn if your library is a community friend or foe":
"Inquire if your library ... celebrates ALA's 'Banned Books Week.'"
"Search for classic scholarly books. A healthy selection should be available. Suggested titles... Principia Mathematica by Sir Issac Newton." [sic]
"On your library's computer, go to www.yahoo.com or any of the popular Internet search engines. In the search field enter the following: XXX,hardcore,nude"
Are those really the best ways to determine whether a library has a problem with pornography?
Incidentally, I've not gotten confirmation, but the rumor is that the local AFA will be recommending SurfWatch as their filter of choice. In which case, that last suggestion is an interesting one. I purchased and installed SurfWatch on my home computer this weekend, and it blocks me from accessing Yahoo. I still can't figure that out, considering the company that sells it partners with Yahoo.
The AFA has also been claiming support from Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.). But at Monday night's meeting, he said he can't specifically support the local initiative because he doesn't know what it's all about. In fact, when the AFA's position was described to him, he interrupted to ask what "AFA" stood for.
In the end, it may not matter whether the problem of inappropriate library material exists or is manufactured. The AFA also recommends that its activists "take [their] concerns through the library chain of command," but in Holland, they refused to meet with the library and went straight to the ballot instead. The voters will decide whether censorware gets installed, and the public's chance to learn about the issues may be limited at best.
In the next six weeks I hope to get a "view from the trenches" of Holland's First Amendment struggle, and to bring it to Slashdot. I'll make no bones about the position I take on the issue. I'll try to focus less on why blocking software is a bad idea in libraries - I'll leave it to other websites to explain that - and more on how the memeticwarfare [*] is being conducted. I'll be reading all your comments. Check the YRO section, too, for updates not quite important enough for the Slashdot homepage.
Because this month, mandatory library censorware is a hot topic in Holland. Next month, it may be in my home town. And the month after that - yours.
Disheartening (Score:2)
Oh yeah, first rant^H^H^H^Hpost...
Wait a minute .... (Score:2)
Censorware (Score:2)
He who is prepared to give up liberty for security shall loose both, and deserves neither
Johnson
--You say it best when you say nothing at all
-Ronan Keating--
--Only the intellectually lost ever argue-
Have the library change there ISP to . . (Score:2)
_________________________
Teach children responsibility, trust, and respect (Score:4)
Looks like the library already has a filter (Score:2)
McCain isn't familiar w/ the issue? (Score:2)
how to best fight this (Score:2)
your best bet is to get involved in the democratic process and the educational process as well. first up, vote. vote often. vote early. secondly, campaign for someone if you can, or at least contribute and fund those that can. thirdly, share your education and views on the issues with as many people, elected officials and neighbors, as you can. have you considered looking at the reccomendations of the EFF (www.eff.org), setting up meetings with their reps and your local government?
you can't complain if you didn't vote! and since this is a democratic process, you get wha tyou put in.
Re:Looks like the library already has a filter (Score:2)
The user has a chance to explain or provide a valid reason for whatever he's looking at . . . "No, really, I'm doing research for a biology class . .
Also, having the public or librarians do the filtering is much easier than trying to index all the 'objectionable' sites on the net (and maintain that index).
Providing a system that makes allowances based on the circumastances will usually be better than a system that just makes an automated yes/no decision whether material is acceptable.
I don't have a problem (Score:2)
If you're coming to the library to do research, then unless you just happen to be researching porn or hate groups, you'll probably enjoy the fact that there's not someone on the computer across from you staring at women in all sorts of unnatural positions.
It'll be violating our "free speech" if the government mandates that porn sites are no longer allowed to operate in the US. It's a completely other thing to say it's okay to look at those and other "objectionable" sites in a public place, where kids can be near by.
Just like that whole fiasco in New York with the elephant feces or whatever... Just because it's art doesn't mean the government has to give you a grant.
Not a party issue. (Score:5)
Waste your vote on a Libertarian. It's important.
From the article... (Score:2)
Sounds like you want it both ways... I guess you would perfer it if only things that you agreed with were brought to vote. (Acutally, given the sanctimonious tone of most of these YRO articles, I bet you would prefer it).
I wonder if we could convince Holland to have the vote early, so we don't have to hear 6 weeks of "updates" on this.
Re:Abe Lincoln (Score:2)
Maybe I phrased it badly. Lincoln was the first and only Republican presidential candidate not to win the majority of votes from Holland.
At least, that's what a reliable source told me.
Jamie McCarthy
Re:Wait a minute .... (Score:2)
We need the ALA (Score:2)
No other country bans more books than the US. In some states textbooks can be removed if they are considered communist. Peter Rabbit gets banned because the bunnies are too bourguoise. Goosebumps gets tossed because it's "evil and satanic". In fact, "witchcraft" is the number one reason why books are banned. Sick, sad world. If you are not vigilant in protecting your freedom to read, others will take it from you.
Sensible Protection? (Score:2)
1) I approve of kids (18 and under) being "sheltered" by public libraries, but censorware should have an OFF button. If library card numbers were used as login ID's, your age would be known when you logged on.
2) Censorware (if/when it's used) MUST have an open-source black list. Under no circumstances should any political, ethnic, religious, or national group be "blacklisted" for their platform, even if that platform includes so-called "hate" speech, which is still protected under the 1st Amendment until it becomes a justifiable threat. I loathe the KKK, the Aryan Nation, and other racist groups, but I'll die to defend their right to be wrong.
3) A set of standards, similar to the ones we have for TV & Cable, should be adopted to decide and update the blacklist. The "Big 7" (the words you can't say in public media, thanx to the FCC) would be an okay starting point. A browser that "bleeps" these out of the HTML (as well as scrambling any *.jpg with a certain proportion of "skin" tones) would be helpful...
4) Most importantly, I feel that too little censorship is better than too much. There should be quick and easy ways for a librarian to override the blacklist so Johnny can do a project on syphillis for his high-school health class. Photos of genitalia may be important to the project. Oh well.
I feel the harm that is done from a little unrestricted "pornography" is far outweighed by the good done by unrestricted information.
I know I'm drawing a thin line on a slippery slope... but there is a happy medium somewhere, right?
--Jurph
republican != conservative christian (Score:2)
On another note, I'm rather dismayed to read slashdot ulfailrly pinning the american republican party as responsible for this. This petition is isn't the child of the michigan republican party, its a grassroot campaign by local conservative christians. Don't blame republicans for the efforts of a small misguided group. It's not like the democratic party is a bastion of net-savvyness, either *cough* Al Gore, Clipper chip, inventor of the Internet *cough*.
Don Wildmon (Score:3)
He said that Playboy was dealing in Kiddie P0rn. If I remeber correctly, no women actually exsist in the mesurements of the average Playmate. What Playboy was doing is this - they got collages of kiddie p0rn, feed it through a computer and "made" a Playmate...it was a dastardly plot to enslave children and so on.
I'll have to look back in some of my 87-90 Playboys...theres alot about Rev Wildmon in em.
Research Notes about the AFA (Score:3)
Republicans Censorship Advocates (Score:2)
My family had a lot to do with this, since they are also all registered Republicans who regularly voice their opinions. My family is Cuban, and they came from a country that has silenced its populace and eliminated all forms of freedom.
I do not believe in forced censorship, but I do believe in self-censorship. There's a huge difference for those who do not understand. Self-censorship means there are things I will not do or say by my own choice. When we begin to talk about forced censorship, I can hear our Founding Fathers spinning in their grave. The first amendment was created to give every belligerent, drunk, and general miscreant a voice, a way to speak freely without fear of punishment. The thinking was surprisingly simple. If even the most obscene and inappropiate thoughts are allowed to exist without punishment, then the articulate, moral, and correct thoughts will also make themselves heard.
Of course, with this freedom comes responsibility, but it's not the gov't's responsibility to tell us what we can and cannot say/do, it falls to each of us. I would think it hard to find someone for pornography is public schools and libraries, but that doesn't mean we should block out webpages with the word 'sex' in it, otherwise we lose a lot of educational sites that SHOULD be in public schools and libraries. We, each one of us, should make sure that people do not view inappropiate actions, but we should also make sure we're not the ones doing it, and we should further make sure to tell the gov't to keep their hands off our rights and responsibilities as U.S. Citizens.
This is one of the many lessons I've learned from conservatives over the years...that if you allow the people to choose for themselves, the overwhelming majority will be in the right. Remember the old saying which the Founding Fathers used to form this gov't: Laissez Faire. Roughly translated, it means 'hands off', which is what the gov't was meant to be like.
I hope one day we can go back to the eras were people were able to choose for themselves what was right and wrong for them. You'd be surprised how many people agreed with each other.
Re:TRUE Freedom of Speech (Score:2)
You say destroying religious underpinnings is an act of war against the people of the USA? Have you any evidence to back up such an absurd claim? I would argue that religious influences are the last and greatest hurdle we as a nation need to overcome before we are truly free.
The day I can turn on the television and not have to hear all the presidential candidates brag about their little god is the day we will finally be starting to reverse the religious bias in U.S. government.
________________________________
Library policy (Score:2)
If there was good "censorware: out there that would do an effective job of kepping out goat pron and such I wouldn't mind.(This is what happens with magazines, as libraries won't carry penthouse or such)
However, all censorware I have seen so far censors much more then your friendly neighborhood goat pron, they often filter breast feeding info and such educational stuff to (not to mention that some block out quite a lot of sites for "radical views" or anti-censorware sites or whatever kind of crap they pull.. that's just plain wrong.)
If the library wants to keep out "smut" there are better ways to do it then with current censorware.
librarians stationed close, peer watch, and other monitoring devices (logged dns lookups if need be) are some more viable solutions for now without censoring too much..
Re:Looks like the library already has a filter (Score:2)
OK, so the computers are in a public area, and apparently the user can be kicked off for viewing
"inappropriate" material...how is that different than using Surfwatch?
Because the current system uses actual community standards, i.e. the Holland Library policy as interpreted by the Librarians or other staff members. It is also flexible enough to allow judgement calls to be made, eg. a high school student might be able to use the machine to access grey area websites for a school project.
SurfWatch claims to offer community standards, yet the list is confidential and done according to SurfWatch standards. Also, most such filters (I don't know if SurfWatch is one of them) filters out sites they find politically objectionable, such as The National Organization of Women [now.org]. No judgement calls are allowed short of calling in the computer guru to disable to software temporarily.
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Is there a way to find out what's censored? (Score:2)
Those who check out www.peacefire.org [peacefire.org] may find that some decidedly odd sites are blocked, including:
The biggest problem with this is that, in the effort to "protect children" by purchasing blocking software, libraries have to submit to the censorship of a company... one whose ownership might have an axe to grind or a particular agenda to advance.
Hopefully a state judge can declare the filtering software violates the "open meetings law" that is passed in most states, as there is no public input to determine the sites to be blocked.
Meanwhile, wake up the neighbors, sound the alarms, and man the barricades!
My Kneejerk Reaction? (Score:5)
I know Slashdot likes to take on the Causes of the Geek(tm), but I think there comes a time when one has to step back and take a look at exactly what is going on. We have a small community in America, typical of many, I'll assume. Through the workings of democracy, they manage to get a controversial issue on the ballot. A large group of people think this is an initiative that should be enacted. Another large group of people think this is an initiative that shouldn't even be considered. We're not talking about anything groundbreaking here. Moreover, this whole issue isn't even being determined by lawmakers; it's being determined by the people. That's the way it should be.
The United States Supreme Court has been very consistent in its decisions that pornography and how to regulate it should be determined by the local community, and not by the state or Federal governments. If the US elections had this initiative on the ballot, I would say that this article would be entirely appropriate because a) it affects a large percentage of Slashdot readers and b) it's not being determined by a community, but by a nation.
But let's get back to Holland, MI. Does you library carry Hustler? Can any adult go into the adult section and pick up a copy of Hustler? Or maybe Penthouse? Has anyone ever asked the library to carry these magazines? I know my local library doesn't carry these, despite their very large circulation. If you want some porn, get it at a newsstand. Same with the library. If you expect unrestricted Internet access at a public library, you're expecting the wrong thing. Get Internet access at home and you can have it. When you get it for free from the government, you play by their rules. Their rules, of course, you can help make, but if the people are going to vote it in, then that's what they want, or they think they want, which is just as valid, IMHO. Censorship is alive and well in American communities. Just like Slashdot, though, it's community censorship, especially when the people get to vote.
So my kneejerk reacion? I don't give a rat's ass what happens in Holland, MI. If the local library here tries to censor Internet access, I'll take up whatever cause I feel is right. I'll vote. I'll play whatever political games I feel to to support my cause. What I won't do is complain to Slashdot, write up an article that won't apply to 99% of the readers. I won't say that even deciding this issue is wrong. I won't complain about the date of the ballot.
If the people are deciding this issue on a public ballot, that is certainly the absolute right way to handle the issue. I don't care which side is the best side, it's being done the absolute right way. Just like any other vote, the word about the ballot will have to be disseminated. This article makes it sound like this is a Bad Thing(tm), but I would rather see more of this, of communities putting this issue to a vote, rather than having some state legislature passing a law that makes it mandatory.
Holland, MI is not Slashdot and a library's computer is not my computer. Let the community decide.
Re:We need the ALA (Score:2)
It's all about religious intolerance. If you think about it, we've got a rich tradition of that... many of the early settlers in the US came from countries that had been practicing persecution of various religions, and many of the colonies set up over here due to persecution back in Europe just went ahead and did it themselves.
People have had to fight since the beginning to try and end this tradition. Every attempt to put prayer back in schools, or the Ten Commandments, is an attempt to go back to these days.
Sure, we're not killing "witches" anymore, but there are plenty of cases of Wiccan kids being suspended for wearing a Pentagram, of communities "protesting" Wiccans. Heck, when many conservative groups found out that Wiccans were allowed to perform their religious ceremonies in the military, large protests were held. Bush has even said that if he were president, he'd issue an executive order to end the Wiccan rituals. (i.e. make the military officialy discriminatory toward religion)
There are still people out there banning books like this (heck, some schools even talked about banning the Harry Potter books due to "witchcraft"), showing that it would likely be easy to fall back to the times when they burned witches.
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Re:Teach children responsibility, trust, and respe (Score:3)
Re:AFA is a religious organization (Score:2)
Ahh, but this is a local issue, NOT a national issue. Thus it would be unconstitutional for the US congress to get involved.
There is some question of if the clause in the constitution: All others are reserved for the state, applies to: Congress shall make no law regaurding the free practice of religion. (Both of the above are paraphrasied from memeory, I've probably messed them up a little, but my point still stands. Is a state religion legal (ie can Utah only allow Mormons to live there?), or is religion a right no matter where you live. Obviously current interputation is religion is a right, but you can see how lawyers can twist this.
Re:TRUE Freedom of Speech (Score:2)
The taxpayers paid for the Holland library, and if someone wants to get a copy of the Kama Sutra by inter-library loan or look up a picture of a naked ass (aren't they all naked? since when do donkeys wear clothes?), government has no right to discriminate against their tastes.
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Re:GOOD ARTICLE! (Score:2)
I know this is off topic, but I want to see what you mean about this...
Do you mean that when the kids talk about their parents, that you don't want your kid hearing that Heather has two mommies? Or you don't want your kid hearing that Heather is still ok even though she has two mommies?
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Re:Teach children responsibility, trust, and respe (Score:2)
Far from it. Blocking access to internet porn or to offensive cable channels shows my children that our family has a particular set of values. Far from alienating them, this gives them a better sense of the kind of community they belong to (viz. one that doesn't waste its time and attention on such trash). Your proposal is far more likely to alienate them, since it tells them that they live in a loose association of independent individuals with "freely" chosen values, rather than in a family with an established identity and set of commitments.
Libraries do not exist to protect children (Score:2)
No library worth a hill of beans is free of socially disagreeable texts. A small city library is, IMHO, inadequate if it does not contain key political texts like Mein Kampf. Many, many 19th century American classics were written by racists, sexists and homophobes, not all of whom hide this fact in their books, yet a library that refuses to shelve these classics would be viewed by most people as negligent. No sane person would object to a public library containing a book of papal bulls, even though most rural American communities are overwhelmingly Protestant. I would wonder about a library that didn't have a copy of the Bible, or for that matter the Quran, yet these books contain material that surely offends large numbers of people. The works of many bestselling authors are full of obscene language, violence, and vividly described sex of many kinds. Andrew Vachss books are full of this kind of thing, yet most libraries have at least a few copies of his currently popular novels.
No one doubts that people can judge the contents of books for themselves, why do so many assume that isn't possible on the web? If the intent is to protect children, then an 18 and over rule is far, far more sensible (although still a bad idea in my opinion), yet, these nutters from the religious right all want censorship software.
The American Library Association has repeated, again and again, that librarians should make information available to the public. They are not willing to be censors. I'm with the ALA on this one, not the AFA.
BTW, the Holland Times article on John McCain is at http://www.theholl andsentinel.net/stories/011100/new_mccain.html [thehollandsentinel.net].
It concludes with the following line:
"There were allegations that I was nuts," McCain said.
A new slogan for the McCain campaign (recycled from Barry Goldwater's '64 run for President):
In your guts, you know he's nuts!
Here comes the controversy(Re:This is insane) (Score:2)
I believe that the government should not interfere with the rights of anybody, so long as that individual's "rights" don't impugn upon another individual's rights. Basically, I'm for absolute freedom (as long as you don't screw up other people).
Who is to say what impugnes on another person's rights? If, as everyone wants to believe, that morality is up to the individual, who is to say what is not moral for you IS moral for me? I quite honestly cannot grasp this argument. Let me throw out an example:
I steal your car. (I wouldn't do this but Devil's advocate dictates otherwise.)
You are probably a tad bit upset over this. I go to court. Now
Maybe I'm having a seminary morality apolegetics flashback but to this day the argument that "it's ok as long as it doesn't step on my morals" doesn't hold water with me.
You make it sound like this is inherently wrong... (Score:2)
Pardon, but who wouldn't?
Personally, I think there's plenty of evidence that ballot initiatives are at best a mixed blessing, and more commonly a device to enforce the so-called "tyranny of the majority." California is a perfect example of the initiative process run amok; witness how many initiatives have been struck down or are tied up in court (Prop 187 is one of the more recent, notorious examples).
The idea of a democratic republic is to buffer the body of law against passing whims of the majority. (I would maintain that this is of increasing importance when said majority is heavily influenced in this day and age by a multitude of media outlets controlled by an already-tiny-and-getting-smaller set of people and interests, but I digress.) Generally speaking, those most in need of protection are the unpopular minority views, not the cause du jour of the majority. Mobs are fickle and easily manipulated; that's why mob rule gets messy very quickly. (cf the Terror following the French Revolution, or the Russian Revolution and what sprung from that.)
It seems pretty clear to me that the founding fathers recognized this danger, and incorporated safeguards against it in the very structure of our government.
-Isaac
People Missing the Point (Score:5)
The problem with censorware is not that you can no longer look at porn in public. I doubt sincerely that most people would advocate going into a public library and loading up www.bizar.nl or whatever floats your doughnut. I doubt sincerely that most people would do it even if they did advocate it.
The problem with censorware is that, to date, there are no filtering packages that
SurfWatch, in addition to blocking known pornographic sites, blocks the homepage to the National Organization of Women and most of the major gay/lesbian political groups. Most filtering packages carry not only blocks against sites showing [sic] nudidity, but sites that run contrary to the ideologies of the designers.
That's the real hitch. Suppose I want to go to the library and do some research online about GLAAD or the NGLITF? If they've installed SurfWatch, I can't, not because I'm trying to access smut, but because the people who wrote SurfWatch don't want anyone looking at accurate information about homosexuality.
The extreme version of this is the Scientologists' hacked filter that they mandate their members install. In addition to blocking anti-Scieno sites, it scans incoming packets and edits out any text string that contains the names of published Suppressive Persons or other forbidden information. Somewhere in the guts of www.xenu.net [xenu.net] or one of its attached sites is the list of all banned phrases. Most filtering packages are nowhere near this severe, but SurfWatch is working on it, and its design company, Solid Oak, has done a lot of unsavory things to the people that tried to publish some of the odder sites in SurfWatch's banlist [peacefire.org].
Ultimately, censorware in the libraries isn't about pornography. If pornography were really a concern, the offenders could likely be arrested under public indecency laws (the same laws that require adult magazines be sold in opaque wrappers if they put explicit material on the cover). Censorware is about who has the authority to tell you what you can and can't see.
Re:Wait a minute .... (Score:2)
DISCLAIMER: I would identify myself as "conservative" though I do admit I am not "conservative" on all matters. In other words, yes, I have a political bias. duh.
IMNSHO, a "true" conservative is for the miminum amount of government necessary to carry out the obligations of the government spelled out in the charter for that government. In the U.S., this would be the Constitution, including amendments. Now, if I remember correctly (it's been a few years), this would pretty much limit the U.S. gov't to providing for the national defense and regulation of interstate commerce. Obviously, the U.S. gov't does far more than this, and even the Republicans want to do far more than this.
I am not even going to try to define a "true" liberal, as I fear my own biases would get in the way of a rational definition.
But, alas, in the U.S. at least, the terms "conservative" and "liberal" are so politically charged, that one cannot even define them without getting into a shouting match. Any original meaning has been lost.
Re:Not a party issue. (Score:2)
It's actually Less of a waste to vote for a third party candidate than for a democrat or republican.
Think about it. Your vote can't possibly effect which candidate gets elected, there's 250,000,000 people in the USA. Even if only 5% vote, that's still 50 *million* people voting. What your vote can do is make a political statement. And if enough people vote for the Libertarians [lp.org] that they can even get 10% of the votes, then next election people will consider them to be an actual relevent compeditor to the two major parties - and then they'll stop throwing away their vote on candidates who are "the lesser of two evils". If that happens, and a libertarian candidate gets elected, even to Congress, you will have helped change the way this country is run, which is more than you could ever do voting for the republicrats.
Unmitigated Idiot (Score:3)
We will now deconstruct the bombast of the religious extremist, showing that you don't need brains or critical thinking to be a prophet, only a mouth.
Ah, yes, invoking America's Founding Fathers as if they were religious icons.
Fact: Nearly all of the Founding Fathers were non-Christians. Washington in particular was a deist (look it up). Many were atheists. Moreover, it was because there were dozens of competing sects on the continent at that time that separation of church and state was written into the Constitution. The reason you're alive today (and not "ethnically cleansed" by a state-sanctioned faith) is because of this principle. Revere it.
I got news for you: There are no religious underpinnings to our nation. The United States is a secular state. Period. The progress we've enjoyed has been the combined work of Christians, Jews, Moslems, Quakers, Puritans, Deists, Mormons, Pagans, and even -- dare I say it? -- Scientologists. No one faith enjoys any particular favor. This is the unique strength of our country. Celebrate it.
As for libraries distributing sexually explicit material, libraries have an obligation to make available all forms of literature and human expression, both base and exalted.
Oh, of course. I guess that's why 250,000 lesbians are massing at the Canadian border, preparing to invade Michigan. And when they do, all the University students who have been brainwashed by subversive "liberals" in the faculty will unwittingly aid in the insurgency, and before you know it, women all over America will be wearing comfortable shoes. Horrors!
Get a grip.
Got more news for you, pal: These "enemies" are responsible for one of the most extraordinary economic upswings in the last 100 years. Weirdos designed and run the digital infrastructure you enjoy today and use to flame us. Are you quite sure you know your audience here?
I'd counter-flame you with a well-reasoned proof as to why this is utter bullshit... If I thought it would do you any good. So I'll simply offer the following axiom, and invite you to try in your furtive way to disprove it:
"Lifestyles" are not contagions. If your neighbor is gay, that doesn't mean you will become gay, too. More generally, the personal preferences and choices of the people around you do not prevent you from making your own choices. You are free to choose whatever you want. Others may choose something else. You may not like it, but who made that any of your business?
Oh, you mean like Rush Limbaugh?
Example: I want to go to the library and check out Catcher in the Rye. I can't find it because some religious extremist had it banned, or outright stole it off the racks and destroyed it. How does this enhance, as you put it, my freedom and individual rights?
Freedom includes the freedom to make mistakes. Perhaps it is a mistake to read Catcher in the Rye. I won't know until I've tried. Who are you to stand in my way? If you truly believe that libraries have become a den of iniquity and a source of society-destroying Commie-pinko propoganda, then forbid your children from ever going there.
You have choices. So do I. I'm not about to use the power of the state to curtail your choices; I'll thank you to return the favor.
Schwab
Re:GOOD ARTICLE! (Score:2)
Do you mean that when the kids talk about their parents, that you don't want your kid hearing that Heather has two mommies? Or you don't want your kid hearing that Heather is still ok even though she has two mommies?
He does not believe that 2 women raising a child as a family unit is a proper environment, nor does he wish his child to be taught such. As a parent that is his right. And you can not flame him for his moral stance.
Kintanon
Re:Here comes the controversy(Re:This is insane) (Score:2)
You are probably a tad bit upset over this. I go to court. Now
Maybe I'm having a seminary morality apolegetics flashback but to this day the argument that "it's ok as long as it doesn't step on my morals" doesn't hold water with me.
Ok, the scenario is thus:
I have a Car.
You do not have a Car.
You take my Car.
Now I do not have a Car.
You have a Car.
I have demonstrably lost something which was mine. Morality doesn't enter the picture at all. You deprived me of my property, your ass is grass.
Kintanon
Re:TRUE Freedom of Speech (Score:2)
Re:Here comes the controversy(Re:This is insane) (Score:2)
Maybe stealing a loaf of bread from a store to feed my starving example would have been a better example. This creates more of a conundrum in that some people consider this a grey area. For instance the store owner is not loosing anything immediatly measurable other than a $1.50 for the loaf of bread and I am doing this out of need. Theft is theft none the less.
Re:Is there a way to find out what's censored? (Score:2)
Re:Wait a minute .... (Score:2)
Re:GOOD ARTICLE! (Score:2)
I don't know of any schools that have taught that... the only teachings I know of have been more of the factual type... "some people have a mom and dad, others have only a mom, or only a dad, or two moms or two dads"...
Hopefully he's teaching his children that just because Heather was two moms that it doesn't mean that Heather herself is a bad person, and that she can be made fun of...
I'm not going to get into the "morals" of whether a two-mother household is a proper environment. But just remember that the current "proper" family unit (mother, father, and children) is extremely new, and a few hundred years ago would probably have been considered very improper and immoral.
---
Re:Looks like the library already has a filter (Score:2)
I can really see this scenario...
"Why are you looking at this filth, little Johnny?"
"Well, I'm doing research for a biology class..."
"Well Johnny, I suggest a site other than www.18andhorny.com"
ALA, legal issues: get help, Holland MI (Score:2)
Dude, get in touch with your local library school, in Ann Arbor: The School of Information [umich.edu] at UMICH. Faculty will be overjoyed to visit Holland, meet with library administrators and townspeople, and share their experiences.
Here at UNC's School of Information and Library Science, the faculty (me included) wrote a long letter to a community considering such censoring software. It helped.
Re:GOOD ARTICLE! (Score:2)
The ACLU is extreme because they have to be. They're one of the few organizations advocating freedom in a country where there are a lot of people advocating the oposite from even more extreme positions than the ACLU (Think the christian cohalition)
Here you seem to be missing something. The consept of a piece of filtering software that blocks out all the porn and nothing else doesn't exist. What does exist is "Filtering Software", written with the mindset that it's worse to not block something that might be offensive than it is to block out important resources.
Really, do you want to allow some arbritrary company to be able to decide what your kids can and cannot view? What you can view? I sure don't.
I don't even think that it would be possible for you to decide beforehand what might be usefull information for kids. They need free access to information just as much, if not more, than adults do.
USA: Conservatism, Fear, and Resistance (Score:3)
At this point, both the Democrats and Republicans are largely "conservative" in the sense of supporting the status quo. They don't want any major changes in the nation's political structure because of the risk that change would upset their balance of power and all the perks that come with it. They want the present system of corruption to continue unchallenged, for fear that if it were upset, their gravy train would go away.
What is that present system which the ruling parties support? It is the system of mass public fear. That's what's behind their advocacy of Net censorship. They, like Clinton and Exon before them, foster and then feed on fear of "online pedophiles", "terrorists", "psychotic schoolchildren downloading bomb recipes", or whatever the latest fashionable breed of scary social reject is.
Consistently the targets of this fear fail to exist. Take, for instance, the much-hyped "school shootings" non-issue. It is not a trend in student behavior; it is a trend in reportage (not to say "journalism") and in political speechmaking. That is to say, it is a trend in paranoia: fear which is not rooted in reality. Violent crime in schools, like violent crime in all other areas of American life except for FBI and police operations, has been decreasing for years.
Despite the nonexistence of the objects of fear, the populace is not permitted to feel relief or security. Relief and security don't sell papers, nor do they sell candidates. For instance, despite the decline in violent crime, the count of newspaper articles and TV news segments on the subject of violent crime has increased dramatically over the past severla years. And, of course, the candidates make political hay of all the fear generated, by promising always to assuage the current fear, while building up the next. A populace in fear of bandits is a populace which can be relied upon to support the one big gang of bandits which promises to rid them of all other bandits.
The solution? Quit supporting the fear-and-banditry regime. Vote -- and don't vote for the ruling parties. I happen to be a Libertarian myself, but I'd rather you voted Green, Reform, or even Socialist than voting Democrat or Republican. We have in America a convenient system of carrying out a peaceful revolution whenever the hell we want to: it's called free elections. It's just a matter of getting off our asses and doing it.
Some American Third Parties:
Re:The Next Big Step (Score:2)
My parents made it very clear that my birth damned them both to hell and the only way to redeem themselves was to save me. I won't consecrate their damnation by listening to the little demon that snuck into my head when I stole a candy bar. I couln't!
Even though the childrens section of the library isn't for fourty year old bald guys, I usually read there--not near the evil-infested rows satan's scriptures and temptations!
This whole thing about me being able to decide if what I see is moral is pooie. I'm a slave to the things I see, and when I'm young--I think it's all moral and stick with that for the rest of my life!
I plan to live with children pushing witches into stoves, children eating bread-men, the princess being saved by a prince and living happily together (without sex or relationships--just living happily), and especially egg-men being cracked open (no burial or mourning--just "Do you think we can figure this out?").
The "real world" as you call it would just distort my mind. After all, everything I see, I think is OK. I've got no indipendent sence of what's right or wrong and what what I see happen or I'm told by my parents *must* be right. After all, seeing something happen as a child *insures* that I'll think it's OK from then, and later on in life.
Re:Teach children responsibility, trust, and respe (Score:2)
Yes, from the way I stated this initially, I can see why you might take it that way. I certainly didn't intend to state that all children should be given complete trust. I was trying to make the opposite point and stated it too tersely.
The same level of trust, or lack of it, should not be applied to all children. It is approriate to let a responsible 16 year old surf the net unrestricted looking for material for a school paper. That same liberty shouldn't be applied to a 5 year old. I'm stating extremes here because deciding where to draw the line is a very individual issue. People develop in different ways and at different speeds.
Censorware in a library applies the limited trust appropriate to the 5 year old to the 16 year old as well and to adults. Anyone who would not grant me the full exercise of my rights is unworthy of my respect and trust. They are liars and tyrants. Do I have a right to access any information on the Web from a library? That is hardly an obvious right. But if I have been taxed to pay for the public internet access from the library, I would say that the answer is yes.
So tell them! (Score:2)
This is the part where you actually GO to these meetings and TELL people exactly what they're getting. Explain to them the problems with filtering software and give them alternatives (if you can).
It basically comes down to this: Is the loss worth the gain? Only your local community can decide that. Help them.
This has almost NOTHING to do with porn. (Score:3)
It is also worth mentioning that this is why the CDA was the comminications *decensy* act instead of a computer *porn* act.. they don't care about the porn.. they care about forcing their religion on all of us.
All you people posting about how you want your kids to be prevented from accessing porn need to get with it and look up the real history of the debate. Unfortunatly, there is currently no porn blocking software which dose not activly assist the religious right in blocking informtation that they do not want people to have.. and this is a real problem for parents who really do wnt to protect there children from porn at home. It appears that the best technological solution is to use a squid proxy to log the sites your child visits and occasionally look at the logs.
Jeff
Re:I don't have a problem (Score:2)
Hrmm, Lets take a look at some of the popular "hate groups" these various blocking software blocks, shall we?
National Organization for Women [now.org]
Covenant of the Goddess [cog.org] and The Witches Voice [witchvox.org], Wicca is a nationaly recognized religion in the US
Yahoo [yahoo.com] Search Engine
MIT Project on Mathematics and Computation [mit.edu]
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Construction Engineering Research Laboratories [army.mil]
The University of Arizona [arizona.edu]
Stonewall Inc. [stonewallinc.com], gourmet coffees, teas, food and gifts.
...and of course...
Peacefire [peacefire.com], A site telling people how to disable this blocking software
The problem with commercial blocking software is the lists of blocked sites are not published, and often contain OVERBLOCKS, Stonewall Inc is blocked under the "Gay Sites" area of Cyberpatrol, but it has absolutely nothing to do with homosexuality.
This is the reason we need to keep these "filters" out of our libraries and schools.
-- iCEBaLM
Re:I don't have a problem (Score:2)
In my experience, these filters block out may sites that I want to see, and I do mean porn. They block many medical sites, many political sites and many miscellaneous sites such as geocities. I learned how much this could hinder reseach when the company I used to work for began using CyberPatrol. It seemed everytime I searched for info on a problem we experienced or information on new software the top 5 returned sites were blocked by CyberPatrol. I will do what I can to keep theses filters out of libraries.
Re:Teach children responsibility, trust, and respe (Score:2)
I disagree. Certainly, if I gave my children no guidance or supervision, you would be right. But I have placed their computer in the same room with mine. I watch TV with them and help them select the shows or tapes to watch. I think that all parents owe that kind of involvement to their children, although the form it takes will differ. To have taught them the values that I want them to learn and then to turn around and indicate that I don't trust them to live up to my expectations would be to convey my distrust.
I have frequently set limits for my kids. All responsible parents do. My children have earned my trust. They know that they aren't allowed candy before dinner. They don't betray my trust. So the candy is within reach so that they can get some after dinner.
Library computers suck anyway (Score:2)
Boojum
Re:McCain isn't familiar w/ the issue? (Score:2)
The cited article is a report about Senator McCain and a speech he gave at Hope College. Just because he was/is in favor of filters doesn't mean he in support of the AFA at all. Besides, the site you linked to isn't even an AFA site; it's the website of The Holland Sentinel(same link as in the body of the article).
And this was moderated as "Informative?" C'mon guys!
dangerous filters? (Score:2)
1) The list of sites censored must be public. Currently I don't know of any censorware that does this.
2) There needs to be someone (in the public) checking all these sites to make sure they are indeed porn and not, say, information for women about their bodies or some anti-establishment political site, and said person(s) must have the power to remove sites that are not porn-related. This leads directly to 3:
3) The definition of porn needs to be be described VERY specifically, something that hasn't been done to date as far as I know, and it will always be somewhat subjective. It wasn't dealt with well at all in the CDA.
Those conditions being listed, it should be obvious that I don't support filters in their proposed form. Condition two requires some sort of beauracracy whether it's public run or not, which is enough to turn off a lot of people to the idea altogether.
Condition three is also a reason a lot of people don't support any type of censoring. Getting to define what is and isn't porn is a big chunck of power. Usually its a small group that gets to define it as well.
It all boils down to accountability. If the government gets to control the list, or even some small software company, and the censor list is not public, the means for asserting indiviual interests is too high. Without accountability, corruption results. Always.
The other question is how dangerous is porn in the first place. I like comparisons of porn to depictions of violence. Parents often say "I don't want my kids to see porn because it will hurt their minds, and it degrades and objectifies women." Well, violence degrades and objectifies life, which is even worse. Yet ask parents what they think about it, they'll usually say "well, I can't do much about it, I can't stop my kids from seeing it...", yet, this is exactly what they are attempting with porn. So if anything, I see this as a manipulation of public opinion, by the media, or other institutions which shall remain nameless. I don't know how else to explain this paradox.
Re:I don't have a problem (Score:2)
You're free to rent your porn for a video store. You're free to buy any magazine you'd like. But the government (paid for with my taxes) should not have to pay forcomputers and internet access for libraries if in turn they are going to be used by people too poor to but their own magazines... \
Porns a freedom, not a right.
If there was a filter out there that JUST filtered out porn, this would be a different issue.
As it is, all of these filter sites make political and moral choices in their filtering. From sites such as the National Organization for Women, gay/les/bi/tg support sites, Wicca/witchcraft sites, etc. They all show very clear political (and often socially conservative) agendas.
Blocking those sites is the equivalent of a library having books against the gay lifestyle but not any in support, or the religion section covering only Christianity.
---
Re:Huh?? (Score:2)
They are people already. They are inexperienced, immature people with real feelings, needs, and dreams. Discipline, supervision, even punishment, have their place. But children more than anything else need to be nurtured. I see myself as a mentor to my children. Reminding myself of that reminds me to live up to the responsibilities I have to them. I don't own them, and I took on the obligation to guide them to adulthood. My single most important goal is to help them reach the point where they don't need my guidance and support anymore. I have to teach them to think for themselves.
Librarians Rule! (Score:2)
Check out the ALA website [ala.org].
Driving a car != surfing the net (Score:4)
Surfing the net and looking at porn does not kill your child. It allows him to make decisions on his own. That's what trust is about. Trust them. If they make a mistake, they learn without you having to tell them, and they love you more for it.
Porn, on the other hand, is only fascinating to them until it becomes easy to get access to it. Does censoring it change this behavior in children? No. So why not trust them to find out on their own? Better yet, why not tell them about sex yourself if you don't want them to get misinformation?
The real issue here, though, is censoring anything else the censorware company happens not to like and adds to the black box blacklist. I don't believe kids or adults are going to go into a public library to look at porn. I do know for a fact that censorware companies have lists that block sites that contain real ideas and should be viewable from a public library.
Re:Just like Slashdot moderation (Score:2)
That is largely a load of crap. I've seen lots of posts that don't follow the 'party line' that were moderated up. What matters more is how they are written. Sure, if you post something that is obviously a troll or flamebait, you can expect to get moderated down. But I think that most moderators accept that a well written post of a differing opinion is still valid. I can tell you this much, if I was hypothetically meta-moderating (is it against the rules to say if you meta-moderate or not?), if I saw stuff that wasn't being moderated that way, I would mark it as 'unfair'.
Re:Democrats (Score:2)
A valid point. Not all Democrats have a good record on freedom issues either. It is worth noting that for example, the former senator that wrote the much hated CDA was Senator Exon, who was a Democrat, that it was supported by most of the Democrats in congress, and signed by president Clinton, who is a Democrat.
I don't intend this to be a slam against Democrats in general, it is just that I think people need to be aware that party affiliation can't always be used as a reliable indicator in such matters.
Re:Pot, meet kettle (Score:2)
Re:Sensible Protection? (Score:2)
Ok. =) No, you make good points...here is the problem I see with your proposed solution (even if it is better than what most people are considering):
1) I approve of kids (18 and under) being "sheltered" by public libraries, but censorware should have an OFF button. If library card numbers were used as login ID's, your age would be known when you logged on.
For most people on
4) Most importantly, I feel that too little censorship is better than too much. There should be quick and easy ways for a librarian to override the blacklist so Johnny can do a project on syphillis for his high-school health class. Photos of genitalia may be important to the project. Oh well.
I totally agree. However, if Holland, MI is anything like my hometown (and it sounds like it is), it would be a fight to be able to get away with using pictures of genitalia even in a health class.
The best idea I think I've heard is to moniter children's net use, and mail a log to the cardholders (usually parents). Then parents can decide for their own children.
Re:My Kneejerk Reaction? (Score:2)
And it's not just Pornography that's getting blocked. Most site lists tend to have disturbing political bias- blocking sites like the National Organization of Women or gay rights sites. But since such lists are generally not available publically, who knows what is in them.
"Really cool"? (Score:2)
The real revolution also will not use animated background images.
Re:Driving a car != surfing the net (Score:2)
The trauma comes from not being able to deal with a situation not the point of exposure. Avoiding that trauma comes from being able to deal with (i.e. comprehend rationally, if in a limited context) the event.
Crying at the death of Bambi's mom is not a good example because you are using a medium (cartoons with child like characters) and content that speaks on a childs level. pr0n would most likely not be understood on any level, thus leading to all sort of wild conclusions IF the child is left to figure it out without assistance. With a good Mom or Pop around all it would be is a sign that Mom and Dad need to explain what they were doing 8 years, 9 months ago.
Re:My Kneejerk Reaction? (Score:2)
I've getting very sick of hearing this arguement. Do you know why it's been ruled that a library can refuse to carry certain printed matrials? Because printed materials take shelf space, and cost money to obtain. These are a physical resource that can be easily used up, so any library has to pick and choose just what will be carried.
The Internet is a different matter. It does not take up any more space on the computer to allow access to porn sites. It doesn't cost any more [public] money to get Internet-with-porn. In fact, it takes more hard drive space, processor time, RAM, and money to use filters to block them! "But wait, what about people tying up the terminals lookin at porn?" you ask? Software isn't needed to solve this problem, just an AUP and a librarian to go over and tell Sir to get off the computer, people need it for real work.
That's the difference: to not carry porn mags is a passive measure of not spending the money or the shelf space to carry them. To not carry certain websites is an active measure involving time, computing resources, and money to obtain, install, and use censorware.
As a second point, who decides what printed materials shouldn't be carried by the library? The library staff, with occasional input from the community. Who really decides what web sites will be blocked by nearly all censorware? Some big corporation, likely as not based in another state, who doesn't care about the standards in your community and who may or may not have a political agenda in addition to simply blocking porn (search the web for examples).
Your post has only one really valid point: the issue should be decided by the community, by the staff and patrons of the individual library, not by state or federal government (or private corporations, for that matter). But the public needs to be informed if they are to do the Right Thing (whatever that may be) instead of listening to whichever group has the slickest ad campaign. [Ob1984Reference:] Isn't that how Big Brother controlled the proles, but only telling them when it wanted them to know? This /. article may help someone, in Holland or any other town, fight against a campaign like the one in Holland now. Maybe not Holland in particular, but the underlying issue is certainly an stuff that matters to many Slashdot readers.
Let the community decide.
How are we preventing them by discussing this issue?
-----
censorware is inheritently flawed (Score:2)
I think that we can all agree that people should not be allowed to view pornography at public libraries. Therefore, some sort of measure needs to be taken from stopping people from doing so, and in reality not a lot truly needs to be done. I doubt that it is very common place for people to go to their local library and view porn. I think that two things need to happen: censorware proponents need to be educated on how ineffective censorware is, and also we need to pass a law simply making it illegal to view porn at a public library. This would be just as effective as censorware, not to mention cheaper, and would have the added bonus of not drawing us one step closer to the world of Orwell's 1984.
What no linux based censorware? (Score:2)
Fortunately those 30 minute time slots that libraries dole out are just about the right time to do a quite redhat install .....
US Censorship from an Australian point-of-view... (Score:2)
But if we're feeling pissed off at our goverment (we laugh at government) or down on ourselves about our stupidity, it always cheers us up to see what new pains you guys are inflicting upon yourselves.
Australians don't think about free speech, because it never occurred to us that we might not have it. If someone wants to take it away, we tell them to bugger off (and that goes for the new rules, too). This makes us complacent about our rights, I think.
Americans, on the other hand, appear to like crusading for free speech, as if your government is so evil that it might prevent you from talking one day. Fair enough; it might too. But I doubt it.
If you feel like a break from your stuggle, come down here. We'll knock off a few beers, swear at some cops, have a few beers with ~them~, and generally get slayed. You're always welcome.
Re:USA: Conservatism, Fear, and Resistance (Score:2)
Second, I like both the Green party and the Libertarian party. I do not really agree with them, but I feal that they have a lot to contribute.. a lot more then the republicans or democrats. It seems to me that what we really need is not a reform through ellection but a reform through media. Example: the WTO protests probable did a LOT to advance the general public understanding of the problems with globilization.. and to take free trade off the holy words list. this is what will bring about real reforms.
It is also worth mentioning that the ACLU has been more effective then ANY political party in supporting generally good stuff. Check out the list of all the great stuff they did this year [aclu.org]. While Katz was bitching about the Hellmouth they were suing the pants off of those schools.. and winning. If you are at all interested in the future of civil liberties you really should check out the ACLU.. you will probable find they do mcuh more stuff which you like then dislike. Everyone seems to pink the one thing which the ACLU dose which they dislike to grip about, but the plain truth is american freedom began 80 years ago when the ACLU started to enforce the bill of rights.
Jeff
Corrected Link (Score:2)
The Witches Voice is really here [witchvox.com].
When do we get the option of editing our own comments after they've been posted Rob?
-- iCEBaLM
Why not just... (Score:2)
Why wouldn't this rich combination of procedures produce the evironment that everyone wants - no unsupervised porn for kids, full access to all information for adults and supervised kids.
Re:Driving a car != surfing the net (Score:2)
There are worse things than dying. Every time I have to deal with a total jerk, I just remember that the worst possible thing I could do to that person is to let them continue to be themselves, every minute of every day for the rest of their pathetic lives.
I don't want my kids to become someone like that. There are a lot of limits I place on their behavior and activities, because I want them to become happy, well-adjusted individuals. I don't think that that pictures which cater to the masturbatory fantasies of adolescent males will accomplish that.
Re:My Kneejerk Reaction? (Score:2)
Read the article again, carefully. The library does *not* allow unrestricted internet access, nor will it ever. You are missing the whole point here. Why fork money into a technology that DOES NOT work? These folks are not out to make the library an XXX Internet hotspot. I was one of the three Slashdot readers mentioned in the article, I was there, I know.
When you get it for free from the government, you play by their rules. Their rules, of course, you can help make, but if the people are going to vote it in, then that's what they want, or they think they want, which is just as valid, IMHO.
Censorship is alive and well in American communities. Just like Slashdot, though, it's community censorship, especially when the people get to vote.
How would you feel if you had to flip the bill for something you had absolutely no say in? Only the Holland City Residents will get to vote on it. That leaves 3 other surrounding townships with jack-shit, who will flip the bill regardless. It's far from fair.
The AFA went to petition in Holland, asking residents the sole question "Would you like to sign in support of stopping pornography on the Internet?" Most people were conned unknowingly what their agenda was, and many people were pissed when they found out what they signed.
The AFA rushed quickly to get the petitions done, totally disregarding bringing their problem with the no-filters to the library, the city, no one. They only had about 12 days before they could get their petition in, so it would be brought before the city council in time for them to either vote the ordinance in, or take it to the vote. They knew damn well it would go to a vote, and what perfect timing, the same time as the Republican Primary election. Most republicians are conservative, and very seductive, in West Michigan at least...
The AFA took a mediocre and impulsive approach to beat the clock. Truly this will be an unfair vote whether it passes or not - however if it does not pass, the AFA shouldn't complain because it was their moronic move to approach it like they did.
- Detritus
"I never really liked computers, but then the server went down on me"
You are so wong about the ACLU (Score:2)
The religious right has gone to great lengths to damage the ACLU's credibility, but the turth is that many many of our freedoms would not exists today if it was not for the ACLU. Example: It was the ACLU that really put an end to the religious persicution of minority Christian sects by majority ones. Actually, just this year they defended a Christian priest who interprets the no graven image thing the way the moslems do so that he could get a drivers lissence without needing his picture taken. They are also defending people held in prison by INS on secret evidence. The people of the ACLU are not scarry.. they are heros.. look at the real history of the ACLU.
"I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it" Voltaire
This is the essence of the ACLU. I suggest you look at what the ACLU has done this year [aclu.org] and read What's a Nice Republican Girl Like Me Doing in the ACLU? [aclu.org] by Shelia Suess Kennedy.
The best kept secret about the ACLU is that most americans would agree with more of what the ACLU dose then with what there own political parties do. You should not accuse them of being evil or scarry just because they happen to defend one or two things that you do not like (or becuase they neglect one or two things that you do.. like gun ownership). Look at what they really do.
Jeff
A possible compromise (Score:2)
- Private entities must donate censorware to the library that they would like available, enough for one copy on each of the public computers at the library, or it does not get installed. This ensures that the burden of expense belongs to the people who desire the service, and not those who are opposed to it.
- No using the computers with out a card scan.
- Cards should be free to sign up for.
- Booths would be visually separated and monitored to make sure disturbances would not occur, and all laws (public exhibition, disturbing the peace, etc.) would be enforced.
- Upon request, the censorware must be installed on a box if the patron asks for it, or if a minor or other ward's library card is encoded for it.
- Upon request, a computer must be made available that is censorware-free if a non-minor or a minor with permission (or the code) asks that it be done.
- Parents would be able to control the censorware code on their children's library cards at all times.
- Citizens would be able to control their own code at all times.
I think this adequately addresses the concerns adults have the right to have regarding their children and wards, without trampling the rights of free citizens.Thoughts?
_____
USA::Reform Party: Grow a Philosophy or Go Away! (Score:2)
The Reform Party is still practically brand new, much newer than (say) the Libertarians or Greens. It doesn't yet have much of a handle on what it wants to be. Because the Reform Party's platform is not based on any particular historical or philosophical position -- it's basically just "We don't like the status quo!" -- it's pretty much free for the taking for anyone to move in on. "If you don't stand for something, you'll fall for anything."
Contrast this with the Libertarian Party, which is founded on very straightforward philosophical principles; or the Green Party, which has a basis in the whole history of the environmental movement, as well as in the Green movement in Europe. If Buchanan had tried to move in on either the Libertarians or the Greens, he'd be booed off the stage, because he clearly doesn't fit in with either. But a party whose own identity is little more than "misfit" isn't going to be able to muster much fuss against a misfit like Buchanan.
As the Reform Party develops a history (which will, of course, only come with time) it will have to grow a more stable political position and philosophy. If it doesn't, it will doom itself to irrelevance as a bunch of malcontents who will follow any candidate who's a bigger malcontent than any of them.
Re:Driving a car != surfing the net (Score:2)
> a loaded gun (although many ignorant families,
> and I use the word ignorant unrepentantly in
> this case, do irresponsibly allow their kids
> both of these freedoms.)
Hmmm my cousins live in upstate NY. They have all
owned guns of thei rown since age 11. They were
taught gun safety since even younger.
I have never witnessed, or heard about, any
problems with this. They have been many times
more careful and in proper action with guns then
many people I know who did not grow up with guns.
My cousin Clinton has driven a car since he was
14. He has always been quite good with it.
I agree with the rest of what you had to say
however. Most kids I know see porn by the age
of 12 from their friends anyway. its never been
harmful to anyone I have seen.
Re:Disheartening (Score:4)
Many of you would never dream of condoning a racially inflammatory post, but have no problem tarring Christians with a broad derogatory brush when given half a chance. Painting Christians as racist is even more ridiculous - Christianity was clearly the driving force behind the worldwide elimination of slavery. (A first in world history, by the way...) Christians understand that we are all created in God's image - do you?
Further, understand that the radical ideas in the constitution you claim to support were a direct outgrowth of Protestantism - our government is more closely modeled on Presbyterian church than on anything else that existed in 1776. Oh, and don't forget that many of the original 13 states were congregational assemblies, meaning the state had an official denominational affiliation. Christianity is part of the warp and woof or American society - if you want to rip it out, you're seeking nothing less than the complete destruction of the American ideals founded on it.
That said, can we get back to the real debate? This is about censorship in libraries (something I personally favor - as I've said here before, I think censorship has positive aspects and is grossly underrated in this community in particular.) Sure, Christians have a particular worldview that you may not agree with, but that does not make them wrong.
I wonder how many of you opposed to library censorship have young children of your own? Not too many I'd bet. It's really unfortunate, but if you love your kids, you really have to shield them from the Internet these days - we all know that the old saw about "having to go look for offensive material" is far from the truth now. Seriously, how many of you haven't gotten a link inappropriate for children (for all kind of valid reasons, including ideological ones) from a seemingly innocuous web search? Censorship is needed and appropriate in circumstances like this. I for one hope they succeed in running their own community as they see fit - that's a *real* conservative (even libertarian) position.
I'll probably get nuked by the moderators for this, and I really hate to write this kind of message, but sometimes, you just have to point out bigotry when you see it.
Re:Driving a car != surfing the net (Score:2)
> individuals. I don't think that that pictures
> which cater to the masturbatory fantasies of
> adolescent males will accomplish that.
News flash....a girl in tight jeans walking down
the street will cater to adolecent masturbatory
fantasy. Ask any psycologist (like Dr Ruth),
fantasy is perfectly natural. In fact ALL types
of fantasy are natural. It is quite common even
for hetrosexual men to have homosexual fantasies
at times, ot fantasys abotu pedophilia or bestiality.
All of these fantasys are natural and healthy.
Porn just helps the fantasy along, makes it a
little easier.
Democracy is being subverted here. (Score:2)
Personally I have far less objection to the fact that it is on the ballot (even though I disagree with the initiative) than I do to the way that they are trying to make sure that only one side will be voting.
If you are a Republican then you can go vote for your primary and discover this issue. (Probably stated on the ballot in a slanted way.)
If you are a Democrat you have to have heard about this issue and go there only to vote.
Additionally primaries generally attract only the fringe of each party. To win in the primaries Republicans have to take positions far right of where they will portray themselves in the general election, and Democrats have to go left of where they go for the general election.
The result is that the vote was arranged in a way where only the right-wing fringe will realistically vote. Where then are the rights of the majority? If the same ballot were put in November's election, then I would object far less. But it is not, and it is not because the authors don't want this to be a fair election.
An additional, peripheral, issue here is that many whose taxpayer money is being decided don't have a vote. This vote is only open to residents of the city, not to outlying community who use the library and whose taxes help pay for it. This too subverts the principle of democracy, however without evidence that the attitudes in the city and surrounding community differ I would not call it a malicious perversion of the principles of democracy.
But the vote given is a malicious perversion of the principles of democracy. I consider this type of tactic no better than Stalin's using his position as Secretary to hold important votes at which he had arranged that a quorum would get the news of the vote in time to show up, and that quorum was handpicked to vote how he wanted them to vote. Secretary was not originally intended to mean "leader of the USSR" but Stalin made it that.
Sincerely,
Ben Tilly
Re:Not a party issue. (Score:2)
Obligations of the government go beyond that (Score:2)
Oh right, and the presiden tial powers [cornell.edu] bear examining. Particularly the section on treaties. US treaties can override other types of laws. (Which is why the Seattle protests against the WTO happened.)
Just for completeness, I should mention the proper judicial authority [cornell.edu]. Like it or not, the courts interpret the laws. And if their interpretations don't match the original author's intentions, such is life. (Sometimes this is necessary. For instance the inclusion of women in the Civil Rights Act of 1963 was intended to help sink the bill. It was accidentally left in as the bill was passed in memory of JFK and thus history was made...)
But I agree with you that in the last century the US federal government has stretched its authority well beyond what the Constitution ever intended. Whether this was the wrong thing to do is another question...
Regards,
Ben
You don't even have to reach that far (Score:2)
And don't forget about "hate speech" -- i.e. politically fringe and unpopular speech which is also banned by this software. This specifically attacks the substance of pure speech (whereas an attempt can be made to classify pornography as low-grade speech not conveying political ideas, an attempt that has typically failed [Booksellers v. Hudnut, etc.]).
All free speech is undermined when any speech is suppressed. Even hideous speech.
My Kneejerk Reaction to Your Kneejerk Reaction (Score:2)
You probably don't think of Rochester, NY either. So what? Geeks live everywhere.
And this small-town library could exist almost anywhere. If the tactic works in Holland, MI, it could work other places as well
Libraries are supposed to be there to provide information. Period. Admittedly, people should have better sense than to look at porn on library Web terminals (not even because it's porn, but because of all those damn extra pages that open up
And this "does your library carry the Banned Books list?" thing makes me absolutely FURIOUS. The best Christmas present I've ever gotten from ANYone (this was one from my dad) was the "Celebrate Freedom -- Read a Banned Book" sweatshirt
In one of the Rochester suburbs, a friend of mine who teaches 11th grade English had to stop teaching Toni Morrison's Beloved because parents complained. Sheesh. If you don't like the book, have your kid opt-out of the assignment -- it's usually allowed. But don't ruin it for the rest of the 11th graders whose parents DIDN'T complain.
And of course, there's the whole problem of the way most censorware is designed, which is another matter entirely.
I suppose, if SafeSurf were more widely used, I could understand the general terminals being set to level 7 (meant for adults but not porn) and the terminals in the children's areas to level 3 (technical references). That would be reasonable.
Or again, if my old idea about creating
Try again (Score:2)
And if your fellow voters vote themselves government-funded magazines, then they cannot prevent you from demanding "White Supremecist Monthly".
Re:Just like Slashdot moderation (Score:2)
Censorship in America and Elsewhere. (Score:2)
1. Those who oppose censorship, contrary to the opinion of the AFA or the Republican party, are not Satan-worshipping, porn-loving, children-corrupting heathens. Rather, they are level-headed, free-thinking (not while this shit keeps happening) and intelligent individuals with the (supposed) right to free speech and to view whatever they want. The right for a person to determine (by themselves and unassisted by government, corporations and so-called family groups) what they read, see, hear and say is important not only to the Constitution, but to a soundly functioning republic. Censorware and the measures used to implement it threaten this much-cherished right.
2. The software is inefficient in that it only blocks out sites based on keywords and not on actual site content. This means that many sites that feature keywords but not the inappropriate content (the definition of which is defined only by the software corporations that write the censorware). This means that a large number of sites about homosexuality, reproduction, women's rights, censorware and anti-censorship views and other important topics are blocked for no reason. On top of that, the list sites that are blocked are not made public and the user(s) of the software are meant to just accept that the blocked software is porn or hate propaganda or violence when clearly that is not the case (if you want that then turn on the TV). This clearly fits in with the party line of not only Republicans but also many hate groups in America.
3. The implementation of this software, will actually result in the reduction of performance on computers as the browser will have to consult the censorware in order to verify that the site can be accessed. This only slows down the system dramatically on all but the fastest PCs which most librarys don't have (remember that not all librarys have P3-500s with 128Mb of RAM - not an exact estimate but I'm trying to illustrate a point here).
4. Many of the groups that are pushing to implement censorware and other such measures are largely hypocritical in that they preach tolerance and understanding, while at the same time denying it to those who need it most (such as young people, homosexuals, the poor & disadvantaged).
Unfortunately, the whole idea of the people (what would they know anyway, they say) being able to vote on this is being completely fucked around because a vocal minority (i.e. the people who whinge the most about this bullshit) are in just the right places that they can rush through legislation without any consultation to the community whatsoever. This has already happened in Australia (my country of residence and a damn good one, too) where the government has introduced legislation of this type to require ISPs to remove offensive content (once again, a subjective term) on a by-complaint basis. Which means that the same vocal minority can shut down sites that they deem inappropriate for young children.
Basically, what I'm trying to say is let the people decide what they read, see, hear and say instead of the government, religious right, corporations, hate groups or anyone else. Otherwise George Orwell's vision of a repressed society in 1984 and on the album Obsolete by Fear Factory (a great album for fans of industrial music) will someday become reality. And that will be the greatest shame of all.
"Free-thinkers are dangerous." -System Of A Down
Re:A possible compromise (Score:2)
Re:US Censorship from an Australian point-of-view. (Score:2)
Well, not being an American you can be forgiven for not knowing American History (sadly, most younger Americans these days know little about it as well). However, we are paranoid about free speech because the governments (federal, state and local) over here have a long history of trying to infringe upon it. Ask Larry Flynt.
BTW, if you swear at the wrong cops around most of the US, you are likely to end up in a bad way on some crazy trumped up charges. Highly not recommended, should you ever visit here.
Re:My Kneejerk Reaction? (Score:2)
And then they came for the blacks, and I did not speak out for them because I was not Black.
And they came for the communists, and I did not speak out because I was not a communist.
And then they came for me, and when they took me away, there was no one left to speak out for me.
No offense, but that quote is the biggest cop-out on Slashdot. Many, many things happen daily that people neither need nor want to care about. My point is that whether or not Holland, MI, gets censorware on their computers is for Holland, MI, to debate and decide, not the Slashdot community in general. A lot of other communities have gone through this discussion already. Some have voted in favor of it. Some have voted against it. None of them have become case studies on how this thing should be handled, and Holland, MI, is not about to become one. And do you know why? Because the definition of pornography and how it should be regulated in America has always been left up to the community to decide for itself. Not the state. Not the nation. Not the world. Not the Internet. The physical community. We are not talking about the slaughtering of Jews. Nor are we even talking about censorship. We're talking about how one community in this country wants to govern itself. And frankly, that doesn't apply to me, for I am not a part of that community.
It is okay for community decisions to not be important to the rest of the world. It is okay for government institutions to say, "We're going to regulate how our systems are used, and it's going to be based on what the community wants." Communities have a right to police themselves, and no one's civil rights are being violated here. No one is being told, "You can't look at porn." They're just saying that you can't do it at the library. Guess what. They've been saying that for years.
When this debate reaches the state or national (or even international) level, then I'll consider it important, but right now, it's important to Holland, MI, and Holland, MI, isn't about to set a precedent that other communities haven't already followed or broken.
Re:My Kneejerk Reaction? (Score:2)
Bull. I've seen empty space on magazine racks. Ask a library why they're not carrying Hustler and they're not going to tell you 'shelf space'. I asked the librarian at my public school library once if they had a Playboy because I found, on the Internet, an article reference. She said that wasn't the type of magazine they carried. That is why those magazines aren't carried. The government is not going to pay for materials that communities have deemed objectionable, as they have the right to do.
The Internet is a different matter. It does not take up any more space on the computer to allow access to porn sites. It doesn't cost any more [public] money to get Internet-with-porn. In fact, it takes more hard drive space, processor time, RAM, and money to use filters to block them! "But wait, what about people tying up the terminals lookin at porn?" you ask? Software isn't needed to solve this problem, just an AUP and a librarian to go over and tell Sir to get off the computer, people need it for real work.
This idea of the Internet costing absolutely nothing is a load as well. Electricity, at least in America, costs money. Bandwidth costs a lot of money. The difference in bandwidth between a kid looking at porn and a kid looking at research papers is amazing. AUP monitors need to get paid. And isn't the monitor herself a censor? Why pay a person an hourly wage, when you can install a filter and only pay for it once? The Internet costs money, too, and the government, once again, isn't going to pay for things that communities deem objectionable.
Re:Just like Slashdot moderation (Score:2)
I haven't seen very many anti-religious comments here, nor are anti-religious comments necessarily intentionally inflamitory. If I was a moderator and I saw anti-religious comments that were intentionally inflamitory, I'd moderate them down.
How about the postings like "I posted first" and such, do they get taken out, not usally.
Say what? First posters are almost immediately moderated down, although most people seem to think that a simple 'first post' is appropriately labeled as 'offtopic' not 'flamebait'. Being moderated down isn't the same as being 'taken out' either. Adjust your threshold if you really want to read all of the -1 and 0 posts. The post you were complaining about being moderated down is still there and readable to me, as I read with my threshold set to -1.
Tactics (Score:2)
1. Label it as a plot to add software that will prevent people from accessing biblical resources on the net.
1.1 A search for "Abraham tied his as to a tree..." will probably get filtered. So 1 is not *technically* a lie.
2. Republican/Conservative != Christian dickhead.
2.1 I'm a conservative republican, and I'm a neo-pagan.
LK
Re:USA: Conservatism, Fear, and Resistance (Score:2)
Example: This year a bunch of religious right fucks descided to pass a law requiring all schools to post the 10 commandments of the classroom wall. Oh yeah, the ACLU is really interfering in someones freedom by challenging this one on behalf of students of other religions.
Exmaple: This year a student walked out of the prayer durring his/her graduation in protest (a perfectly legal protest) and was then denied reentry by the police and was refused his/her deploma. Oh yeah, the ACLU is really a bad guy for interfering with the rights of those other students to see this student denied a deploma because of a legitimat protest.
Example: This year a school desided to deny graduation honors to two students because they were pregnant outside of marige. Oh yeah, that violates someones right to not see anyone who is "moraly unfit" by some loons standards recieve any honors.
Actually, if you look at the early days of the ACLU you will see that the ACLU's defence of minority religions is one of the reason many of the religions get allong so well today.. and I'm not talking little things here.. I'm talking protistants making it a crime to be catholic in their town (yes that was common less then 80 years ago). Whats that you say.. that violates the 1st amendment.. well yes that exactly what the ACLU said and that's what they are still saing today.. and it pisses lots of ignorent people off.
The times when the ACLU "opens mount and inserts foot" are when they defend the rights of some REALLY unpopular group (like the KKK) to freedom of speech.
I just hate it when people who don't know anyhting about the ACLU act like it's some busy body org. that just runs arround messing with people. The truth is that the ACLU is the one keeping the gov. from interfering with our rights period. Hell, the whole way the orginisation works prevents them from doing what you are accusing them of doing, i.e. they need to present a person who is actually being hurt to even have a case.
I suggest you take a look at the real history of the ACLU instead of the boggy man stories. You would not have the freedom to say you are an atheist or islam today in this country without the ACLU's past efforts period. That's real defence of freedom of religion.
Jeff
BTW> The only time when you could say that the ACLU was pushing belief or being anti-religious was the "Monkey Trial," but even their defence of Scopes for teaching evolution was based on the fact that evolution was a scientific docterin and not a religious one.. Hmm.. Actualy, I'm not even shure the ACLU was on that case, but i think they may have been since the teecher was being persicuted.