IP: More on Yale Law Professor Is Main Architect of Global Filter

[David Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>]

> Date: Mon, 13 Sep 1999 18:02:31 -0700
> To: David Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>
> From: mech () eff org (Stanton McCandlish)
>
>
> At 8:13 PM -0400 9/13/99, David Farber wrote:
> > > From: RALPH.HITCHENS () hq doe gov
> > > Date: Mon, 13 Sep 1999 16:47:00 -0400
> > > Subject: Re:IP: Yale Law Professor Is Main Architect of Global Filter
> > > To: <farber () linc cis upenn edu>
> > >
> > > David, I am continually surprised by presumably intelligent people who
> > > persistently misread content filtering as a First Amendment issue.
> > > Censorship
> > > is mainly about prior restraint of publication.  Public libraries do
> > > "content
> > > filtering" all the time through locally-determined acquisition policies for
> > > books and periodical subscriptions, and no one considers it unusual or
> > > threatening to our civil liberties.  Crying "censorship!" when libraries
> > > contemplate extending this to the Internet smacks of the zero-sum zealotry
> > > of
> > > Second Amendment advocates who insist that the Constitution 
> guarantees their
> > > right to buy and sell automatic weapons.
> > >
> > > Ralph Hitchens
>
> Actually, even our courts don't buy this. This issue was tested in the
> Loudoun Co., VA, library case, and comes down to there being a major
> distinction between the library selection process (the principal
> criteria of which are a) "can we afford this?" and, b) "will it be
> popular and/or useful enough to make it worth buying?") on the one
> hand, and the filtering (the sole criteria of which is "should this be
> censored?") on the other hand.  The former decision is an economic one,
> made by the library. The latter is a moral one, made by a filtering
> software company.  Libraries have long had in place a process for
> dealing with demands that certain books not be carried by the library,
> on moralistic grounds, and they almost uniformly resist such attempts
> at censorship.  This is a core aspect of the American public library
> tradition, and it is not surprising in the least to see most libraries
> resisting the imposition of filtering software.
>
> Another important distinction is that the Internet is, in effect, a
> single resource composed of many subresources. It is more analogous to
> an encyclopedia than to a single book. I'm unaware of any library in
> the country that uses a permanent marker to black out articles in its
> encyclopedia sets that someone considers "inappropriate for minors".  A
> related further distinction is that particular Internet content is not
> something the library "selects" at all, unlike a book, a magazine
> subscription, etc.  Rather, the library selects Internet access, and
> provides this as a public service, with government funds. THAT is where
> the First Amendment comes into play:  Government is not permitted to
> make willy-nilly decisions about what members of the public are
> "permitted" to *select themselves*, which is what library patrons do
> when they access the Net from a library.
>
> The fact is, *lots* of things in the library are what many people would
> consider "inappropriate for minors", including nude photography,
> salacious literature, graphic articles, sex manuals, horror stories,
> etc., etc.  It is and always has been the job of parents to set rules
> for what their children may read in the library, buy from a bookstore
> or otherwise obtain, and this hasn't changed. The world has failed to
> fall apart as a result of "inappropriate" material being readily
> availble to minors in libraries, and the world will again fail to fall
> apart if all Internet terminals in libraries are not censored.
>
> All this before we get to the real problems inherent in filters, the
> main ones being that they fail, dismally, in two respects. First, they
> fail to actually do what they are supposed to do (block out sexually
> explicit and other material that offend someone somewhere.)  They block
> out some of it, but not nearly all of it. This is a bit like trusting a
> condom that only keeps in every other sperm cell and keeps out every
> other virus. Secondly, they block an amazing amount of material they
> shouldn't, both accidentally (i.e., because they are imprecise) or on
> purpose (e.g., because the filtering software maker hates gays, or Free
> Speech advocates, or uppity women, or some other group whose material
> consciously decide to block).
>
> As a final note, I would add that the main hairs being raised on the
> backs of the necks of First Amendment fans about library filtering is
> that in most cases it is applied to adults as well as children.  This
> issue is not and never has been about "protecting children".  As always
> with theocratic censors, it's about shutting up everyone they disagree
> with.
>
> PS: The Munich proposal is actually about a ratings system (a set of
> prefab labels one is expected to stuff one's content into), not about
> filters, per se. It's a far broader issue than filters in libraries,
> because the resulting system that would come from this proposal will be
> easily made applicable to all content. ISPs could block any unrated
> site or any site with too "bad" a rating, and governments could require
> that they do so.  The proponents of the system say this isn't what they
> intend of course, but the road to Hell is paved with good intentions.
>
>
> --
> Stanton McCandlish      mech () eff org       http://www.eff.org/~mech
> Program Director, Electronic Frontier Foundation
> voice: +1 415 436 9333 x105   fax: +1 415 436 9333   ICQ: 16631335
> PGPfone: 204.253.162.21  ICQ Pager: http://wwp.mirabilis.com/16631335#pager