A federal appeals court has thrown out the Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA), which would have mandated that libraries use Internet filter software or lose their federal funding.
I’m certainly a believer in making it difficult for kids to get hold of porn (anyone who thinks it can be made impossible is living in cloud-cuckoo land).
But these sorts of laws are not the way to do it, as long as the principle expounded by the US Supreme Court holds true — you can’t restrict access to adults to the same level you restrict it to kids, just because you don’t want kids to see something.
Until filtering software gets a hell of a lot better, and personal identification on-line becomes a hell of a lot more definitive (and no bets as to which, if either, will happen first), these sorts of schemes will continue to (and should be) struck down.
(Via Anadandy)
UPDATE: The Register has a nice article on the subject. They note, among other things, that CIPA and efforts like them are huge opportunities for private companies (the ones that publish web filters) to feed at the public trough and, at the same time, dictate what people can and cannot read.
The full content of the decision is here.