***Dave Does the Blog

The Supremes today heard arguments regarding CIPA, the latest attempt by Congress to mandate Internet content filtering at libraries and schools.

Congress tried to get around two previous judicial rejections by simply saying that libraries were only required to use the filtering if they accepted federal funds to buy PCs and Net access in the first place. Given that libraries almost never have enough money, the pressure to accept is almost impossible to resist.

But given that Internet filters still, frankly, suck at blocking just porn, using filters is highly problematic. On the radio this a.m., one of the reps of a filtering software company was bragging about how their product coiuld catch 90% of the adults sites (meaning one out of ten sites get through) and “only” 1% of sites blocked is a legitimate site.

Making things worse, the filtering companies refuse to reveal what material they block, using what criteria. On the one hand, that makes sense, since adult sites would love to reverse-engineer how to avoid detection. On the other hand, it means that legitimate sites have no way of knowing why they might be blocked.

Sure, maybe the library can set up rules to let an adult come and ask a librarian to override blockage on a given site. That’s fine, as long as the adult in question doesn’t mind letting the librarian know that she’s looking up material about breast cancer, or he’s researching material about homosexuality, or …

Would you want to have to ask the librarian permission to read all the books you’ve ever read? Would you like to let anyone know about what you want to look up on the Internet?

What’s most irksome about the Bush Adminstration’s case is that they’re presenting CIPA as empowering the libraries. Say what?

Ted Olson, the Justice Department’s solicitor general, told the justices on Wednesday that librarians “are simply declining to put on their computer systems the kind of content they have chosen not to put on their bookshelves…The First Amendment does not require libraries to sponsor the viewing of pornography.”

That’s true. But libraries aren’t getting a choice here, are they? It’s not that Congress is offering them filtering software, it’s mandating it. If libraries want to pursue a different route to keeping kids from downloading skin pics (like, say, requiring kids to use Internet stations in view of librarians), they don’t have that choice.

(And I’ll note, parenthetically, that while I never visited a public library that stocked pornography per se, I certainly, ah, found books in my youth with rather, um, racy scenes that quite appealed to my adolescent prurience, both fiction and non-.)

Justice David Souter suggested that CIPA was different, because it turns over decisions about which Web sites to block to software companies that view their blocklists, or lists of off-limit sites, as trade secrets. “The companies that do prepare them (blocklists) will not even disclose what they are blocking,” Souter said. “When libraries have historically made these decisions, they have known what they’re blocking.”
“Libraries have known that they don’t stock pornography,” Olson countered.

Puh-leaze.

Man buys “Give Peace A Chance” t-shirt from a vendor in a mall.

Man wears t-shirt.

Man sits in food court, wearing t-shirt, eating lunch with his son.

Mall security approaches man, tells him he has to either take off the shirt or leave the mall.

Man refuses.

Security calls the local cops, who arrest him for trespass.

Man turns out to be a prominent local lawyer who’s not afraid to talk to the press.

D’oh!

Assuming the facts of the case are as presented …

Malls usually have signs up around them indicating that they are private property and permission to access the mall may be withdrawn at any time, but it’s not clear how enforcable such rules are, especially when you’re dealing with pretty innocuous behavior (not to mention behavior which entailed wearing a shirt that was bought at the mall in question).

Somebody’s going to have egg on their face — if not a law suit — before this is all over.

(via BoingBoing)

A West Yorkshire nursery school has banned books with pigs in them from the classroom.

Sixty per cent of the school’s pupils are of Pakistani or Indian origin and 99% of these pupils are Muslims.
Mrs Harris said in a statement: “Recently I have been aware of an occasion where young Muslim children in class were read stories about pigs.
“We try to be sensitive to the fact that for Muslims talk of pigs is offensive.”

This is not censorship, Mrs Harris hastens to add: the books are still (at the moment) in the school library.

Next up: banning books with cows in them from classes with Hindi children, banning books with men in them from classes with feminist children, banning books with cars in them from classes with environmentalist children, and banning books with words in them from classes with children from cultures with strong oral storytelling traditions.

Wilbur wept.