cyberfiltering: just say no... Not no, yes!

[Albert Lunde]

>From what I have seen of the CDA, I agree with it, and do not understand
>how it was made unconstitutional.  I haven't had the time to look into it.
>And I don't feel like rehashing all of that.

I don't want to go thru the whole thing, either, but it _is_ directly
related to the political and legal reasons this discussion is going on.
Those who are interested can read the highlights of the decision at:

http://www.access.digex.net/~epic/cda/highlights.html

The full text (250K) is available at:
http://www.vtw.org/speech/decision.html
http://www.eff.org/Alerts/HTML/960612_aclu_v_reno_decision.html

The stipulations made about the nature of the Internet make interesting
reading, aside from the "censorship" issues.

>>Speaking for myself, I have to say that I suffered a lot more as a teen
>>from lack of information about sexuality, than from excessive exposure to
>>pornography.
>
>Information about sexuality should be obtained from your parents, not from
>someone on the internet, who is more than likely wrong.

In my case, that would have failed miserably, as my parents gave me *no*
information about sexuality, and my first "sex education" was a section of
an Advanced Placement Biology course that I took in 12th grade.

As a result, I bought a number of books when I went away to college, and I
owe a big debt to the feminist health movement for providing frank
information (for example, the authors of _Our Bodies Ourselves_). (For
context, I am in my early 40s, I hope things are better today, but I still
see teens who need information.)

With respect to accuracy:

How many parents of teens have systematically studied safer sex information?

How many heterosexual parents can give good advice to a child who is
homosexual or bisexual?

There are plenty of sources of information on the net that are shoddy, but
there are also sites that are accurate and well organized. (This is like
every other subject.)

>I think in the end, the public will make the decision concerning this
>issue, not the librarian.

As I said before, the public includes people like me and people like you.
Institutions have to strike a balance, and that is not easy.

---
    Albert Lunde                      Albert-Lunde at nwu.edu