CDA and Filtering

[Jon Lebkowsky]

At 12:49 PM 6/27/97 -0700, JOSEPH MAXIMILLIAN MURPHY wrote:
>>Well I bet nobody is partying harder tonight than the fitlering vendors.
>>If any of there stock is publicly traded, I bet it way up today.  While
>>I have no legal training whatsover (other than a business law class as a
>>college sophomore), it does seem from my reading of this text from
>>today's decison that filters played a key role in the Courts decison:
>
>David's thoughts here are particularly interesting in regard to H.R. 774, a
>bill introduced by Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) which would require ISPs to offer
>filtering software to their customers. My reading of the bill left me
wondering
>if it would only apply to commercial entities, or if libraries could also be
>defined as "engaged in the business of providing a computer and
communications
>facility through which a customer may obtain access to the Internet." I'm no
>legal expert, so anyone who actually understands Legalese might want to
comment
>on that.
>
>You know, there could be a lot of strange bedfellows made between
opponents of
>filtering and of large unfunded Federal mandates...
>
>More info on H.R. 774 is available through Thomas, at 
>http://thomas.loc.gov/home/c105query.html or the Citizens' Internet
>Empowerment Coalition, at http://www.ciec.org/SC_appeal/970626_Lofgren.html

When you're talking about filtering, you have to draw this line: when
parents implement filtering software, that's an exercise of their right as
parents to guide and instruct their children according to their
preferences. I think there's better ways to do that, but I concede that
parents have that right.

When a government institution, e.g. a government-funded library, implements
filtering, that's censorship. David Burt argues that it's a library's right
of selection, and I suppose that argument will get a court test sometime in
the near future...but I disagree.  I think that an Internet connection
extends the libraries existing base of information, and that filtering
removes rather than selects.

And when you talk about pornography as objectionable material, remember
that what's objectionable to one person may not be objectionable to another.

And when you talk about kids' exposure to objectionable material, however
defined, remember that filtering software won't suppress it all, and that
some libraries incorporate acceptable use statements in their Internet
policies, i.e. tell people not to look at the 'bad' stuff, rather than
using broad and imperfect filters.




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Jon Lebkowsky     *     jonl at onr.com     *     www.well.com/~jonl
President, EFF-Austin
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