Library Lawsuit

Greg MacGowan macgowan at BINAH.CC.BRANDEIS.EDU
Tue Jun 2 09:35:32 EDT 1998


At 08:13 PM 6/1/98 -0700, David Burt wrote:
>That's because the filtering controversy really isn't an engineering
>problem, it's a moral one.  What really matters in the debate isn't so much
>technical details, but values.  And you can't have a discussion about values
>based on technical details.

The technical details become relevant when they create a conflict between
values, in this case, the value of shielding minors from potentially
offensive material vs. the value of easily obtaining important, acceptable,
relevant, and even practical information that may be inadvertently filtered
out (e.g., breast cancer). The real issue is how your values system
balances these two conflicting considerations.

--------------------------------------------------------------
Greg S. MacGowan
Information Technologies Coordinator (and Webmaster)
Brandeis University Libraries
Brandeis University
Waltham, MA, USA  02454-9110

phone: (781) 736-4690 (W)
fax:    (781) 736-4719 
mailto: macgowan at Brandeis.edu

"Doing your best takes a lot of effort, so why not do OK and then relax?"
-- Rick Cleary


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