Okay, did I hear it right? The Children’s Internet Protection Act was quietly piggybacked onto the budget bill, and was passed last week? This is the one that requires libraries and schools to install porn filters if they want to keep their federal funding.
It’s a piece of particularly pointless legislation (“See the Congressperson legislate. See, see, see. See the Congressperson run for re-election. Run, run, run. See the Congressperson stand on his ‘family values’ platform. Stand, stand, stand.”)
Abstract concepts of censorship aside, I think it simply places an unnecessary burden on the libraries and schools. Why should it be the library or school’s problem to police what kids are looking at?
The schools my children attend already require a big 2-page disclaimer to be signed by both parents and student, stating that everybody understands that visiting XXX websites is forbidden, and absolving the school district of any responsibility if anything “bad” happens, like if the student contacts a pedophile on-line during class and goes to meet him after school and gets raped and strangled. :rolleyes: My daughter already knows of one kid who got kicked out of Internet class last year. Seems the dork didn’t quite grasp what it meant when the teacher told them, “…and I’ll be checking your History folder, so…” I don’t know whether the schools here have filtering software, or whether it’s just the teacher doing spot checks.
It’s impractical, too. Some of the filtering software doesn’t work right, or it filters out stuff like birth control information, which IMO children should have access to.
I predict we’ll see a lot of schools drop their Internet classes, and a lot of libraries refuse to allow Internet access to people under 18. It’s a damn shame, I think.
Man, I hope to god this didn’t pass…they’ve got to be kidding. As if we don’t pawn enough responsibility off onto other people as it is, sheesh.
I can just see the lawsuits now…oh my.
This is totally a bad idea. Those internet snoops aren’t all terrible, and for the circumstances you describe I’m sure that the teacher or supervisor can allow kids access to sexually informative yet not pornographic sites if the need arises, but its the idea of it all. Man, I tell you, pornography is America’s Jew (in re to an irrational hatred of a thing like the nazi’s).
I propose the Internet’s Children Protection act–all children under the age of 18 must wear little padlocked mittens at all times, thus preventing them from typing anything. The rest of us can continue to surf as we please.
Who’s going to decide what’s covered by this software? I read a story about a filtering company which was criticized by a website. The filtering company then blocked all of its customers from accessing that website. This is scary enough from a private company, but what if we have a public agency with this power? The article mentioned candidates’ web pages accidently being blocked because of containing the name (not word but name) “Dick”. What if someone decides to intentionally block the webpages of candidates he doesn’t like? This is a bad idea on so many levels.
How much of public libraries’ funds come from the federal government? Would it be feasible for libraries to just forgoe federal funding?
On the ironic side of things, IIRC, since Catholic schools don’t receive federal funding, Catholic school students may soon have more freedom than public school students.
If you want to find out more about internet blocking software and the non pornographic sites they filter out go to http://www.peacefire.org .
Also, I propose in addition to MEBuckners suggestions, that we negate all of these pesky problems by simply locking our children in cupboards and cutting off all contact with the outside world. This will ensure that they would not come into contact with anything that could warp their fragile little minds and turn them into serial killers/rapists/telemarketers etc… and on their eighteenth birthday (the day when all the pathetic, immature little brats who don’t know what’s good for them suddenly evolve into mature, responsible adults) they could be let out into the outside world, after all, not having any form of contact with it just makes it all the more fun to explore, right?
I read an newspaper article about the provision when it was put in, but I didn’t know that it passed. It said that Dick Armey’s webpage could not load under filtering software, and neither could these “family values” websites…because they had references to homosexuality.
On the same page I got that quote from, there was another article about the censoring software, mentioning Armey getting censored (the site is based in Decatur, GA, so they probably read the same article that I did).
Jesus Christ!.. that software blocks access to one of the ACLU’s websites. I bet I could still log onto the NRA’s website though… Of course! Free speech is dangerous, unlike putting a M-16 in the hands of anyone who wants one.
The best filtering can be done by yourself. However the steps will be a little geeky.
Get Internet junkbuster
Open the block.ini file and enter in to sites or wildcard of sites that you want blocked.
Close it and run junkbuster while on the net.
If a site is blocked that u don’t want to be blocked, then go back to the block.ini file and put a tilde next to the site that you don’t want blocked. Put it at the end of the file for best effect.
It is not a bad law. The problem is that the anti-filtering software is for the most part not up to speed. And the political and corporate-inspired filtering in the software is notorious.
This is a hideously bad idea. It’s already been a particularly heated debate in the public libraries here, the end result being something of an impasse: the publibs absolutely REFUSE to do it on outright principle (libraries are supposed to be a haven for unrestricted information flow, after all) and “concerned parents” apparently won’t stop screaming about saving their poor innocent darlings from psyche-destroying, life-ruining glimpses of bareboobs.com
I suspect the same will happen here, not that it much matters. This will wither and die the moment it reaches the Supreme Court, for a whole lot of reasons. The real question remains, however:
How in the world did this rag of legislation actually get slipped in and passed? Who do we need to sit on to keep crap like this from coming up again?
My wife installed net nanny once, and every time I typed a word containing ass like glass these xx’es popped in there. Very frustrating, so she removed it.
I have a 9 year old daughter who knows a lot more than I think, but I wonder if these porno sites are a problem. Only once have I accidently hit a porno site and that was when I was researching latex rubber. If she’s curious, then I think she’s ready to be exposed, but I know she’ll go to her mother if its something she doesn’t understand. I’m not worried about her but what about children who cannot share questions about sex with their parents. Playboy and particularly Penthouse did a great disservice to me by warping my relationships with women in my younger years, I mean if I didn’t get laid on the first date, I assumed the relationship would go nowhere. There was no one around to guide me on that score. I suffered a tremendous loss there not to mention the impact that had on others.
IIRC Freedom this was done to ensure that sneaky laws weren’t slipped in. Any Bill must have an informative title, and all the propositions in the Bill must be part of the title.
I forget the legal term for it, but many laws were squeezed into bills. Our representatives don’t always read word for word the lengthy Bills but instead receive summaries of the law proposed (I know, crazy, isn’t it?) The tricky part comes in here…the committee that proposed the law is who writes the summary. So, sneaking a little law in about drugs in a bill for water conservation or something was possible (and practiced).
So, anyway, to shorten this tale we started making sure full bills have names and everything has to be more or less to the point in a bill.
Incidentally, you might also wonder who would go against the “Methamphetamine Anti-Proliferation Act” but it was soundly defeated (thank god, this was another “information is illegal” scam). Politicians even have principles sometimes.
Shame on Net Nanny! It puts “XXX” in the middle of words. Everyone knows that “XXX” is a designation for pornographic movies! Net Nanny is spreading smut!!
(I’d put a smiley face here, except that the SDMB user known as Contestant #3 was kicked off because he posted a website with part of the URL X’ed out, like www. followed by eleven X’s followed by .com, which accidentally turned out to be a link to a porn site.)