perfidy

The Supreme Court upheld the "Children's Internet Protection Act"(CIPA) (Thanks, President Clin-ton!) today against a lawsuit from the American Library Association. The law declares that public libraries must install internet filters on all public internet access points in the library or lose federal funding. This law is bad/unnecessary for four reasons: 

1. Filters are inaccurate, messy, and problematic. Even the best block many "legitimate" sites. Families who do not have a home internet connection and can't use the internet at work often rely on public libraries to gain access to information. Restricting the access of these people to the internet, even somewhat, should not be encouraged. Although the SCOTUS leaves it up to "community standards" to determine what content gets blocked in a particular library, my ethical principles lead me to oppose this decision.

2. The SCOTUS in hearings made much of the traditional role of libraries as selective repositories (that is, they buy this book but not that book). See this excerpt from the WaPo article:

   The government argued that the law allows communities to set their own standards for what content would be filtered by school and library computers. It also argued that filtering Internet content is no different than the book-buying decisions that libraries make all the time. Adults, the government also noted, can ask librarians to disable the filters.

   I think this is a bad idea. The internet, by its very nature, is different from other data sources. Libraries have already grasped that fact-- it is one reason they opposed the CIPA, which would affect the free access of adults to information they seek. Furthermore, the SCOTUS' comparison of the internet with the book holdings of a library is wrong. The internet is more like the reference desk, where they will look up anything you need, and refer you to other sources when they cannot help you. On this count, I think the CIPA is bad law and the Supreme Court is dead wrong.

3. Interstate commerce?? Unless the kid uses a credit card to buy porn online, I don't see how this is the Fed's problem anyway.
4. Finally, the CIPA is an empty victory for anti-Porn crusaders. The vast majority of public libraries recieve little funding from the Federal Government. Most of their budget comes from state and local initiatives. If the letters to the editor of Modern Librarian are any gauge, I think a lot of libraries will choose to forego the Federal pittance, and leave their internet access filter-free.

There are many better ways than filtering software to control the access of children to so-called "harmful" information. Libraries have been trying out these alternatives on the local level for years. The SCOTUS merely demonstrates its lack of fine understanding of how the technology works when it upholds CIPA. 

On a better note, the COPA (Children's Online Protection Act) (Thanks again, President Clin-ton!^✶Don't blame me. I voted for Kodos.) was overturned in the same decision. This law would have put the onus on website operators/owners to make it impossible for children to access their sites, presumably via magic, future-technology, or reversing the polarity on the antimatter injectors.