IP: Internet Filters Used to Shield Minors Censor Speech, Critics Say

[David Farber <dave@farber.net>]

>From: "the terminal of Geoff Goodfellow" <geoff@iconia.com>
>To: "Dave E-mail Pamphleteer Farber" <farber@cis.upenn.edu>
>
>Internet Filters Used to Shield Minors Censor Speech, Critics Say
>By JOHN SCHWARTZ
>The New York Times
>
>When Jeffery Pollock ran for Congress last year, he posted his forceful
>opinions on more than a dozen topics on his Web site, pollock4congress .com,
>including his support for the federally mandated use of Internet "filtering"
>software to block pornography in schools and libraries.
>
>Then he discovered that his own site was blocked by one of those filtering
>programs, Cyber Patrol.
>
>The experience led Mr. Pollock, a 47-year-old Republican from Oregon, to
>reconsider his views on filtering. What he once thought of as protection, he
>said, now looked a lot like censorship. "To mandate the federal government
>to legislate morality, I find abhorrent," Mr. Pollock said.
>
>Congress apparently disagrees. In December, lawmakers passed a bill
>requiring federally financed schools and libraries to use a "technology
>protection measure" like filters to block access to obscene material, child
>pornography and anything considered to be "harmful to minors." Tucked into
>an enormous last- minute appropriations bill, the new law bars schools and
>libraries that do not comply from receiving federal money from a number of
>sources ? including the popular e-Rate program, which has helped to link
>thousands of public and private institutions to the Internet.
>
>--SNIP--
>
>http://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/19/technology/19FILT.html?pagewanted=print
>
>=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
>geoff.goodfellow@iconia.com, Prague CZ * tel/mobil +420 (0)603 706 558
>"success is getting what you want & happiness is wanting what you get"
>http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/99/01/biztech/articles/17drop.html



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