US Supreme Court Upholds CIPA

TheMatt writes "The US Supreme Court today has upheld CIPA, the law that required public schools and libraries to put internet filters on computers or lose federal funding. Quote: 'The court in a 5-4 decision ruled that the Children's Internet Protection Act does not violate the First Amendment, but that filters sometimes, do block informational Web sites.'" The decision will be posted on the US Supreme Court website later today. The case is United States v. American Library Association, 02-361. We had covered this story before.

Decision wrong in slashdot post

[abcxyz]

The Washington Post article indicates that the decision was 6-3, not 5-4. Maybey they had a typo and corrected it later.

Decisions on non slashdotted site

[Dan Berlin]

Plurality opinion here [ap.org].
Dissents are here [ap.org] and here [ap.org].
Concurrences are here [ap.org] and here [ap.org].

Re:Can they keep logs?

[demaria]

The Supreme Court said the existing law was legal. That does not nullify the ability to repeal. All you need to is pass another law saying "That other law is now overridden" or something to that effect. Heck, we did it with our constitution before (see prohibition).

Not an absolute problem

[thdexter]

The SCOTUS did say that having a librarian temporarily disable the filter is acceptable (and that's why the case was decided this way, in part; it isn't an undue burden, if a legit site is blocked it can be bypassed, and it will prevent a majority of porno or whatever.) Take a look over at SCOTUSblog [goldsteinhowe.com], there's more information there.

Re:How do you know you're filtered?

[aborchers]

A huge problem with the law is that filters which don't tell you they're filtering are OK

I would expect that in most cases you will be able to rely on the librarians to tell you when filters are enabled. The American Library Association has already denounced the decision [ala.org] and, unlike the PATRIOT act, I don't believe CIPA puts librarians under a gag order with respect to disclosing the existence of filters.

American Library Association's opinion

[madape]

Read the ALA's opinion... [ala.org]

Re:Can they keep logs?

[stanmann]

If it is a useful site use the override function and unblock it. YOU DON'T HAVE TO USE THE DEFAULT BLOCK LIST! And anyone who does, is going to be getting pr0n and not getting all the available "useful sites". All the filters have a bias, some political, some religious, doesn't matter. Figure out the bias and correct for it.

addendum

[KludgeGrrl]

Yes, it was indeed librarians who opposed the law here's [radio.cbc.ca] the link...

Re:Decision wrong in slashdot post

[mofochickamo]

The 5-4 decision was the affirmative action decision [cnn.com].

From the inside

[99bottles]

I'm the IT Manager of a fairly large public library, and I've seen every aspect of the filter battle. For several years we've offered an optional filter, which the user has the ability to turn on or off for their browsing. We only block two "categories" of content: sexually explicit and extreme/obscene

We actually turn down about $50K of funding due to CIPA, but in the past 3 years I can count on one hand the number of complaints we've had about the filter. We run it from a proxy server and there's no quick trick for someone to circumvent it.

The suggestion of publishing the logs of what gets filtered. Bad idea! You wouldn't believe what people will surf for. We process about 2GB of patron Inet traffic a day, and have between 100-500 blocks on average. Nearly all of them very legitimate.

I hate big brother dangling the carrot as much as the next guy, but blameing the filter isn't the right approach.

Net Blocking Report from EFF and OPG is out

[pberry]

The report [eff.org] is out, has tons of data about blocked sites. Here is the executive summary:

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and the Online Policy Group (OPG) have cooperated to study and analyze the accessibility on the web of information related to state-mandated curriculum topics within public schools that operate Internet blocking software. This study measures the extent to which blocking software impedes the educational process by restricting access to web pages relevant to the required curriculum.

The abstract is online in HTML [eff.org] as well. The whole PDF [eff.org] is 10.6MB.

Re:Wow ... watch as our freedoms are stripped away

[evilviper]

I got a net censor, have the computers in plain site of all the patrons of the library as well as the librarians.

Well, CBS/Viacom has theil spin machine on full-tilt, so your arguement isn't going to hold water...

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/06/16/eveningn ews/main558928.shtml [cbsnews.com]

About a week ago I downloaded the video, and saw the "people [who] are looking at pornographic material right next to the librarians", which consisted of a 1/10th-of-a-second shot that showed a woman (with face blurred out, so no guess where she was actually looking) standing behind a man at a computer, with the screen contents blurred out (so it could just as well be the Mona Lisa onscreen)... I though it was extremely suspicious when I first watched it. I think it would be great if there was actually an independant news network left that might investigate these very suspicious claims. It seems all too convient.

Additionally, later in the story, they actually contradict themselves anyhow. First they claim librarians are complicit about pornography, then they tell you it was actually the librarians that filed suit against the library to get internet filters installed... I don't know what else to say. Everything about this story seemed very suspicious, but there's not really anything that I could do about it.

Anyhow, I just wanted to point out that your arguement would probably be struck down with stories such as this, even if their facts seem tenuous at best.

Re:Decision wrong in slashdot post

[Petrox]

The decision was 6-3. It's rather confusing, however. The majority opinion was joined by four justices (Rehnquist,, O'Connor, Scalia, Thomas). Two justices wrote opinions concurring in the judgment (Kennedy, Breyer). This means that they agree with the decision, but for different reasons. Three justices dissented (Stevens wrote his own, and Souter wrote another in which Ginsberg joined).

Get it?

Re:Automatic Unblock

[DeusExLibris]

I think that this is an excellent idea, but the fundamental problem with all of this is that libraries are not well-funded. This is why the law is an issue at all, since the law threatens that the library will lose it's federal funding if it doesn't comply.

Consequently, it is safe to assume (particularly for small, suburban or rural libraries) that they do not have the resources or technical expertise to implement this in a way that guarantees that a local christian conservative activist doesn't come along and call for the library to lose it's funding because Johnny knows more about computers than the librarian and managed to glipmse a couple of nipples before being chased off.

Perhaps the /. community could volunteer some of their time at their own local library, offering to help configure the machines in such a way to ease their burden while still complying with CIPA. I am sure that libraries everywhere would welcome the offer of a little free computer consulting.

Re:Can they keep logs?

[utmecheng]

The court doesn't overturn itself all the time. Actually it hardly ever does. It only redefines, limits the scope and applies other rulings in other ways. If the court actually overturned a lot of decisions (from the supreme court, not lower courts) you'd see a very very different outcome in many situations. The court is first and foremost concerned with previous rullings and their authority to act!!

I must have missed this in the constitution

[night_flyer]

but where is internet access a right?

Re:Can they keep logs?

[tha_mink]

It should be pointed out that part of the law states that the filters can be switched off for people who request such.

side-stepping the US Constitution

[dh003i]

The issue here is that Congress has side-stepped the Constituion. They've legislated through the back-door what they can't through the front.

They have no put a ban on such sites, nor told schools that they have to block such sites. They've said that if the schools don't do this, they won't give them Federal funding. They do the same thing with taxes. You couldn't pass a law criminalizing smoking, but you can tax it to high heaven. This is why Libertarians want states to be in no way dependent on Federal gov't funding.

So, the question here is, is it ok for the government to side-step the intent of the US Constituion. The USSC's answer is hardly affirmative, with a 5-4 decision. Such a weak decision is susceptible to being over-turned. The answer to it, of course, depends on whether you are a strict constructionalist or a loose constructionalist.

Quite frankly, I think that the government shouldn't be able to regulate through the back door what it can't through the front; that mandate should be written into the US Constitution.

Re:Can they keep logs?

[c4seyj0nes]

I guess all the justices thought about was "wow, these filters must just block porn, so its OK, because porn isn't a free speech issue" while ignoring the fact that the filters fail at that task.

RTA, it wasn't the fact that the justices thought the the filters worked perfectly but the fact that any library patron that was over 18 could go and ask the librarian to turn off the filter.

I'm sure that this will be a little embarassing if you're actually looking for porn but not if a legit site is being blocked.