Dan Kleinman of SafeLibraries posted a comment on this blog to Roma Harris’ letter to the London Public Library. He also responded to a copy of Sam Trosow’s letter that was posted to the LibraryLaw Blog. I’m reposting comments here that I added there.
Mr. Kleinman’s summary of the “Final Adjudication” of the ACLU v. Gonzales case is blatantly incorrect. Kleinman wrote: “ACLU expert and court agrees Internet filters are about 95% effective.” There is one mention of 95% in the Final Adjudication and it is on page 35: “Based upon the testimony of Dr. Cranor, which I accept, I find that filters generally block about 95% of sexually explicit material. Cranor Testimony, 10/24 Tr. 55:8-23.”
Ninety-five percent of sexually-explicit content is very different from “Internet filters are about 95% effective.” Ninety-five percent of sexually-explicit material filtered out provides no measure of overblocking — that statistic on its own does not in any way suggest that blocking of health information is NOT taking place! Nor does it address any of the issues about access for “women, GLBTQ populations, radical thinkers, dissenters, suspect communities, women, the girl-child, and so on” as outlined by Dr. Toni Samek.
The “pure arrogance” (see here) of librarians who would reject having a ballot question to address Internet filtering is misdirected. Any comment that someone is “not sophisticated” enough to have a valid opinion is of course arrogant — but that library administrator’s comment doesn’t address the issue at hand and to suggest it was the single and full response to Mr. Kleinman’s proposal for a referendum on filtering software undermines the argument. In what cases does a referendum decide what goes and what doesn’t go? Do we vote on rights? I don’t think Internet filtering should be decided by a majority vote by the public. Just as I don’t think there should have been a vote on if we should say the Lord’s prayer in public schools or if people should have access to universal medical care or if we should send equalization payments to Atlantic Canada. Likewise, intellectual freedom is not something we vote on: it’s part of the rights package we’re handed for being humans (with privileges, of course — universal human rights are many things but universal).
I think it’s far more arrogant to install a filter than it is to give members of the public the tools with which to analyze the information they get over the Internet and ensure their children are protected from online predators. It’s also arrogant of Mr. Kleinman to misquote a court decision.
Filters block access to information. As the Brenner Centre for Justice concluded in its 2006 revision of its 2001 Internet Filters: A Public Policy Report: “Despite the superficial appeal of filters, they are not a solution to concerns about pornography or other questionable content online. Internet training, sex education, and media literacy are the best ways to protect the next generation.”
Mr. Kleinman also writes: says, “What’s improper is that librarians do no work harder to make available at least portions of over seven eighths of the Internet.” Yeah well — we’re too damn busy trying to protect access to that first eighth.
-SIO
July 5th, 2007 at 1:42 am
Oh, SIO is Sabina! Oh, hi Sabina. I do admire your efforts here on your blog, you and your co-bloggers.
Since you reposted here what you wrote on Mary’s blog, please allow me to repost here my answer, and thank you. (Oh, since I raise legal issues, shall we write only to Mary’s blog?):
Ah! Spirited debate! Excellent!
Sabina, have you read ACLU v. Gonzales? Filters are so effective that COPA was found unconstitutional precisely because filters are so effective. Yes, I used 95%, but I guess to make you happy I should have used a number of glowing statements made by the ACLU and the Court about the efficacy of filters.
You cited as evidence of your claim that filters are not effective a 2001 report revised in 2006 while ACLU v. Gonzales is from 2007 and is even based on recent ACLU expert testimony. Certainly one cannot argue that the ACLU is prejudiced in favor of filters; after all, the ACLU was one of the losing parties in US v. ALA. Therefore, your evidence is not persuasive and is quite literally out of date.
Oh, and your concern for overblocking is merely raising an issue already asked and answered in US v. ALA. But I suppose referring to it does confuse the average person who may not have read US v. ALA, so I can understand why the issue and others like it continue to be raised again and again by those opposing filtering.
Regarding my comments about the “Deep Web,” your response was to make a joke about it. It was a cute joke actually. Quite funny. But it did not address the issue of librarians essentially blocking access to 87% of the Internet by not providing access points.
Regarding my comments on the arrogance of some librarians, you agreed! Here, here! But you then say it was misdirected because you can’t poll the public on rights such as intellectual freedom. I agree with you completely!
However, you are guilty of your own misdirection here. Such a poll would not be on intellectual freedom. Your claiming it would be is essentially you rewording the argument in your favor. But, in reality, intellectual freedom is not the issue. The issue is the very material that the US Supreme Court says there is a “legitimate, and even compelling” interest in keeping children away from. It is totally appropriate to keep children from such material. Several SCOTUS decisions have said so. The ALA expressly disagrees with these decisions, and apparently so do you. Is the SCOTUS in violation of intellectual freedom? Is SCOTUS “arrogant”? Keeping inappropriate material as the SCOTUS cases discuss out of public libraries is not a violation of intellectual freedom.
Further, libraries are created by statute. The statues define the libraries. The statutes almost uniformly define libraries in a way that implicitly excludes inappropriate material. When libraries act outside the law of their enabling statutes to allow in inappropriate material, are their no consequences? Is intellectual freedom supposed to override those statutes so now libraries may provide inappropriate material at taxpayer expense despite the law just because some people keep shouting intellectual freedom? And, back on point, when libraries act outside their enabling statues, is there no recourse to control the libraries? Is it not allowed that citizens should be able to vote on whether libraries should use filters to stay within the enabling statutes under which the libraries were created by and on behalf of those citizens in the first place?
Thank you for commenting, Sabina. Everyone, please keep up this spirited debate.