Somewhat to my surprise, I recevied a response to the letter I sent to Senator Richard Lugar last week regarding mandatory filtering of Internet connections in schools and libraries. Unfortunately, I’m not surprised at the content of the letter, Senator Lugar and 95 other senators chose to vote in favor of the measure. This despite the fact that the COPA panel recommended against mandating filters (because they don’t work), and mounting evidence that filters fail to block objectionable content, but do block sites that shouldn’t be blocked.
Unfortunately, it’s less than a month before the elections, and it isn’t likely that senators will cast a vote that allows their opponents to cast them as “soft on porn.” In all liklihood, this legislation will pass and Clinton will almost certainly sign it, since it’s attached to an important appropriations bill. So, once again, our legislators abdicate their responsibility and we’re left with the courts sorting it all out.
For your edification and amusment, here’s the text of the form letter response. I was particularly amused by the bit at the end where the Senator demonstrates his firm grasp on the technical relaities of the situation by discussing how he’s been shown how a piece of censorware operates:
Dear Mr. Miller:
Thank you for your recent correspondence. I appreciate your
taking the time to share your thoughts and concerns with me
regarding amendments on internet filtering software attached to the
Labor, Health, Human Services and Education appropriations bill.
The Senate passed the McCain amendment by a margin of 95-3,
with my support. This amendment requires entities that receive the
universal service subsidies for discounted access to the internet
(i.e. schools and libraries) to have filtering software that
prevents pornographic or obscene material from being viewed.
Universal service subsidies are derived from all people who make
telephone calls in the United States.
The McCain amendment requires that local authorities, without
input from the federal government, are to set the policies for use
of the filters in schools and libraries. I supported the McCain
amendment because it reduces access to pornography in schools and
libraries without having the federal government specify other
content that may be viewed.
I am a strong supporter of the First Amendment and the
freedoms it provides. At the same time, however, I also believe
that it is important to make the Internet a safer place for young
people. I do not believe these two goals are mutually exclusive.
I understand your concerns about the costs of establishing these
filters, which will offset a portion of the amount of E-rate
subsidy given to libraries, but I also believe that we must take
steps to ensure that children are not exposed to internet sites
containing pornography or obscenity.
At a recent demonstration of internet filtering technology now
available, I saw that upon entering a password, a parent or other
adult has the option to engage a filter to block out programming or
internet content at any level of maturity that he or she does not
want to be viewable. Thus, a parent with small children could
block all sites more mature than “rated G” while an adult could
choose to have no blocking at all. Interestingly, the filter was
able to distinguish, for example, between websites containing
research information about breast cancer from websites with more
prurient content.
Again, thank you for sharing your thoughts with me.
Sincerely,
Richard G. Lugar
United States Senator
RGL/grg