The group Books Not Filters is trying to fight the push for installing expensive, and imperfect internet filters on public computers at San Jose Public Library. The group is behind the Vice Mayor’s proposal. She is urging the Mayor and City Council to look at the bigger picture and respond accordingly.
Toward that end, the Vice Mayor compares the use of of the library against pornography viewing incidents noting that of 1.5 million computer sessions in the last two years, there have only been 14 complaints of people using the computers to view pornography.

Additional context: The Vice Mayor suggests that any investment in filters should be deferred until after the San Jose Police Dept. is able to fully fund their Sexual Assault Investigation Unit (to catch the really bad guys), and after library hours per branch return to their FY 2000-2001 levels (to ensure full provision of services for youth), and after the crossing guard program is fully funded to match need (to keep kids from being run over).
Sounds darn reasonable to me.
Filters are right about 85% of the time (under the best of circumstances) and they are a bear to manage (correctly), and very expensive (for a good one….that makes mistakes only 15 of 100 web page views).
The Vice Mayor closes by recommending less expensive approaches to protecting children from pornography: using privacy screens and public campaigns urging parents to take greater responsibility for their kids’ computer usage.
Good ideas…although privacy screens are expensive at $70 each (which accounts for 5-10% of the cost of each computer). At least they are relatively easy to manage. And they work. Parental involvement is good.
Teaching kids how to stay safe while using the Internet is even better.
Here’s the Vice Mayor’s letter if you care to read it.

Rather than relying on filters (which we’ve established are far from perfect, even in the best cases), the Senate has finally come up with an approach that makes some sense: Broadband Data Improvement Act (S.1492). Imagine this….educate the children to be intelligent Internet users!
According to an article in eSchool News “schools receiving e-Rate discounts on their telecommunications services and internet access soon will have to educate their students about online safety, sexual predators, and cyber bullying.” The bill requires the FTC to “carry out a national public awareness program focused on educating children how to use the internet in safe and responsible ways.”
Hooray for seeing the value of Internet Literacy!

TAGSYS has announce a new RFID tag, the Folio 370L Tag. It has a password protected electronic article surveillance feature. This sounds good but I’m not sure what that means exactly. What is most interesting to me and most annoying is TAGSYS’ claim that it “meets the emerging NISO (US National Information Standards Organization) data model standard for libraries.

If its an emerging standard, it means it ain’t there yet. It’s a standard-to-be. It’s in development and subject to change. The point of a standard is that we all know what it is and comply with it. An emerging standard means we haven’t quite worked that out yet but we’re trying. So to claim a tag meets the emerging NISO data model standard is more marketing hype than anything else. Don’t some of you other vendors have a tag that is equally “compliant” with the emerging standard?

I had the same reaction to reading that as I do when I read that an Internet filter is “CIPA-compliant.” CIPA of course is the Children’s Internet Protection Act which seeks to prevent kids from seeing Internet material that is “harmful to minors” which is a legal term that is so subjective as to be meaningless across communities. What is harmful to your minor may not be harmful to my minor. At any rate, who knows what a filter that claims to be “CIPA compliant” thinks is harmful to minors.

Similarly, what are the features of an RFID tag that meets an emerging standard? Still, I’ll be keeping my eye on it just in case we get that standard someday!

[From Biblio-Tech Review]

(podcast)
Lori Ayre and Mary Minow discuss the intersection of library services and technology issues in this 55 minute podcast. April 5, 2007.

The Nov. 20, 2006 issue of American Libraries Online reports that the ACLU is suing North Central Regional Library’s (Washington State) implementation of Secure Computing’s Bess software. Bess is installed on all the public computers and evidently the Library has made no provision for unblocking filters upon request – at least that’s the contention.

The Director of the consortium was quoted as saying: “The internet is so huge, and we carefully choose the books for our libraries. Shouldn’t we try to be as careful with the internet?” While this is true, installing Bess is hardly the same as “carefully choosing books.” I generally assume that filters (the decent ones anyway) get it wrong 15% of the time. Sites the library intends to block won’t be and sites the library does not intend to block will be — 15 out of 100 times. It was just a matter of time before the ACLU challenged a library for overblocking…as Mary Minow and I have warned people numerous times.

In this case, three plaintiffs allege they were prevented from viewing websites on drug and alcohol abuse for a university course, accessing a personal blog on MySpace, and conducting research on art galleries and health issues. Another plaintiff contends that NCRL blocks access to its magazine Women and Guns, which covers such topics as self-defense, recreational shooting, and weapons-related legal issues.

It is important for libraries to develop an Internet Use Policy and then ensure that any filter they use supports that policy but does not block any more than necessary. This means library staff must regularly monitor the block list and tune the filter as needed. Most filters allow administrators to add websites to a so-called white list. When a filter is overblocking, add the site to the white list to protect the library from complaints just like this one. Also, be sure you have a policy for disabling the filter and make sure appropriate staff know that policy and can disable the filter for adults who request it.

Two researchers at Penn State have developed a tool for automatically associating keywords with images. In their article “Real-Time Computerized Annotation of Pictures,” authors Jia Li (Associate Professor, Department of Statistics) and James Wang (Associate Professor,College of Information Sciences and Technology), say their ALIPR system (Automatic Linguistic Indexing of Pictures-Real Time) analyzes the pixel content of images and compares that against a stored knowledge base of the pixel content of tens of thousands of image examples. The computer then suggests a list of 15 possible annotations or words for the image.

If an Internet content filter isn’t using this yet, I bet it will soon. You can try out the ALIPR system and enjoy the beautiful pictures while you’re there!

[This story courtesy of LibraryLink of the Day]

Forgot to mention that I participated in the DOPA discussion with the Library 2.0 Gang. Quite a nice group to be rubbing virtual elbows with….the one hour discussion is available in mp3 format.

The Library 2.0 Gang is a Talis creation…you know, the guys who wrote Do Libraries Matter? TheRise of Library 2.0.

Nancy Willard of the Center for Safe and Responsible Internet Use (csriu.org) wrote a article that was reprinted on blue Skunk Blog
stating clearly that DOPA is nothing more than Republican posturing. She paints this picture of the ad campaign against any Democrat who opposes DOPA:

(Candidate’s name) voted against Deleting Online Predators Act — a law intended to keep children safe from predators online. If (candidate) is not dedicated to protecting your children from Internet predators, how can you expect him or her to effectively address other important concerns?

Willard then goes on to provide some very solid reasons Democrats (or anyone) can use to argue that DOPA should be canned including:

1) DOPA is so vague that it will be deemed unconstitutional
2) DOPA is duplicative of CIPA – if schools consider a specific site ‘harmful to minors’ they can use their existing filter software and the CIPA legislation to justify blocking the site.
3) “Any place that kids congregate to communicate will attract predators” and it is impossible to block all possible avenues for online communication.
4) “Any moderately intelligent middle school student” can proxy around a school’s filter and it is impossible to block all the proxies that might be used.
5) There is already too much reliance on filtering technology for controlling kid’s use of the Internet. “What is needed in schools is a stronger focus on educational use of the Internet and more effective monitoring, including technical monitoring.”
6) Another piece of legislation, COPA (a criminal law that requires sites with adult materials to have age verification) can only be passed (per a previous Supreme Court ruling) if the DOJ can prove that filtering is ineffective. That puts the government’s CIPA and DOPA legislation in a bit of a bind.

There’s lots of great info on DOPA and the reasons it should not come to fruition and Willard hits on most of them. Also see the YALSA DOPA Wiki for some good resources on social networking, DOPA, the law and an excellent “MySpace for Parents” article.

And now, here’s my new contribution to the argument: Blocking MySpace will provide incentive for kids to learn how to get around filters. Until now, there’s been enough alternative sites for kids to use to accomplish their goals (shop, communicate, play games, etc) so they haven’t needed to bother with proxies and other new, savvy ways to bypass the Internet filters. But there is no space like MySpace, and if libraries and schools start blocking MySpace with their filters, even the ‘good kids’ are going to find their way around it.

The technology savvy will use one of the many ways to get around filters described here and the less savvy will just go to the mall, park outside someone’s house or go to Starbucks to get online without restriction and without supervision.

DOPA is the best way to motivate our youth to learn better ways to get around filters and to keep their online activities hidden from responsible adults.

Instead of filtering, kids need mentoring, guidance, supervision and encouragement. They are going to explore the cyberworld with or without our help. Why not give them the resources they need to make intelligent decisions about what is fun and what is dangerous and increase the chances that they will navigate safely.

The question is…can we survive until the next election when we throw the bums out? DOPA passed the House, Net neutrality amendment to COPE is rejected by the House. Jeb Bush vetoes $2.2 million for libraries. All this bad news is available from Library Journal. In case DOPA and COPE are new to you, here’s a quick explanation (with music accompaniment):

DOPA: Deleting Online Predators Act. Yet another restriction tied to CIPA funds. This time, the libraries and schools must prevent the children from accessing any social networking websites which, of course, are the sites they MOST want to visit. Ever heard of MySpace.com, Flickr, Frappr, Facebook, or del.icio.us? Well, none of those sites would be allowed with DOPA. Just when libraries are moving well beyond the “Shush!” image, the government passes Super-Shush laws like this. Going to be hard to pursue our Library 2.0 plans with DOPA hobbling our efforts.

COPE: Communications, Opportunity, Promotion, and Enhancement Act. Big, complicated communications legislations but the key thing is that any attempt to build in protections for net neutrality were defeated. Per Common Cause), “net neutrality is the principle that you should be able to access whatever web content or services you choose, without any interference from your Internet service provider.” Without net neutrality, network operators can (and probably would) ensure that certain (probably undesireable, commercial) content arrives to your computer much faster than other (probably educational, non-commercial) content. Creates a whole new meaning for the term ‘digital divide.’ Speaking of educational, Jon Stewart did a piece on net neutrality viewable here.

ROPE a DOPE: Boxing style successfuly employed by Muhammad Ali in which the fighter lies on the ropes and allows his opponent to punch him until he gets so tired from the effort that the recipient of all the punches can take advantage of his opponent’s fatique (thanks Wikipedia). This takes me back to my initial question…can we survive until the next election? Do we just hang onto those ropes and hope none of their punches knock us out? Will they be tired out from their aggression of the past six years? Will we ultimately find an opening to land a knock-out punch?

For our environment, our libraries, our kids, our middle class, our troops, our self-respect…..I hope so.

Lots more good material on DOPA on Del.icio.us

“Everyone has the responsibility to make sure the government plays by the rules.”
George Christian, Executive Director of Library Connection

Last sumer The Library Connection (a consortium of 26 Connecticut libraries) received the infamous “National Security Letter” asking for everything they had on one public access computer (based on the IP address) on one day for a period of 45 minutes (see the The Letter here).

With help from the American Civil Liberties Union, the Library Connection managed to fight the request. First they focused on fighting the gag provision (you can’t tell a soul you got one of the NSL letters). Ultimately, the government gave up the fight and dropped the request altogether.

Per Ann Beeson, Associate Legal Director of the ACLU. “While the government’s real motives in this case have been questionable from the beginning, their decision to back down is a victory not just for librarians but for all Americans who value their privacy.”

More here.