Politech archive on CIPA:
http://www.politechbot.com/cgi-bin/politech.cgi?name=cipa
---
http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,52903,00.html
Court: Library Filter Law Illegal
Declan McCullagh
7:01 a.m. May 31, 2002 PDT
A controversial library filtering law is unconstitutional, a special
three-judge court ruled on Friday.
The Philadelphia court unanimously said that a federal law designed to
encourage the use of filtering software violated library patrons'
rights to access legitimate, non-pornographic websites.
In a 195-page ruling, the court permanently barred the Federal
Communications Commission from cutting off funds to libraries that
don't filter. Under the Children's Internet Protection Act (CIPA),
libraries only had until July 1 to pledge to filter if they wanted
federal funds -- a date that handed the three-judge panel an unusually
short deadline.
At the heart of the decision was one key point: Buggy software. In the
most extensive courtroom analysis to date, the panel concluded that
not only was current technology far too problematic, but its tendency
to both overblock and underblock verboten sites won't go away:
"Filtering products' shortcomings will not be solved through a
technical solution in the foreseeable future."
"We find that, given the crudeness of filtering technology, any
technology protection measure mandated by CIPA will necessarily block
access to a substantial amount of speech whose suppression serves no
legitimate government interest," the court ruled.
[...]
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list
You may redistribute this message freely if you include this notice.
To subscribe to Politech: http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html
This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/
Declan McCullagh's photographs are at http://www.mccullagh.org/
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Like Politech? Make a donation here: http://www.politechbot.com/donate/
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Received on May 31 2002
Intro
