Porn Filter Trial Gets Raunchy
from the besides-the-point dept
It’s too bad (though not surprising, I guess) to see that our own government would stoop to tactics so low in the library porn filter trial to show a binder full of hardcore porn in the courtroom. It’s obvious that this just an attempt to influence the judge by saying “look at all this horrible porn!”. The case has to do with federal funding, and whether or not libraries should be forced to have filters that have been proven not to work. The showing of porn in the courtroom (did anyone ask if the lawyer downloaded that porn from a library?) was merely designed to shock – and not to prove any real legal point. It’s a cheap trick and I would have hoped that our government would be above that – and would have argued their case on the merits (of which, it seems, there aren’t very many). It’s not as if anyone doesn’t know there’s porn on the internet. The question is whether libraries (and the adults who visit them) have the right to chose for themselves what level of access to offer.
Comments on “Porn Filter Trial Gets Raunchy”
The real problem is just that all censorware is cr
Up until about a year ago (when they laid off most of their employees) I worked for a company that was developing the censorware product to end all censorware products. I can’t go into the raw details due to NDAs and such, but what I can say is that I’m sad we didn’t get to finish the project. It would’ve been one hell of a product, and it would have made it possible for libraries, schools, etc. to distinguish smartly between different types of users. This way they could allow some users to look at more “evil” things than others.
But alas, this was yet another instance where overmanagement sent the project spiralling into an early grave. Oh well.