FC: Progressive Review tells of battle with filtering company N2H2

From: Declan McCullagh (declanat_private)
Date: Mon Apr 23 2001 - 23:22:19 PDT

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    [Apparently a Progressive Review reader in the government found that N2H2's 
    Bess software -- installed on a federal office computer -- blocked the 
    publication. N2H2 eventually backed down. So much for N2H2 manually 
    reviewing all sites added to its blacklist, right? --Declan]
    
    *********
    
    Date: Mon, 23 Apr 2001 23:03:47 -0700
    To: declanat_private
    From: Progressive Review <ssmithat_private>
    Subject: a filter story with a happy ending
    
    thought you might be interested in the following that ran recently in the
    review:
    
    sam smith
    
    |||||||||
    
    LOCAL HERO
    
    WE ARE WITHHOLDING his name for his protection, but thanks to a diligent
    federal employee the Progressive Review is now not only safe reading for
    officials of the Small Business Administration but has been removed from the
    blacklist of the corporate censors N2H2. The action also followed a fairly
    strongly worded article in the Review yesterday that pointed out the
    libelous nature of N2H2's censorship by its filtering program, Bess.
    
    N2H2 had informed the employee that the Review contained "vulgar or obscene
    language. We have categorized it as PROFANITY." It was signed, "The N2H2
    Website Review Team." The employee responded with a letter:
    
    "Dear Review Team: This is a general news and political commentary site. I
    would appreciate an example of the 'vulgar and obscene' language expressed
    therein (in context). Thank you."
    
    Today the employee forwarded the following message from N2H2: "After
    reviewing this site, we have decided that it does not meet our filtering
    category requirements. We have modified the status of this site in our
    database. The site will accessible after tonight's server update. We do
    appreciate your feedback. Please let us know if you find any other sites you
    think may be incorrectly rated by
    Bess. Thanks."
    
    Earlier, officials of the SBA had denied that the whole site was being blocked.
    
    Incidentally, a reader points out that corporate censors can sometimes be
    short-circuited by using the numerical equivalent for a particular site. For
    example, instead of going to http://prorev.com go to http://207.67.198.190
    
    EARLIER STORY:
    
    US GOVERNMENT AGENCY
    DECLARES REVIEW OBSCENE
    
    AS PREVIOUS REPORTED, the Progressive Review has been censored by the Small
    Business Administration. Following earlier correspondence with the agency,
    we received an e-mail on March 21 assuring us that "we have removed the
    block" on the SBA computer filtering program.
    
    The letter, from Lawrence Barrett, chief information officer, also claimed:
    
    "We do not block individual sites. We use a commercial software package that
    blocks sites by category . . . Evidently something on the site triggered one
    of the parameters in one of the categories. However, that doesn't mean that
    the entire site is inappropriate for workplace viewing."
    
    On April 7, however, an SBA employee sent us a copy of the following
    message, received when he inquired as to why the Review had been censored:
    
    "This site contains vulgar or obscene language. We have categorized it as
    PROFANITY. Your server is configured to filter this category of content, so
    the site is not accessible. We do appreciate your feedback. Please let us
    know if you find any other sites you think may be incorrectly rated by Bess.
    Thanks - The N2H2 Website Review Team reviewmeat_private
    
    While the filtering company is entitled, under the First Amendment, to its
    own opinion about the Review, it is not entitled to assert that the Review
    is obscene or profane based on a purportedly objective standard which is
    patently false and then to widely disseminate this patently false statement
    in a reckless manner. The latter is called libel and is actionable. It is
    also not permitted to conspire with the government to prevent undesired news
    and views from reaching federal officials. The First Amendment is not there
    just so citizens can talk freely among themselves. It is also there to
    prevent the government from choosing which citizens and press it will listen
    to and which it will suppress.
    
    As for obscenity, a search of one million words on our site found the word
    "fuck" used less than twenty times, including two times by police officers,
    once in a state court decision, once in a letter to the editor, once in the
    lyrics of Grammy winner Eminem, once in a quote from James Baker and once in
    one from Hillary Clinton. Your editor also bragged about having been the
    only writer to get the word "fuck" into the eminently respectable
    Illustrated London News during its entire 150 year history.
    
    The notion that the Small Business Administration or something called the
    N2N2 Website Review Team should consider themselves qualified to judge the
    literary merit of the Review is ludicrous enough. But what is even more
    astounding is that on the very day that the SBA employee received the
    message above, another agency of the federal government, the Federal
    Communications Commission, was spewing out obscenities in the name of
    explaining, in best bureaucratic and legally sustainable fashion, exactly
    what indecency was. According to Declan McCullagh in Wired, the FCC produced
    the following examples:
    
    - Indecent: "Soon she was fondling my Peter Paul and Zagnuts, and I knew it
    wouldn't be long before I blew my Milk Duds clear to Mars and gave her a
    taste of the old Milky Way..."
    - Not indecent: "Dick suggests maybe getting a mega-Dick to help out, but
    you know, you remember the time the King ate mega-Dick under the table..."
    - Indecent: "Well, it was a nice big fart. I'm feeling very gaseous at this
    point."
    - Not indecent: "The hell I did, I drove motherfucker, oh. Oh."
    - Indecent: "Could you take the phone and rub it on your Chia Pet? Oh, let
    me make sure nobody is around ... Now was that really your little beaver?"
    - Not indecent: "Oops, fucked that one up."
    - Indecent: "Sit on my face and tell me that you love me. I'll sit on your
    face and tell you I love you too."
    - Not indecent: "American wives all across the country have confessed to
    using erotic aids to spice up their sex life and ... thousands of women say
    they fantasize while having sex with their husbands."
    
    Beyond questions of constitutionality, the FCC guide illustrates both the
    absurdity and futility of robotic bureaucrats sitting around trying to
    decide what is appropriate for free adults to read and hear. Such people are
    among the most dangerous in a democracy because they automate repression
    using the most obscene standard of all: their own ignorance. Besides, as
    Lennie Bruce said, "If you can't say fuck, you can't say fuck the government."
    
    
    
    * * * * * * * * * *
    THE PROGRESSIVE REVIEW
    1312 18th St NW (5th Floor)
    Washington DC 20036
    202-835-0770 Fax: 202-835-0779
    newsat_private
    Editor: Sam Smith
    
    INDEX : http://prorev.com
    RECENT UNDERNEWS  : http://prorev.com/indexa.htm
    TODAY'S HEADLINES: http://prorev.com/altnews.htm
    
    For a free trial subscription to both our bi-monthly hard copy edition
    and our regular e-mail updates send  your e-mail and terrestrial address
    to newsat_private
    
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    (WW Norton, New York, London):
    http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=0393316270/progressiverevieA/
    
    
    
    
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