[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 To order "Sam Smith's Great American Political Repair Manual" (WW Norton, New York, London): http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=0393316270/progressiverevieA/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------- POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list You may redistribute this message freely if it remains intact. 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