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/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------
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