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Censorship and Snooping at Winthrop University
Following are portions of a message I sent to Winthrop University
administrators. They're considering a heinous new policy that says:
"No information should be exchanged through E-mail that is not official
University business. No personal or confidential information should be
exchanged and all communications are subject to periodic and/or random
audit by the Office of Information Technology to ensure compliance with
this policy."
-Declan
---------- Forwarded message begins here ----------
From: Declan McCullagh
To: [email protected], [email protected], [email protected],
[email protected], [email protected], [email protected]
cc: [email protected], [email protected], [email protected],
[email protected], [email protected],
[email protected]
Subject: Censorship at Winthrop University
February 12, 1996
Dear Winthrop University Administrators:
I was disturbed to read a recent Associated Press article reporting that
Winthrop University has censored the web pages of two of your students and
suspended the students from classes after one of them placed nude
photographs online. I was even more dimayed to read that your school's
proposed computing policy allows university officials to snoop through
your students' electronic mailboxes at will.
For shame! The American Library Association's draft policy recommendation
on electronic services and networks says, on student computer accounts:
No user should be restricted or denied access for expressing or
receiving constitutionally protected speech. No user's access
should be changed without due process, including, but not limited
to, notice and a means of appeal.
The American Association of University Professors endorsed this statement
on academic freedom, published in the July-August 1992 _Academe_, which
says in part:
On a campus that is free and open, no idea can be banned or
forbidden... Free speech is not simply an aspect of the educational
enterprise to be weighed against other desirable ends. It is the very
precondition of the academic enterprise itself.
Regarding your plans to look at student email, more information is
available at ftp://ftp.eff.org/pub/CAF/faq/email.privacy, which says:
According to Mike Godwin, legal services counsel for the Electronic
Frontier Foundation (EFF), the U.S.'s Electronic Communications
Privacy Act (ECPA) could be reasonably construed to protect university
email. This is also the reported opinion of the U. of Michigan's
lawyers. Also, the U.S.'s Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act
gives students at all public and most private schools some privacy
rights.
According to the AAUP statement and according to the fundamental
principles of academic freedom, universities must protect controversial
speech on their campuses. If Winthrop University does not, it is violating
its historic commitments to free speech and turning its pledges to uphold
academic freedom and freedom of expression into broken promises.
I've copied this message to the fight-censorship mailing list, which has
among its subscribers roughly 50 journalists interested in online
censorship issues, including writers from TIME, Newsweek, The New York
Times, The Washington Post, Internet World, WIRED, and many others. I
invite you to clarify your university's position and respond directly to
the mailing list. Cyberspace is developing quickly, and I feel confident
that Winthrop University would not want to be known as an online leader in
repression, censorship, and Orwellian thought-policing.
I trust that a school such as Winthrop University, with such a
distinguished College of Education, will not neglect the fundamental
principles upon which your university was founded. I hope that you
understand that voiceless speech and inkless press must receive the same
protections as voiced speech and inked press. I urge you to reconsider
your policies. I look forward to your reply.
Very truly yours,
Declan McCullagh
PS: I'm attaching a file from Carl Kadie's Computers and Academic Freedom
archive, at http://www.eff.org/CAF/. More information is also available
at the Justice on Campus project, at http://joc.mit.edu/.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
February 11, 1996
ROCK HILL, S.C. (AP) -- Winthrop students Brian Walker and Josh
Campbell have had their university Internet accounts pulled after
officials said they violated school policy.
Walker created a web page soliciting money and Campbell created
one including a nude woman. While the two admitted they crossed the
line, the Feb. 2 suspension has risen free speech debates and
computer policy review through the school.
Both students deleted their web pages, and their two-week
suspension was reduced to one.
Nathaniel Felder, Winthrop's associate vice president for
information technology, said work on amending the computer policy
has been ongoing. School officials planned to submit the proposals
Friday to Winthrop's board of trustees.
But Internet users, particularly professors and students,
thought the new policy included language that infringed on their
rights and violated their freedom of speech. So, the policy will be
forwarded to a computer committee for further review.
Professors and students opposed language in the policy that said
e-mail be used only for official university business. The policy
also allows officials to randomly audit e-mail for compliance.
``It could be a violation of the principles of the free change
of ideas at the university,'' political science professor Glen
Broach said.
But Bob Thompson, Winthrop's board chairman, said Internet
policy is to protect the users and Winthrop from liability.
=============== ftp://ftp.eff.org/pub/CAF/faq/computer-porn ===============
q: Should universities create a rule banning "porn" on university
computers?
a: In my opinion, no. Such a rule would be unnecessary and too broad.
[Disclaimers: I'm not a lawyer. This answer is based on the situation
in the U.S.]
A computer porn ban is too broad because "pornography" is not a
well-defined term. For many people, "pornography" means any nude or
sexually suggestive material. While you may intend only to stop
computer-science students from looking at _Playboy_ centerfolds in your
computer labs, your rule may also stop liberal-arts students from
viewing the growing number of fine art collections on the Net.
For example, 2,800 images are on-line at the Australian National University
<a href="http://rubens.anu.edu.au/">ANU</a>.
Among these images is a print of Manet's "Olympia"
<a href="http://rubens.anu.edu.au//prints.xmosaic/ME/1386.JPG">Olympia</a>.
When this now famous nude was unveiled in 1863, it caused an outrage
because of its blatant sexuality. Hundreds of images are also
available at the WebMuseum
<a href="http://mistral.enst.fr/wm/net/">The WebMuseum</a>.
Among these images is Salvador Dali's shocking "Young Virgin
Autosodomised by her own Chastity"
<a
href="http://www.emf.net/wm/paint/auth/dali/works/dali.virgin.jpg">Virgin
</a>.
Either of these images could be used to sexually harass someone, but
so could many noncomputer images on your campus such as art on the
University's walls and the _Playboy_ centerfolds that are likely in
your university library.
A rule banning computer porn is unnecessary because university
computer facilities can (and should) be treated as ny other university
facility. That means banning the act of harassment, not the materials
that can be used to harass but that can also be used without harassing
anyone. Similar reasoning was used by a federal district judge in June
1994. In the widely reported case, he said that "quiet reading" of a
_Playboy_ magazine by a firefighter does not create a sexually
harassing atmosphere.
At least in the U.S., virtually every university has a sexual
harassment policy that not only covers harassment via computers but
that also dictates the exact procedure for handling sexual harassment
complaints. (Having a procedure is important because the line between
constitutionally protected expression and unprotected expression is
dim and uncertain.) Computer sites should publicize the university's
sexual harassment rules; they should not try to preempt them. See the
referenced U. of Illinois report on the Status of Women for concrete
suggestions on publicizing your existing sexual harassment rules.
So what about material that may be illegal in your jurisdiction, for
example libel, threats, obscenity-in-the-legal-sense, copyright
violations, etc.? Many university computer policies include the "Law
Law", that is, the rule that says that it is forbidden to violate the
law. This is not quite as redundant as it may seem because it
authorizes the University to handle infractions itself via its
established due process procedure.
- Carl Kadie
ANNOTATED REFERENCES
(All these documents are available on-line. Access information follows.)
=================<a
href="http://www.eff.org/CAF/faq/censorship-and-harassment.html">
faq/censorship-and-harassment
=================</a>
* Censorship And Harassment
q: Must/should universities ban material that some find offensive
(from Netnews facilities, email, libraries, and student publications,
etc) in order to comply with antiharassment laws?
a: No. U.S. federal courts have said that harassing speech is
...
=================<a href="ftp://ftp.eff.org/pub/CAF/law/quiet-reading">
law/quiet-reading
=================</a>
* Expression -- Harassment -- Quiet Reading of _Playboy_
Excerpts from a newspaper report that a federal district judge has
said that "quiet reading" of a _Playboy_ magazine by a firefighter
does not create a sexually harassing atmosphere. [Editorial comment: I
think this supports the idea that rather banning "porn" from a general
academic computer, it is more appropriate to ban harassment.]
=================<a
href="ftp://ftp.eff.org/pub/CAF/academic/women-in-eng.uiuc.txt">
academic/women-in-eng.uiuc.txt
=================</a>
ASCII (plain text version) of "Final Report of the Committee on the
Status of Women Graduate Students and Faculty in the College of
Engineering" at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. (Also
available in TeX and Postscript form.)
=================<a
href="ftp://ftp.eff.org/pub/CAF/academic/artistic.freedom.aaup">
academic/artistic.freedom.aaup
=================</a>
* Artistic Freedom (AAUP)
Academic Freedom and Artistic Expression - An official statement of
the American Association of University Professors (AAUP)
It says in part: "In our judgment academic freedom in the creation and
presentation of works in the visual and performing arts, by ensuring
greater opportunity for imaginative exploration and expression, best
serves the public and the academy."
=================<a
href="ftp://ftp.eff.org/pub/CAF/library/challenged-materials.ala">
library/challenged-materials.ala
=================</a>
* Challenged Materials (ALA)
An interpretation by the American Library Association of the "Library
Bill of Rights". It says in part "The Constitution requires a
procedure designed to focus searchingly on challenged expression
before it can be suppressed. An adversary hearing is a part of this
procedure."
=================<a href="ftp://ftp.eff.org/pub/CAF/law/miller">
law/miller
=================</a>
* Expression -- Obscenity -- Law -- Miller
The Supreme Court's definition of obscenity (the so-called _Miller_
test)
=================
=================
If you have gopher, you can browse the CAF archive with the command
gopher gopher.eff.org
These document(s) are also available by anonymous ftp (the preferred
method) and by email. To get the file(s) via ftp, do an anonymous ftp
to ftp.eff.org, and then:
cd /pub/CAF/faq
get censorship-and-harassment
cd /pub/CAF/law
get quiet-reading
cd /pub/CAF/academic
get women-in-eng.uiuc.txt
cd /pub/CAF/academic
get artistic.freedom.aaup
cd /pub/CAF/library
get challenged-materials.ala
cd /pub/CAF/law
get miller
To get the file(s) by email, send email to [email protected]
Include the line(s):
connect ftp.eff.org
cd /pub/CAF/faq
get censorship-and-harassment
cd /pub/CAF/law
get quiet-reading
cd /pub/CAF/academic
get women-in-eng.uiuc.txt
cd /pub/CAF/academic
get artistic.freedom.aaup
cd /pub/CAF/library
get challenged-materials.ala
cd /pub/CAF/law
get miller