Re: SPECIAL REPORT: Censorware in the Stacks

[David Honig <honig@otc.net>]

At 10:23 AM 12/22/97 -0500, Declan McCullagh wrote:
>
>
>     Mainstream Loudoun, a local group, and 11 other
>plaintiffs are challenging Loudoun County's decision to
>adopt one of the country's most iron-handed Internet
>policies, The Netly News has learned. In October, the
>library board voted to buy software called X-Stop that
>forbids both children and adults from visiting many
>sexually explicit web sites -- and plenty of innocuous ones
>too, such as Quaker and AIDS resources.
>
>     The plaintiffs hope to persuade a federal judge that
>X-Stop's overzealousness violates not just traditions of
>intellectual freedom in libraries, but the First Amendment
>as well. The 47-page complaint, which calls the
>restrictions "a harsh and censorial solution in search of a
>problem," also challenges a rule encouraging librarians to
>look over your shoulder and make snap judgments on which
>web sites should be off limits.
>


Note that if the library in question were not arm of the State,
noone would have any First Amendment claim.

This is reminiscent of TM's recent (controversial) analysis of the fired
county trashworker/author,
and suggests a clearer example of the confusion caused by State as Employer:

It is considered legal and moral for a *private employer* can use
censorware to restrict their LAN's access.
But if the employer is the State, and does this, the First might be dragged
in -confusing the issue,
since the government acting as State is constrained (by the constitution)
differently from the government
acting as Employer (constrained by employment law).

Perhaps some critical of Tim's analysis think that when government is
employer it can't censor its LAN?  Can't remove games from government owned
PCs?  

When the government removes games, pictures, etc. from its PCs it is acting
as a responsible efficient employer.
When the government attempts to remove games, pictures, etc. from stores it
is acting criminally.








------------------------------------------------------------
      David Honig                   Orbit Technology
     honig@otc.net                  Intaanetto Jigyoubu

"Windows 95 is a technologically complex product that is best left alone by
the government..."
 ---MSFT Atty B. Smith