From: kadie@eff.org (Carl M. Kadie)
Subject: Re: Banned Computer Material 1992 - UMB
Originator: kadie@eff.org
Organization: The Electronic Frontier Foundation
Date: Wed, 30 Sep 1992 16:11:54 GMT

kadie@eff.org (Carl Kadie) writes:

[...]
>All .plan files at the *University of Massachusetts at Boston* that would
>not be given a PG-13 rating
>          news/cafv02n39:<BETSYS.92Aug3155829@ra.cs.umb.edu>
[...]

betsys@cs.umb.edu (Elizabeth Schwartz) writes:

>I protest our inclusion in a list entitled "Banned Materials."

The UMB rule was, in my opinion, the mildest ban on the list.

>We do not ban ANY legal materials.

You don't ban any legal materials completely, but you do ban them from .plans.

> All we ask is that obscene, sexual, or violent ([...]) materials be
>made available at user request, and not shown to users who have not
>requested this display.

All you ask is people label their material by your criteria and that
the don't offend anyone, even once. No one has to read a whole .plan.
No one has to see a .plan they find offensive twice. Many people find
many religious and political materials offensive; should those be
banned to.

>   There's a BIG DIFFERENCE. You are allowed to own, advertise, and 
>distribute any speech you like. For example, any user may post in
>their .plan file or on our bulletin board  "for sexually explicit
>lyrics, see my publicly readable file dirty.txt" 

This is good. Much better than, say, Boston U.'s rules.

>    I think this is analagous to a student newspaper requiring
>political speech to be on the editorial pages,

I think it is analagous to the *University administation* requiring
that political speech in the student newspaper be on the editorial
pages.

> or requiring political
>groups to use bulletin boards instead of plastering the walls.

Everyone must use bulletin boards instead of plastering the walls. The
restrictions are not based on content.

> You are
>allowed to speak but others are allowed to choose to receive your
>material or not.
[...]

I agree that people have a right to avoid that which offends them, but
I don't think that people have a right to never be offended (or that a
public university should try to enforce that "right").

As the Supreme Court said in _Cohen v. California_, 1971:

"Finally, in arguments before this Court much has been made of the
claim that Cohen's distasteful mode of expression was thrust upon
unwilling or unsuspecting viewer, and that the State might therefore
legitimately act as it did in order to protect the sensitive from
otherwise unavoidable exposure to appellant's crude form of protest
... While this Court has recognized that government may properly act
in many situations to prohibit intrusion into the privacy of the home
of unwelcome views and ideas which cannot be totally banned from the
public dialog ... we have at the same time consistently stressed that
'we are often "captives" outside the sanctuary of the home and subject
to objectionable speech.' ... The ability of government, consistent
with the Constitution, to shut off discourse solely to protect others
from hearing it is, in other words, dependent upon the showing that
substantial privacy interest are being invaded in an essentially
intolerable manner. Any broader view of this authority would
effectively empower a majority to silence dissidents simply as a
matter of personal predilections." ...

- Carl

ANNOTATED REFERENCES

(All these documents are available on-line. Access information follows.)

=================
news/cafv01n42: Message-Id: <1991Nov21.182340.11577@eff.org>
=================
An article from the Computers and Academic Freedom News 01.42

Note 11 is about rules that may effectively outlaw library catalog searches.

11.   Rules that outlaw offensive computer expression also effectively outlaw
on-line searches of library catalogs because many catalogs contain
offensive titles.

=================
library/access.restrictions.ala
=================
"Restricted Access to Library Materials"

An interpretation by the American Library Association of the "Library
Bill of Rights"

It says in part: "In any situation which restricts access to certain
materials, a barrier is placed between the patron and those materials.
That barrier may be age related, linguistic, economic, or
psychological in nature."  ... "Because restricted collections often
are composed of materials which some library patrons consider
'objectionable,' the potential user may be predisposed to think of the
materials as 'objectionable' and, therefore, are reluctant to ask for
them."

=================
library/labeling.ala
=================
"Statement on Labeling"

An interpretation by the American Library Association of the "Library
Bill of Rights"

It gives three reasons why labeling is bad. The first is that
"[l]abeling is an attempt to prejudice attitudes and as such, it is a
censor's tool."

=================
law/cohen-v-california.1
=================
Definition of "fighting words"; why no right not to be offended

The definition of fighting words from _Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire_
and then _Cohen v. California_. Also, says quotes the Supreme Court
saying that there is no universal right to not hear offensive
expression.

=================
law/cohen-v-california.2
=================
Netnews article with reference _Cohen v. California_, "in which the
court ruled that Cohen's jacket, which stated "Fuck the Draft" was a
protected form of free speech, even though he wore it in a county
courthouse."

=================
policies/bostonu.edu.critique
=================
Critique of the ethics policy for Boston University Information Technology

Summary: 'In the name of protecting privacy, the policy attacks
privacy. It says the University has the power to "without notice, ...
inspect ... any data [or] file". It imposes speech restrict[ion]s that
would be ridiculed if applied to the campus as a whole. It says the
user may not "mak[e] accessible offensive [or] annoying material"'

=================
banned.1992
=================
A list of computer material that was banned or challenged in academia
in 1992. The institutions mentioned are:

Ball State U., Boston U. (2), Carnegie Mellon U., German universities,
Iowa State U. (3), Irish universities, James Madison U., Middle East
Technical U., North Dakota State U., Pennsylvania State U., Princeton,
Simon Fraser U., U. of British Columbia, U. of California at Berkeley *,
U. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, U. of Manitoba, U. of
Massachusetts at Boston, U. of Nebraska at Lincoln, U. of Newcastle,
U. of Ottawa, U. of Texas, U. of Toledo, U. of Toronto *, U. of Wyoming,
UKNet, Virginia Public Education Network, Virginia Tech, Western
Washington U. (& U. of Washington), Wilfrid Laurier U. (2), Williams
College **

========
* Site of an unsuccessful challenge
** College not directly involved.


=================
=================

These document(s) are 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 (192.88.144.4), and get file(s):

  pub/academic/news/cafv01n42
  pub/academic/library/access.restrictions.ala
  pub/academic/library/labeling.ala
  pub/academic/law/cohen-v-california.1
  pub/academic/law/cohen-v-california.2
  pub/academic/policies/bostonu.edu.critique
  pub/academic/banned.1992

To get the file(s) by email, send email to archive-server@eff.org.
Include the line(s) (be sure to include the space before the file
name):

send acad-freedom/news cafv01n42
send acad-freedom/library access.restrictions.ala
send acad-freedom/library labeling.ala
send acad-freedom/law cohen-v-california.1
send acad-freedom/law cohen-v-california.2
send acad-freedom/policies bostonu.edu.critique
send acad-freedom banned.1992


-- 
Carl Kadie -- I do not represent EFF; this is just me.
 =kadie@eff.org, kadie@cs.uiuc.edu =