Re: Say it ain't so: Censorship in America

[Rich Kulawiec <rsk () gsp org>]

On Sat, Mar 15, 2008 at 01:58:28PM -0600, John C. A. Bambenek, GCIH, CISSP wrote:
> I'm not saying the implementation was intelligent, I am saying it's not
> censorship and quit your whining.

Actually, yes, it absolutely IS censorship: this action was taken
by a government entity -- and in a public space.

It's also content-directed, as opposed to content-neutral (like "block
all email" or "block all images from all web sites").  Content-neutral
actions often pass Constitutional scrutiny, but those directed
at particular content often don't.  IANAL, but it seems to me there
are substantial grounds to challenge this action on First Amendment
grounds, and I certainly hope someone with appropriate standing does.

>  It's not the taxpayers job to facilitate people's pervsities... 

You're completely missing my point.

First, it's utterly ludicrous to suggest that this is a serious problem.
It's not.  An actual serious problem related to airports is one being
discussed in a related thread on this list: crimes by DHS personnel,
including theft of baggage contents by TSA agents.

Second, if we are willing to make an enormous leap of imagination and
pretend for moment that this really *is* a problem worthy of someone's
effort for more than a cheap joke, then one of the first things we should
realize is that it's not a technical problem, therefore it's probably not
susceptible to a technical solution.

Third, shortly following that, we should realize that the non-technical
problem here is not that people are surfing certain web sites while at the
aiport. The problem is that parents are failing to control their children
and/or to instruct them in basic manners, including "it is impolite to
try to look at other peoples' computer screens without their permission".

It is not my job or your job or any random airport visitor's job to
parent anyone else's children.  If those children are rude enough to
try to shoulder-surf: too bad.  If in doing so they catch a glimpse
of Boing Boing (which I contribute to occasionally, by the way, and
strongly recommend as one of the most literate and fascinating sites):
too bad.  Or if they wind up staring at porn, or politics, or postfix,
or even cute lil' bunnies: too bad.

This Is Not My Problem.

Of course said parents have no doubt complained to the airport
authorities: that's easy.  Parenting is hard.  But as we've seen in
other contexts, many in positions of authority unfortunately lack the
intelligence necessary to recognize this and the spine necessary to resist
being bullied into taking foolish actions.  It's thus unsurprising to
see the usual result: an inappropriate solution to a non-problem has
been poorly deployed and will in the end have absolutely no effect --
since anyone of even modest ability will bypass the crap censorware (ah,
but I repeat myself) at their convenience.

Well, actually, there is one effect: the censorware company made a buck or
two by once again exploiting the failure of yet another idiotic public
official to realize what country they live in and work for.  One can
only hope that if there IS an afterlife that Thomas Paine will be waiting
for this bonehead in order to slap him silly the moment he arrives.

---Rsk
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