more on Teacher, student suspended for bypassing school filters

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

------ Forwarded Message
From: "Stephen D. Poe" <sdpoe () acm org>
Organization: Nautilus Solutions
Reply-To: <sdpoe () acm org>
Date: Wed, 06 Apr 2005 12:38:39 -0500
To: <dave () farber net>
Subject: RE: [IP] Teacher, student suspended for bypassing school filters

Dave - 

For IP, if you like.

> From everything I've read about this issue, the school should be liable.

The student set up a proxy offsite from the school. He did not, as far as
I've found, hack into or make any changes to any of the school's equipment,
computers, applications, or code. Nor did he bring anything illegal onto
school grounds (except, perhaps, the URL to reach the proxy).
 
So now a school can go after a student on the basis of what they do off
school grounds on their own time?

Filters have long been known to be a failed attempt to solve a non-problem;
either they cut off information the students need to access (everything from
Rep. 'Dick' Armey's site being blocked by porn filters to WWII historical
sites being blocked by  'violence' filters to health and gay teen assistance
sites being blocked by sex filters) or don't cut off enough. A sample report
("Faulty Filters: How Content Filters Block Access to Kid-Friendly
Information on the Internet") detailing filter failings from Epic can be
found at: http://www2.epic.org/reports/filter-report.html ; there are lots
more out there. 

See www.peacefire.org <http://www.peacefire.org> 's site ("Peacefire.org was
created in August 1996 to represent the interests of people under 18 in the
debate over freedom of speech on the Internet.") for the following offer (I
don't notice the school system going after Peacefire):
"If you download and install our Circumventor
<http://www.peacefire.org/circumventor/simple-circumventor-instructions.html
> software, it will give you a URL that you can use -- and which you can
also give to your friends -- to bypass all types of blocking software. And
at the end of the installation process, the installer will ask you if you
would like to share your Circumventor URL with users in censored countries
such as China as well. By saying "Yes" to this option, you can help people
in censored countries bypass Web blocking."

You might also take a look at the American Library Assoc.'s page on the
Children's Internet Protection Act at
http://www.ala.org/ala/washoff/WOissues/civilliberties/cipaweb/cipa.htm

Stephen


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