Recalculating: Steve Chapman on a New Century. Steve Chapman
communication is to put a finger to her lips and say, “Shhhh!” This time, though, the librarians’ message to the federal government is: “Don’t you dare shush my patrons!”
The battle is over government regulation of access to cyberspace. The Children’s Internet Protection Act of 2001 requires all federally funded libraries and schools to install computer filters to block sites offering child pornography, obscenity or anything “harmful to minors.” Noting that the Internet offers a lot of images and text that would make Hugh Hefner blush, our elected representatives decreed that libraries should prevent patrons from seeing such material, inadvertently or by choice.
This is a worthwhile goal, but in practical terms, the only way to seal off the stuff that falls outside the bounds of free speech is to seal off a lot of stuff Americans have a right to see and produce. That’s why the American Library Association went to court to challenge the law — arguing that the job of librarians is to help children and adults make use of their 1st Amendment rights, not to violate those rights. It’s also why a special federal court panel last week overturned the CIPA, finding that it was burning a lot of wheat along with the chaff.
The Internet boasts some 2 billion Web pages and is growing like kudzu in a greenhouse, adding 1.5 million pages every day, or more than 1,000 a minute. Companies that sell filters can’t possibly put human eyeballs on more than a microscopic fraction of those sites, so they have to rely on key words and other identifiers to figure out which ones to block.
But this is not a very accurate method. Since key word searches can’t evaluate photos, dirty pictures can get through. Meanwhile, a lot of things that should get through somehow don’t. One expert called by the government in this case admitted that between 6 percent and 15 percent of the sites blocked by filters didn’t meet the filter companies’ definition of sexually explicit material, never mind the law’s.
This approach is worse than official censorship. It’s officially sponsored censorship that delegates to private vendors the task of deciding what is fit to see and what is not. And the people in Washington don’t even know what’s being censored — because filter companies treat that information as a proprietary secret. Congress told these suppliers, “We’ll let you decide what to suppress, even though we don’t know what you’re suppressing.”
The judicial panel noted that among the sites that were put off limits were those set up by a Knights of Columbus group, a Christian orphanage in Honduras, a Libertarian candidate for the California legislature, a Louisiana cancer treatment facility, a bed and breakfast in North Carolina and Southern Alberta Fly Fishing Outfitters — which may have gotten in trouble for glistening shots of naked trout. And, wouldn’t you know it, one of the library filters blocked a satirical Web site called “Dumb Laws.” Like, maybe, the Children’s Internet Protection Act?
The unreliability of filters, unfortunately, is in the nature of the beast. As the judges explained, the evidence showed “not only that filtering programs bar access to a substantial amount of speech on the Internet that is clearly constitutionally protected for adults and minors, but also that these programs are intrinsically unable to block only illegal Internet content while simultaneously allowing access to all protected speech.” CIPA is the moral equivalent of trying to eliminate pornographic magazines by burning down every other newsstand.
So does the ruling mean libraries can do nothing to keep smut away from our children? Of course not. Even before the law was passed, libraries had created policies designed to minimize the dangers posed by the Internet without sacrificing its immense value. Some allow youngsters to use only filtered computers, while providing unfiltered access to adults. Some have policies that bar patrons from looking at illegal sites, with violators losing their library privileges. Others put computers in highly visible public areas to discourage children from going to pornographic sites.
None of these alternatives is as satisfying as a foolproof technological fix, but that perfect option turns out to be a fantasy. So maybe we should learn to trust our librarians.
Even in scariest of times, Americans still prize fun
Thursday, July 4, 2002
On the 226th anniversary of our independence from Great Britain, Americans will remember the achievement of the founders who championed the ideals of liberty and democracy. They might also reflect on the contributions of Arthur “Spud” Melin, who died at 77 last week after a lifetime dedicated to that other revolutionary concept: the pursuit of happiness.
Among the more inspiring contributions of Washington, Adams and Jefferson was establishing a nation where a corporation could adopt a name like Wham-O. That firm, co-founded by Melin in 1948, embodied the assumption that, even during times of peril, Americans insist on their right to have fun. That impulse will no doubt be on display today, despite everything that has happened since the last Independence Day celebration.
We might wonder why the 4th of July is more about idle pleasure than sober remembrance. All those fireworks and barbecues can distract from the historic importance of the day, and from the many tasks left to us, the heirs of the revolution.
But the signing of the Declaration of Independence, amid all the uncertainties of the war, was a festive occasion, with bands playing and bells ringing. Wrote John Adams, “It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires and illuminations from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward for evermore.” America was not founded on a zeal to wring the frivolity out of life.
Good thing for Melin. His company brought out its most successful products in the 1950s, which are usually recalled as a time of dull contentment. In fact, that decade was frequently turbulent and terrifying — thanks to a Cold War that fostered anti-communist panic and raised the specter of all-out nuclear war. One of the company’s forgotten flops offered protection from this latter threat: the Do-It-Yourself Fallout Shelter.
Americans may have doubted the effectiveness of that product, but never mind: They refused to let worries about radioactive incineration dampen their spirits. Wham-O had better luck with more carefree items, like the Hula Hoop, the Frisbee, the Slip’N Slide, and the Chubby Checker Limbo Set. These toys were aimed at youngsters whose parents, after enduring the hardships of the Great Depression and the horrors of World War II, were determined to give their offspring peace and abundance.
The much-derided conformity of the period was really an effort to restore calm to a world that had gone mad. More than any previous generation of American parents, the grownups who generated the Baby Boom expected that their kids would enjoy life.
It’s no coincidence that one of the greatest monuments to the indulgence of children, Disneyland, opened in 1955. Barbie made her first appearance four years later. Wham-O introduced the Hula Hoop in 1958 and set off perhaps the biggest toy craze in history. Eventually, Melin’s company sold 25 million of them.
Wham-O got used to dealing with large numbers. The ultrabouncy Superball racked up 7 million sales in its first six months after debuting in 1965. Over the years, the firm sold some 100 million Frisbees — plastic discs it originally called Pluto Platters in an effort to capitalize on American interest in UFOs from outer space.
Occasionally, the big numbers were of the negative type, like when Wham-O brought out a product with one of the more memorable names in the annals of retailing. Instant Fish were not, as you might suspect, the early equivalent of pet rocks. They were lumps of African mud containing real fish eggs, which were supposed to hatch after being soaked in water. But the theory didn’t pan out, and more than $1 million in orders had to be refunded. That didn’t stop people from flocking to stores to buy any number of other goofy Wham-O creations, from Silly String to Hacky Sacks.
The Soviet government denounced the Hula Hoop as proof of the “emptiness of American culture,” and the Islamic fanatics who have declared war on the United States would no doubt agree. American culture is an affront to those who think everything ought to have a serious purpose. It has far too much room for lighthearted activities, like tossing a Frisbee or hurtling down a Slip’N Slide, that are outwardly useless.
Americans