Whose Choice: Constitutional and Technical Dimensions of Content Filtering and Selection

Topic for today

The Internet puts at our fingertips a vast range of content, much of which is harder to find and access in other media. Today we will look at the legislative, technical, and constititional responses to the power available to Internet users, young and old, private citizens, and government regulators. Beginning with the CDA, a debate has raged about how to deal with the fact that minors have easy access to material that is legal restricted in other media (print, cable and broadcast TV). Last week, we learned that the Congress does not have the power to ban this material oughtright, or even to make it generally illegal to provide to minors over the Internet. But can the federal government use its spending power to limit minors' access to 'harmful' material?

Readings to do before class

Congress decided in the Children's Internet Protection Act to require all libraries receiving federal funds to install content filtering software. Is this software a good idea? What does the Supreme Court have to say about requiring libraries to install it? What about the technology itself? Does the advent of greater user control spell good or bad news for freedom of speech and the free flow of ideas?

• Background on federal authority to favor content through spending powers
  • National Endowment for the Arts v. Finley, 524 U.S. 569 (1988)
• Filtering Debate
  • Children's First Amendment Rights Lost in the Filtering Debate, Cybertimes, 6 March 1998, Cybertimes 8 March 1998
  • Rep. Rick White filtering proposal, Usenet post 4 December 1995
  • "Fahrenheit 451.2:Is Cyberspace Burning?," ACLU
  • Internet Family Empowerment White Paper: How Filtering Tools Enable Responsible Parents to Protect Their Children Online, D. Weitzner, 16 July 1997.
• Filtering Technology and the Semantic Web
  • Skim but be sure to understand the following technical specifications W3C Platform for Internet Content Selection & Resource Description Framework:
    • Rating Services and Rating Systems (and Their Machine Readable Descriptions), W3C Recommendation
    • PICS Label Distribution Label Syntax and Communication Protocols
    • RDF Primer
  • Using PICS Well
• The Library Filtering Debate - read the statute and the Supreme Court opinion
  • Children's Internet Protection Act § 1712, 20 U.S.C. § 9134 (2000)
  • American Library Assocation CIPA FAQ
  • United States v. American Library Association, 123 S. Ct. 2297, 156 L. Ed. 2d 221 (2003)
• Child Online Protection Act ("harmful to minors" law)
  Following the demise of the CDA's anti-indecency provisions, Congress in 1998 enacted the Child Online Protection Act, 47 U.S.C. § 231 (2000), which established criminal penalties for violating a "harmful to minors" standard for "communication for commercial purposes" on the Internet.

  Please read:

  • Child Online Protection Act, 47 U.S.C. § 231 (2000)
  • The summary of the status of an ongoing lawsuit challenging the law, from one of the challengers.
  • Skim the Third Circuit's ruling in ACLU v. Ashcroft, 322 F.3d 240 (3d Cir. 2003)