When online free-speechers saw the Communications Decency Act go down in flames last month, they found themselves in an unexpected fix: Where they once had a common cause, now all they had was a pile of ashes and a lot of pent-up energy.
So, in search of fresh kindling, they started throwing flames at one another. Blazing brightest was Declan McCullagh's Fight Censorship list, populated by many of the Web's most ardent and well-known netizens. And surprise of surprises, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a plaintiff in Reno v. ACLU, was the target of choice.
At issue was a single paragraph in the EFF's triumphant press release on the US Supreme Court's decision: The Court "reaffirmed the lower court's findings" that the Internet merits the highest possible First Amendment protections, said the release, and that "filtering technologies [provide] a less restrictive means to achieve Congress' stated goal of protecting children" from cybersmut.
"What the hell is this censorware propaganda public relations piece doing masquerading as an EFF press release?" demanded one irate Fight Censorship participant. Others dubbed the organization the Electronic Censorware Foundation.
EFF program director Stanton McCandlish replied, "I cannot believe you propose to waste hours of my time reading 5, 6, more messages ... flaming on and on about your bizarre and flatly wrong misinterpretations of legal documents and press releases.... Sorry, man. I have real work to do."
The flame war raged on. Three days later, one participant, who had taken a brief respite from the discussion before the Supreme Court handed down its historic decision, called for participants to stop scrapping. "I return from vacation, to what *should* be a list-wide celebration, and instead, find a massive flame war," he wrote. "We *won*, people. It's time to work on how to secure and expand this victory - not argue over who is more First Amendment than thou. Sheesh."
Ultimately, the indignation against EFF died down, but according to Jon Lebkowsky, president of EFF-Austin, the attacks revealed a serious problem within a community that has so far successfully united against only one issue. "I don't think that we have the unity or the numbers to assume the force of victory here," he wrote. "In fact, I'm not sure what we would have done without the ACLU and its established expertise and base of support."
In particular, Lebkowsky is concerned with filtering software, the same issue that struck so many nerves on the Fight Censorship list. "Filters are fine in the home, but the issue has really taken off in the library community," he said in an interview with Wired News. "I think it's really reached a head while we've all been focused on the CDA."
Indeed, a few days before the CDA decision, Filt4lib, a listserv devoted to the ethics of implementing filtering software in public libraries and populated mainly by librarians, was shut down after tempers started flaring so hotly that all reasonable discussion was effectively squelched.
"I was called a Nazi, a fascist, and a thought policeman," said David Burt, a pro-filtering information technology librarian at an Oregon public library. "I'm amazed that people supposedly devoted to free speech would be so vehement."
Burt, whose library has refrained from offering users any access to the Internet until they decide whether or not to filter, says that although he realizes filtering technologies are imperfect, he also believes they are better than nothing.
Others are less certain. Karen Schneider, a librarian, former Air Force engineer, and subscriber to another librarians' listserv, Web4lib, believes that most filter programs implement what amounts to a form of social control, arbitrarily cutting off access to sites deemed unacceptable without regard to community, personal, or educational standards. "When some of these programs are implemented, an old man couldn't find out about penile implants. That's excessive."
Tired of the theoretical, Schneider has enlisted the help of about 30 volunteers to run a three-phase test of filtering software. The group expects to issue its second report - one highly critical of existing censorware programs such as Bess, Cybersitter, Cyber Patrol, Cyber Snoop, Net Nanny, Netshepherd, Surfwatch, and Websense - next week.
"I'm a nuts-and-bolts person," says Schneider. "If we're going to talk about filtering software, we need to talk about how it works. As for whether or not libraries should use it, I'm against anything that allows a third party to decide what the public doesn't see."
As for Lebkowsky, he says he's trying not to fan hysteria, but believes that declarations of victory on the free-speech issue are premature. "We have significant numbers of folks in the United States who *don't believe in free speech,*" he wrote to Fight Censorship. "And believe me, they can start a lot of fires."
