Censorship Reaches Ridiculous Extremes

By Kari Lydersen, AlterNet. Posted March 13, 2003.

Humpback whales, the asexual reproduction of mushrooms and House Majority Leader Dick Armey.

These are dangerous topics that children, or adults for that matter, should not be learning about.

This statement sounds ridiculous, but that is effectively the message being sent by the Child Internet Protection Act (CIPA), which mandates filters being placed on internet-linked computers at public schools and libraries to protect children from indecent material.

However, "indecent" is defined by the mere presence of a wide range of keywords and phrases, including "breast," "pussy," "under18" and cum." While these terms may be frequently used in XXX porn sites, they are also used in different contexts in serious news stories, job training sites and government web pages -- for example to refer to someone who has graduated magna cum laude. Given the wide net cast by the key word-based internet filters, they end up denying youth and adults access to sites dealing with public health, biology and zoology, academics and more.

CIPA is just one of a host of recent actions by government agencies, school boards and other institutions to limit what we read, see and hear. While censorship is nothing new, the growth of the internet, the general rightward shift of the government and the institution of the war on terror have recently taken things up a notch.

The moves are usually under the guise of protecting people from pornographic material or terrorism. But on many different levels, this censorship has debilitating effects.

CIPA was introduced by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and passed by Congress in December 2000, but then the American Civil Liberties Union and American Library Association filed a suit seeking to overturn it. The bill was put into action in schools around the country last fall.

But in May 2002 the portion of the act related to public libraries was ruled unconstitutional by a federal court. Proponents of the bill appealed to the Supreme Court, which is now considering whether filtering will be required in public libraries that receive federal funds.

The explosive growth of the internet over the past decade has opened up a whole new world of information, a wealth of knowledge at the fingertips available to anyone with access to a computer and modem. While it revolutionized information technology, it also set new standards. The use of the internet has become not just a luxury but a necessity for "making it" in many careers and other aspects of life.

In February the Free Expression Policy Project (FEPP), a youth-oriented anti-censorship group, filed an amicus (friend of the court) brief before the Supreme Court arguing against CIPA and including the testimony of other youth groups opposed to filtering.

And the internet isn't the only place where the information that young people receive is being censored. One of the main thing teenagers and other young people look for on the internet is sexual information, including potentially life-saving facts on safe sex, contraception, STDs and HIV/AIDS. Under CIPA, that is almost impossible, given that the filters screen out not only pornographic sites but even ones that refer to humpback whales, Dick Armey or pussy willows.

With cyberspace closed as an option, students might also look to their school clinics or health classes. But there they run into another brick wall. As part of the 1996 welfare reform laws schools receive special federal funds to teach abstinence-only education. This policy has been criticized by the National Institutes of Health, the American Medical Association, the ACLU and others as blatant censorship -- censorship with potentially devastating effects, since students who don't learn about safe sex are at risk of catching HIV or other sexually transmitted diseases. It is also ineffective. Studies show that teens who receive abstinence-only education are at no less risk of teen pregnancy or STDs than those who don't.

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