After nearly six years, there has finally been a ruling in Bradburn v. North Central Regional Library District. I have posted the ruling here. The rest of the Bradburn case documents are here: http://davidburt.us/policy-research/legal/bradburn/ Here is the core of the ruling: “Scrutinizing the undisputed facts under rational review, the Court finds NCRL’s use of FortiGuard [...]
Filed under: Filtering, Legal, Libraries | 1 Comment »
I’ve been following the case Bradburn v. North Central Regional Library District since it was filed on Nov 11, 2006, in Washington Eastern District Court. The case involves patrons of the North Central Regional Library e suing the library over the library’s Internet policy, which filters access for adults. The plaintiffs seek to order the [...]
Filed under: Filtering, Legal, Libraries, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
Last week, a report by the United Nations released a jaw-dropping statistic, reported by the AP and elsewhere: The number of Web sites containing child pornography is increasing and more images show serious abuses, a U.N. expert said Wednesday. More than 4 million Web sites worldwide show images of children being sexually exploited, said the [...]
Filed under: Filtering, Internet Safety, Policy | 3 Comments »
Internet filtering is drawing a lot of controversy and attention right now in the international press as well as the blogosphere. In the United States, Suren Ramasubbu writes on the Huffington Post that “Internet Filtering Software Makers Held to Higher Standard on Sharing User Data.” Ramasubbu expands on the EchoMetrix story to take on the [...]
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Broadcasting & Cable gives a preview of the upcoming report on parental controls mandated by the Child Safe Viewing Act: The FCC’s report to Congress on the state of media-screening technologies, due by the end of this month, comes to two broad conclusions, but does not suggest any action items beyond opening an inquiry prompted [...]
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Filtering company Websense has a blog post that documents a rise in hate and extremist group using social networking: Researchers at Websense Security Labs have also seen a substantial increase in the occurrence of hate or militant content residing on Facebook and other popular Web 2.0 sites such as YouTube, Yahoo! Groups, and Google Groups. [...]
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Last week’s National Journal reports: Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., and Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., that would authorize $175 million in funding over five years to programs educating children on how to safely, securely and ethically use the Internet and mobile technologies. The bill would create a competitive grant program for state and local education [...]
Filed under: Internet Safety, Policy | Leave a Comment »
In 2007, Congress passed the Child Safe Viewing Act, which among other things required the FCC to examine: 1) the existence and availability of advanced blocking technologies that are compatible with various communications devices or platforms 2) methods of encouraging the development, deployment, and use of such technology by parents that do not affect the [...]
Filed under: Filtering, Governments, Internet Safety, Policy | Leave a Comment »
Two interesting developments in battle of proxies, the web URL or software used to circumvent filtering software. First, filtering vendor Bloxx released a new survey of both business and education IT admins: Are you concerned that Anonymous Proxies may pose a security threat to your network? The majority of respondents from both sectors agree that [...]
Filed under: Filtering, Schools | 1 Comment »
From C-NET: On Monday, the chairman told the blog Ars Technica that he has revised his proposal for free wireless broadband so that it doesn’t require license holders to filter for porn. Martin said in an interview with the Web site that he has already started circulating the new version of the plan. The FCC [...]
Filed under: Filtering, Policy | 1 Comment »
