I just got this through Dave Farber’s Interesting People:
ALAWON: American Library Association Washington Office Newsline
Volume 15, Number 73
July 25, 2006In This Issue: URGENT ACTION ALERT: Call Representatives TODAY and ask them to oppose DOPA
URGENT Action Needed:
The Washington Office has learned that the House may try to expedite passage of H.R. 5319, the Deleting Online Predators Act (DOPA), TOMORROW, July 26th.
PLEASE CALL YOUR REPRESENTATIVES TODAY and ask that they oppose HR 5319. Capitol Switchboard number is: 202-224-3121.
Background:
DOPA is sponsored by Rep. Fitzpatrick (R-PA) and supported by the House Republican Suburban Caucus. It would require that, as a condition of receiving E-Rate support, all schools and libraries block access to social networking websites and chat rooms.
The bill raises a number of issues:
1) Local school districts and libraries should determine what content should flow into schools and libraries. Federal mandate over content control is very problematic.
2) Districts and libraries already have the power to block access to social networking sites and chat rooms and a number of them have already done so.
3) DOPA imposes yet another burden on schools and libraries participating in the E-rate and may deter many from continuing to participate.
4) This bill paints an unflattering and distorted view of the Internet as a whole, serving to scare away parents, students, teachers and librarians from making use of all its resources.Last week, YALSA Executive Director Beth Yoke testified on DOPA before the House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet on DOPA. You can read her testimony here:http://www.ala.org/ala/washoff/WOissues/techinttele/DOPA_testimony.pdf.
Hey dave,
I’ve started t otalk to people about this, and the response i’m getting from many people is ‘so what’.
“We’ll just work around DOPA and ‘netneutrality’ like we’ve always worked around the technology limitations. ”
Now I’m canadian, so i can’t speak to this directly. But this doens’t seem to be what going on. I see this as a new generation of control. The thing about these regulations that scare me the most isn’t even so much the regulations but the measures that will have to take place in order to regulate it. How are they going to police this?
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