David Sobel, Internet Filters and Public Libraries, First Amendment Center, October 2003. Excerpt: "Technology has made real the First Amendment’s goal of unrestricted access to the full range of information. However, as Ithiel de Sola Pool warned in his 1983 book, Technologies of Freedom, government efforts to control new electronic media must be subject to close scrutiny. While new means of communication will 'open wider the floodgates for discourse,' he wrote, 'in fear of that flood, attempts will be made to shut the gates.' While de Sola Pool appears to have been prophetic in anticipating mandatory Internet content controls, it remains to be seen whether he was also correct in his conclusion that 'as long as the First Amendment stands, backed by courts which take it seriously, the loss of liberty is not foreordained.' The Supreme Court’s recent CIPA decision casts doubt upon that assessment, but it appears likely that the final chapter on mandated content controls has not yet been written."
Posted by
Peter Suber at 11/15/2003 12:09:00 PM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
