The Supreme Debate

The U.S. Supreme Court today will hear arguments in one of the Internet's most incendiary policy scuffles -- whether public schools and libraries must use software to block sexual content from the Internet if they want to receive federal funding for technology improvements.

Before the high court is the Children's Internet Protection Act, or CIPA, which was signed into law by President Clinton in 2000. A three-judge federal panel froze the law last May, noting that Internet filters often block non-pornographic and constitutionally protected material.

The American Library Association will argue that the court should overturn CIPA because it violates adults' First Amendment rights to view legal content. Supporters of the law, including the U.S. Justice Department, object to the idea of taxpayer funding that supports the dissemination of objectionable material to children in schools and libraries.

The Star-Ledger of Newark, N.J., said that, "the challenge for millions of lawmakers, judges, civil libertarians, religious organizations, police officers and parents is how to best protect both children and the Constitution. The Internet has become a stalking ground for sexual predators, a trading post for child pornography and home to a $1 billion-a-year hard-core 'adult entertainment' industry that sooner or later worms its way, uninvited and often unwelcome, into almost every home with Internet access."

A federal mandate that libraries and schools buy filtering software is not everyone's idea of an answer. Other legislative attempts to control Internet content so far have faced an uphill battle.

The Christian Science Monitor wrote that congressional efforts to shield children from Internet pornography "have met less than an enthusiastic response from the U.S. Supreme Court in recent years." Parts of the 1996 Communications Decency Act that tried to outlaw racy material on the Internet were overturned, and parts of the 1998 Child Online Protection Act were sent back to a lower court for a rehearing. "Both cases highlighted the difficulty of striking the proper constitutional balance in a society that seeks to protect its children from offensive, sexually explicit material while at the same time upholding core principles of free speech," the Christian Science Monitor wrote.
• The Star-Ledger via Newhouse News Service: Protecting Kids Along With Constitution Presents Daunting Challenge
• The Christian Science Monitor: Should Libraries Filter Out Internet Porn?

Filtering opponents said that trying to block sexual content can result in the inadvertent blocking of health care or scientific material. "Depending on the court's ruling, sites about space exploration, the Super Bowl and some medical information, for example, may be off limits at public libraries that accept federal money. Most people are unaware of the heated debate to restrict access," wrote The Journal News of New York today. But James Bruner, executive director of the New York Family Policy Council in Albany, told the newspaper: "We do not think there is anything censoring about a policy that protects children from offensive materials. State laws don't allow people to hand children alcohol, tobacco or pornography. Should our librarians -- under the name of freedom of speech -- be allowed to violate criminal laws?"
• The Journal News: Internet Debate Before Court
• washingtonpost.com: Justices Hear Arguments on Internet Filtering Law
• Legal briefs from the case
• American Library Association CIPA site
• National Law Center for Children and Families (pro-CIPA)

The American Library Association plans to argue that library patrons have the right to choose which material they will browse on the Internet. Maurice J. Freedman, president of the ALA, told The Christian Science Monitor: "It is called the Children's Internet Protection Act, but what most people fail to realize is that it applies to every computer terminal in the library."

ALA Executive Director Emily Sheketoff told Reuters that there are alternatives for libraries, such as setting up Internet terminals in private areas to avoid offending other library visitors, or making the terminals more visible to ward off inappropriate use. Libraries can also decide on their own if they want filters, but it should not be required by the federal government, she said. "Libraries are very community-based, local institutions," Sheketoff told the news service. "What local libraries decide is what's right for their collection."

The Associated Press wrote: "Pornography is everywhere on the Internet, some of it free for the peeking to anyone with an Internet connection and a bit of online know-how. Right alongside the smut is more valuable information than anyone could amass anywhere else, including the nation's best public and university libraries, also free for the asking. ... The Bush administration argued that just as libraries decline to collect X-rated movies and pornographic magazines, they shouldn't have to offer access to pornography on their computers."
• Reuters: High Court To Hear Web Smut Filter Arguments
• The Associated Press via Yahoo News: High Court Considers Library Porn Filters

Sounding Board: Library Filters

What do you think about a law that requires Internet filters at public libraries to block pornographic content? Weigh in on the debate -- send me an e-mail and I will publish selected remarks in an upcoming column.

Hacker Law Might Dampen Protests

The European Union's justice ministers reached an agreement on laws to thwart computer hacking and computer viruses, but The New York Times today reported that Internet activism might suffer.

The Times wrote that legal scholars "say the new measures could pose problems because the language could also outlaw people who organize protests online, as happened recently, en masse, with protests against a war in Iraq" since the agreement does not distinguish between an online protestor, terrorist or hacker. Last week, a "virtual march" in Washington took place to protest a war in Iraq.

"Under the new agreement, if European Union citizens undertook a similar electronic bombardment of the e-mail, fax and phone lines of the British prime minister, Tony Blair, they might be liable for prosecution, said Leon de Costa, chief executive of Judicium, a legal consultancy based in London. The new code 'criminalizes behavior which, until now, has been seen as lawful civil disobedience,'" de Costa told the newspaper.
• The New York Times: European Hacker Laws Could Make Protest A Crime (Registration required)

Back on the Street

Frank Quattrone, the Credit Suisse First Boston investment banker who helped finance a slew of start-ups during the Internet heyday, resigned yesterday after refusing to testify to securities regulators. Federal investigators are trying to find out whether he tried to obstruct a federal probe into the firm's handling of initial public offerings by encouraging employees to dump e-mail files two years ago.

"The key evidence of this allegation revolves around the timing of a December 2000 e-mail message Quattrone sent to employees endorsing a colleague's suggestion to purge company files. Quattrone's e-mail was sent two days after he had learned of a grand jury probe into the firm's allocations of hot initial public stock offerings. That triggered federal and state criminal probes into whether he was trying to obstruct justice, a charge he denies," The San Jose Mercury News reported.

According to The Wall Street Journal, Quattrone's resignation "while expected, lifts a regulatory cloud that has lingered over the securities firm for three years. But other problems remain for the unit of Zurich-based Credit Suisse Group: Investment-banking revenues have declined sharply, and the persistent bear market has pressured other parts of the firm's business. In recent months, the 47-year-old Mr. Quattrone has been dogged by several regulatory investigations into his business practices, including an official notice from the National Association of Securities Dealers that it could file civil charges against him in the coming weeks. More recently, Mr. Quattrone became the subject of criminal obstruction-of-justice probes by the New York attorney general and the U.S. attorney's office in Manhattan when CSFB turned over an e-mail showing that he was informed of several investigations when he called on bankers to discard certain documents. In recent days, his troubles came to a head after he failed to provide testimony to the NASD, prompting the agency to consider barring him, and forcing CSFB to invoke a firm policy that requires employees to cooperate with regulators or face dismissal."
• The San Jose Mercury News: Quattrone Resigns Under Pressure
• The Wall Street Journal: CSFB's Frank Quattrone Leaves Firm Amid Probe (Subscription required)

Tech Gadget Support Group

A little-known Department of Defense office called the Technical Support Working Group scours possibilities for cutting-edge antiterrorism gadgets. The Wall Street Journal wrote a feature on the group in a front-page article yesterday. The 70-person group sounds a lot like a group of VCs, helping to get cool tech ideas from a research lab into real-time use. But this mission, the newspaper says, has "became all the more pressing after Sept. 11. Since then, some 16,000 proposals have landed on the desks of the group's staffers. Only 120 made the cut. But now the agency is preparing for a new onslaught of proposals. It expects this week to issue its first public call for antiterrorism gadgets on behalf of the new Department of Homeland Security, which has promised to kick $30 million into the group's budget." Some gadgets, including a small radiation detector, are already being tested out.

The group held an industry briefing last month to advise companies on the research and technology they are interested in.
• The Wall Street Journal: Obscure U.S. Agency Seeks Gizmos to Combat Terrorism (Subscription required)
• Chicago Sun-Times: Tiny Radiation Detector Getting Trial Run Here

The Robot Will See You Now

Using telerobots to help surgeons perform operations is an evolving field. In Canada, Dr. Mehran Anvari is the founding director of the Centre for Minimal Access Surgery, which teaches physicians in remote locations to do minimal-access surgeries. "Experts say Anvari's landmark laparoscopic, or minimally invasive surgeries will transform medicine the way the Industrial Revolution changed the 19th century. Anvari, a world leader in gastrointestinal laparoscopic techniques, performed a fundoplication last Friday on 66-year-old Claudette Fortier in North Bay to treat gastro-esophageal reflux, assisted by Dr. Craig McKinley in North Bay. They used a three-armed robot named Zeus to directly translate Anvari's natural hand, wrist and finger movements to instruments inside Fortier," The Toronto Star reports. The surgeons claim the procedure is a first for Canada. According to The Globe and Mail: "Benefits of 'minimal access surgery' are shorter recovery periods less pain and shorter hospital stays, the doctors said. For the surgeon, the robotic instruments allow for fewer tremors in movements and a decrease in fatigue."
• The Toronto Star: Cyberspace Surgery Transforms Medicine
• The Globe and Mail: Telerobotic Surgery A First

Filter is designed for hard-core techies, news junkies and technology professionals alike. Have suggestions, cool links or interesting tales to share? Send your tips and feedback to cindy.webb@washingtonpost.com.