From kadie Mon Sep 30 14:43:30 1991
To: cafb-mail
Subject: Computers and Academic Freedom mailing list (batch edition)
Status: R
Computers and Academic Freedom mailing list (batch edition)
Mon Sep 30 14:42:49 EDT 1991
In this issue:
russotto@eng.umd.e : Re: Academic Privacy Question
russotto@eng.umd.e : Re: Ownership rights
SKAPUR@ccmail.suny : Re: Academic Privacy Question
kadie@eff.org (Car : Re: Academic Privacy Question
kadie@eff.org (Car : Re: Ownership rights
gary@sci34hub.sci. : Re: Abstract of "Computers and Academic Freedom News" 1.2
kadie@eff.org (Car : Re: Abstract of "Computers and Academic Freedom News" 1.2
ALILESTE@idbsu.idb : Re: Academic Privacy Question
ALILESTE@idbsu.idb : Re: Abstract of "Computers and Academic Freedom News" 1.2
kadie@eff.org (Car : ECPA and University Email
jones@pyrite.cs.ui : Re: ECPA and University Email
The addresses for the list are now:
comp-academic-freedom-talk@eff.org - for contributions to the list
or caf-talk@eff.org
listserv@eff.org - for automated additions/deletions
(send email with the line "help" for details.)
caf-talk-request@eff.org - for administrivia
-------------------
From: russotto@eng.umd.edu (Matthew T. Russotto)
Subject: Re: Academic Privacy Question
Message-ID: <1991Sep23.040936.1384@eng.umd.edu>
Date: 23 Sep 91 04:09:36 GMT
References:
In article Sanjay Kapur writes:
>>Funny that there doesn't seem to be any censorship problem in a video rental
>>place where you nearly always have to ask to get any tape out. They still get
>>plenty of adult rentals.
>
>If you are willing to pay for the service, you can get a Usenet service also
>which is non-university funded.
That's a non sequitur and you know it. I was merely pointing out that not all
restriction of access is censorship -- you appear to be trying to cheapen the
term by claiming "Playboy" is censored merely by being held behind the
counter.
--
Matthew T. Russotto russotto@eng.umd.edu russotto@wam.umd.edu
.sig under construction, like the rest of this campus.
Just say NO to police searches and seizures. Make them use force.
(not responsible for bodily harm resulting from following above advice)
-------------------
From: russotto@eng.umd.edu (Matthew T. Russotto)
Subject: Re: Ownership rights
Message-ID: <1991Sep23.041527.1439@eng.umd.edu>
Date: 23 Sep 91 04:15:27 GMT
References: <17840DD99E401E65@ccmail.sunysb.edu>
In article <17840DD99E401E65@ccmail.sunysb.edu> Sanjay Kapur writes:
>>From: kadie@eff.org (Carl M. Kadie)
>>Paying tuition does give students *some* rights; it gives them
>>contractual rights. If the student handbook says that students will
>>not be censored and that students can have a free computer account,
>>then students have a right to be free of censorship and to have a free
>>computer account.
>
>What if the same handbook says (or implies) that the free account also comes
>with a set of (maybe unwritten) rules? What if the free account is limited by
>custom or otherwise for instructional use only?
Unwritten rules are worth the paper they are written on. If the free account
is limited to instructional use, then USENet on that machine ought be limited
to an extremely small set of topics, if it exists at all-- the question of
censoring newsgroups because they are objectionable won't come up, as
newsgroups would be provided with the only criteria being cost and relevance
to instruction-- most likely, neither alt.sex nor rec.arts.startrek would even
come up for consideration.
--
Matthew T. Russotto russotto@eng.umd.edu russotto@wam.umd.edu
.sig under construction, like the rest of this campus.
Just say NO to police searches and seizures. Make them use force.
(not responsible for bodily harm resulting from following above advice)
-------------------
From: SKAPUR@ccmail.sunysb.edu (Sanjay Kapur)
Subject: Re: Academic Privacy Question
Message-ID: <07829621CE001F77@ccmail.sunysb.edu>
Sender: SKAPUR@ccmail.sunysb.edu
Date: 23 Sep 91 12:25:00 GMT
Approved: usenet@eff.org
>That's a non sequitur and you know it. I was merely pointing out that not all
>restriction of access is censorship
Then Who decides what restriction is censorship?
> -- you appear to be trying to cheapen the
>term by claiming "Playboy" is censored merely by being held behind the
>counter.
>Matthew T. Russotto russotto@eng.umd.edu russotto@wam.umd.edu
In my opinion it is a very bad form of censorship, even though no librarian
will admit that it is. Everyone has their blind spots (me included). This
form of censorship is particularly bad because it is practiced by those who
claim to fight censorship, yet they do not recognize their own actions.
The "justification" for censorship has always been security. In this case it
is the security of the magazine itself.
What would you call the folllowing:
Everytime you wanted to read a popular newsgroup, you had to ask permission?
I can also dream up a reason as to why such an action would be required in
the interests of protecting the system. (A popular newsgroup implies too many
people accessing the same files causing disk contention and performance
problems for everyone, so access must be controlled, in this case by a person
sitting at a counter enabling access when you present your ID card. Surely
this problem can be solved by purchasing faster disks, but disks cost money,
just as multiple subscriptions to a magazine cost money. This money is in very
short supply and so access has to be controlled.)
Note: I do NOT endorse the parenthesized scenario above.
Sanjay Kapur |Internet: Sanjay.Kapur@sunysb.edu
Systems Staff, Computing Services, |Bitnet: SKAPUR@USB
State University of New York, |SPAN/HEPnet: 44132::SKAPUR
Stony Brook, NY 11794-2400 |Phone:(516)632-8029, FAX:(516)632-8046
-------------------
Xref: eff alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk:1022 alt.censorship:1621
From: kadie@eff.org (Carl M. Kadie)
Subject: Re: Academic Privacy Question
Message-ID: <1991Sep23.151518.18589@eff.org>
References: <07829621CE001F77@ccmail.sunysb.edu>
Date: Mon, 23 Sep 1991 15:15:18 GMT
Matthew T. Russotto (russotto@eng.umd.edu, russotto@wam.umd.edu) writes:
[...]
> I was merely pointing out that not all restriction of access is censorship
[...]
SKAPUR@ccmail.sunysb.edu (Sanjay Kapur) writes:
[...]
>In my opinion it is a very bad form of censorship, even though no librarian
>will admit that it is. Everyone has their blind spots (me included). This
>form of censorship is particularly bad because it is practiced by those who
>claim to fight censorship, yet they do not recognize their own actions.
[...]
I'm happy to report that librarians *do* see restricted access as a
possible form of censorship.
Here is the American Library Association's definition of censorship
(this is updated from the ALA definitions given in the book _50 Ways
to Fight Censorship_):
-----------
Books/Materials Challenge Terminology
Expression of Concern -- An inquiry that has judgmental overtones.
Oral Complaint -- An oral challenge to the presence and/or
appropriateness of the material in question
Written Complaint -- A formal, written complaint filed with the
institution (library, school, etc.) challenging the presence and/or
appropriateness of specific material.
Public Attack -- A publicly disseminated statement challenging the
value of the material, presented to the media and/or others outside
the institutional organization in order to gain public support for
further action.
Censorship -- The change in the access status of material, made by a
governing authority or its representatives. Such changes include:
exclusion, restriction, removal, or age/grade level changes.
Adopted by the Intellectual Freedom Committee at the 1986 American
Library Association Annual Conference
[Made available by permission of the American Library Association.]
------------
[This, and many other ALA policy statements, are available from the
Computers-and-Academic-Freedom Library Policy archive. The archive is
accessible via anonymous ftp to ftp.eff.org (192.88.144.3). It is in
directory "pub/academic/library". File README is a detailed
description of the items in this directory. The archive is also
accessible via email. For information on email access send email to
archive-server@eff.org. In the body of your note include the lines
"help" and "index".]
- Carl
--
Carl Kadie -- kadie@eff.org or kadie@cs.uiuc.edu
I do not represent EFF; this is just me.
-------------------
From: kadie@eff.org (Carl M. Kadie)
Subject: Re: Ownership rights
Message-ID: <1991Sep23.152244.18876@eff.org>
References: <17840DD99E401E65@ccmail.sunysb.edu> <1991Sep23.041527.1439@eng.umd.edu>
Date: Mon, 23 Sep 1991 15:22:44 GMT
russotto@eng.umd.edu (Matthew T. Russotto) writes:
[...]
>If the free account
>is limited to instructional use, then USENet on that machine ought be limited
>to an extremely small set of topics, if it exists at all
[...]
I see no reason that a machine can't be mostly for instructional use
and a little bit for recreational and personal use.
For example, the policy of the machine might be that classwork has
priority over game playing, that some newsgroups are available just
because the users find them interesting, and that email may be used
for personal use.
- Carl
--
Carl Kadie -- kadie@eff.org or kadie@cs.uiuc.edu
I do not represent EFF; this is just me.
-------------------
Xref: eff alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk:1024 comp.admin.policy:1001
From: gary@sci34hub.sci.com (Gary Heston)
Subject: Re: Abstract of "Computers and Academic Freedom News" 1.25
Message-ID: <1991Sep23.125024.21609@sci34hub.sci.com>
References: <1991Sep14.223653.21626@eff.org> <4266@chalmers.se> <1991Sep22.154230.19630@eff.org>
Date: Mon, 23 Sep 1991 12:50:24 GMT
In article <1991Sep22.154230.19630@eff.org> kadie@eff.org (Carl M. Kadie) writes:
=d9bertil@dtek.chalmers.se (Bertil Jonell) writes:
=[...]
=> Is there still a federal law in the US that prohibits "Transporting obscene
=>materials across state borders."?
=[...]
=I am not aware of such a law.
Check with your local US Postal Service office. It's there, even though
(like about 80% of Congress' output) it violates the US Constitution.
--
Gary Heston System Mismanager and technoflunky uunet!sci34hub!gary or
My opinions, not theirs. SCI Systems, Inc. gary@sci34hub.sci.com
Become a pheresis donor. Loan your blood to the Red Cross for a couple
of hours. They, and cancer patients, will appreciate it.
-------------------
Xref: eff alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk:1025 comp.admin.policy:1003
From: kadie@eff.org (Carl M. Kadie)
Subject: Re: Abstract of "Computers and Academic Freedom News" 1.25
Message-ID: <1991Sep23.163754.20261@eff.org>
References: <1991Sep14.223653.21626@eff.org> <4266@chalmers.se> <1991Sep22.154230.19630@eff.org> <1991Sep23.125024.21609@sci34hub.sci.com>
Date: Mon, 23 Sep 1991 16:37:54 GMT
d9bertil@dtek.chalmers.se (Bertil Jonell) writes:
[...]
> Is there still a federal law in the US that prohibits "Transporting obscene
>materials across state borders."?
[...]
I wrote:
>I am not aware of such a law.
gary@sci34hub.sci.com (Gary Heston) writes:
>Check with your local US Postal Service office. It's there, even though
>(like about 80% of Congress' output) it violates the US Constitution.
I've heard of people being prosecuted for shipping
obscene-material-made-by-abusing-childern through the U.S. Mail. I
have not heard of anyone recently being prosecuted by the Feds just
for transporting obscene material across state lines.
- Carl
--
Carl Kadie -- kadie@eff.org or kadie@cs.uiuc.edu
I do not represent EFF; this is just me.
-------------------
From: ALILESTE@idbsu.idbsu.edu (Dan Lester)
Subject: Re: Academic Privacy Question
Message-ID: <199109231818.AA23069@eff.org>
Sender: ALILESTE@idbsu.idbsu.edu
References:
Date: 23 Sep 91 19:04:15 GMT
Approved: usenet@eff.org
On Mon, 23 Sep 1991 08:25 EDT Sanjay Kapur said:
>In my opinion it is a very bad form of censorship, even though no librarian
>will admit that it is. Everyone has their blind spots (me included). This
>form of censorship is particularly bad because it is practiced by those who
>claim to fight censorship, yet they do not recognize their own actions.
>
>The "justification" for censorship has always been security. In this case it
>is the security of the magazine itself.
The case of keeping some things "behind the desk for their protection" is
NOT, in many cases, any hidden censorship. It is KEEPING the material
FROM being censored. So far, people have assumed that the purchase of
multiple subscriptions of Playboy, for example, (or Hustler, Penthouse,
a book on how to draw nudes, etc....take your pick) is adequate to
keep it available for the the masses who want to read it. In some cases
that is true. In others, however, even if the library could afford fifty
subscriptions, it would not be enough.
There are a number of documented cases where self-appointed censors have
organized campaigns to steal and/or mutilate EVERY copy of some magazines
or books. I know of a library in Eastern Idaho, where the LDS church has
very strong influence, where some members have stolen dozens of copies of
some virulent anti-LDS publications. (and before I am attacked for any
religious biases....this is just an example....the same has happened with
rabid Jewish, Baptist, and other groups, too). Is it not a fight AGAINST
censorship to keep the book protected in these cases? If not, why not?
Remember that in some of these cases even if you catch the culprit, the local
law enforcement agencies won't "bother" with such small things, for
reasons which you can imagine for yourself.
Also, do those who wish to look at books with "nasty pictures" (i.e. nudes)
have the right to read them without the semen stains on the pictures?
It is obvious that some users have used some books for masturbation
fantasies. If I go to the quarter booths of a local porn parlor, I may
expect to find such things. But should I on the pages of a classic art
book in a public library? Should other users be somewhat shielded or
protected from such behavior? Why or why not? Should your sixteen year
old sister be able to go to the school library and look at pictures of
nude paintings without some jerkoff's cum stains on them?
As always, there are more questions than answers. I am mainly trying
to illustrate that it is not as simple an issue as it seems.
dan
************************************************************************
* Dan Lester Bitnet: alileste@idbsu
* Associate University Librarian Internet: alileste@idbsu.idbsu.edu
* Boise State University
* Boise, Idaho 83725 You can be sure these ideas are my
* 208-385-1234 own; no one else would have them.
************************************************************************
-------------------
From: ALILESTE@idbsu.idbsu.edu (Dan Lester)
Subject: Re: Abstract of "Computers and Academic Freedom News" 1.25
Message-ID: <199109231820.AA23146@eff.org>
Sender: ALILESTE@idbsu.idbsu.edu
References:
Date: 23 Sep 91 19:16:28 GMT
Approved: usenet@eff.org
>=> Is there still a federal law in the US that prohibits "Transporting obscene
>=>materials across state borders."?
>=[...]
>
>=I am not aware of such a law.
>
>Check with your local US Postal Service office. It's there, even though
>(like about 80% of Congress' output) it violates the US Constitution.
>
The law referred to above refers to the MAILING of such things. It does
not make it illegal to transport it in your own vehicle, UPS, Fed Ex,
commercial truck, etc.
dan
-------------------
From: kadie@eff.org (Carl M. Kadie)
Subject: ECPA and University Email
Message-ID: <1991Sep23.190848.24422@eff.org>
Date: Mon, 23 Sep 1991 19:08:48 GMT
Last week in email, I asked Mike Godwin if the Electronic
Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) could be reasonably construed to
protect university email. (Mike is the Staff Lawyer for the Electronic
Freedom Foundation.) With Mike's permission, I'm posting his reply.
- Carl
---------
Carl, I don't think it's been resolved whether ECPA reaches
university e-mail, but I think there is an argument that it
does. Consider two key terms in ECPA:
a: "electronic communication service" [defined in 18 USC 2510]
means any service which provides to users thereof the ability to
send or receive wire or electronic communications.
b: "remote computing service" [defined in 18 USC 2711] means the provision
*to the public* [emphasis mine] of computer storage or processing services
by means of an electronic communications services.
Now, one obvious difference between (a) and (b) is the phrase
"to the public"--a university email system might well qualify as (a),
but probably would not qualify as (b).
But some sections of ECPA add the language "to the public" to (a), which
suggests a narrower class of (a) that may exclude such things as
university e-mail systems and internal corporate e-mail systems.
Does this mean that a university e-mail system is not covered
by ECPA because it doesn't provide services "to the public"?
I don't think so, if the system provides services to students.
Students are not employees--they are educational consumers. In other
words, they are more like "public" than like "employees." Presumably,
access to the university system is something that's paid for, at least
in part, by a student's tuition and fees--i.e., the student is paying
for the service.
Obviously there's a counterargument here--that "public" just means
"general public"--but the issue of interpretation hasn't yet been
resolved.
Hope this helps.
--Mike
---------
--
Carl Kadie -- kadie@eff.org or kadie@cs.uiuc.edu
I do not represent EFF; this is just me.
-------------------
From: jones@pyrite.cs.uiowa.edu (Douglas W. Jones,201H MLH,3193350740,3193382879)
Subject: Re: ECPA and University Email
Message-ID: <8264@ns-mx.uiowa.edu>
Date: 23 Sep 91 20:53:21 GMT
References: <1991Sep23.190848.24422@eff.org>
Sender: news@ns-mx.uiowa.edu
> ... Mike is the Staff Lawyer for the Electronic Freedom Foundation.
> With Mike's permission, I'm posting his reply.
>
> Now, one obvious difference between (a) and (b) is the phrase
> "to the public"--a university email system might well qualify as (a),
> but probably would not qualify as (b).
My campus computer system may appear not to offer communication services
"to the public", in that the only on-campus users may be limited to
"members of the university community", but it also allows me to communicate
over the internet to a large number of public-access computer systems.
Thus, my campus computer system might be compared to a campus mailroom
where both internal campus mail and incoming and outgoing US mail are
processed. My E-mail to someone else on campus corresponds to campus
mail. My E-mail to a member of the public out on the internet corresponds
to outgoing US mail, and E-mail addressed to me from a member of the public
out on the internet corresponds to incoming US mail.
Continuing the analogy, I should note that for campus mail, we have
separate mail drops for sending mail in the two categories, but mail from
both categories ends up in the same personal mailboxes in the mailroom.
With E-mail, we send on and off campus mail identically and let the
computer sort out which pieces should be delivered where. The mail
delivery software does not distinguish between the two kinds of E-mail
in the way it handles them except as necessary to properly deliver them
to the correct destination.
Thus, I would imagine that unless the university E-mail system and the
staff supporting it are careful to discriminate between campus E-mail
and E-mail addressed to or from members of the public off campus, then
both the system and the supporting staff must assume that each piece of
E-mail could be to or from a member of the public, and as such they must
treat all such mail as being covered by the act.
Standard disclaimer: I'm no lawyer, if you want to get the law right,
consult a lawyer.
Doug Jones
jones@cs.uiowa.edu
From kadie Mon Sep 30 14:44:54 1991
To: cafb-mail
Subject: Computers and Academic Freedom mailing list (batch edition)
Status: R
Computers and Academic Freedom mailing list (batch edition)
Mon Sep 30 14:44:17 EDT 1991
In this issue:
kadie@eff.org (Car : Re: ECPA and University Email
kadie@m.cs.uiuc.ed : ALA's "Intellectual Freedom Statement"
SKAPUR@ccmail.suny : Re: ALA's "Intellectual Freedom Statement"
kadie@eff.org (Car : Re: ALA's "Intellectual Freedom Statement"
ara@zurich.ai.mit. : The Christian Mathematical Association
zane@infopls.chi.i : ALA and Minros
kadie@eff.org (Car : Re: ALA and Minros
tk0jut1@mp.cs.niu. : Re: ALA's "Intellectual Freedom Statement"
robinson@mtsu.edu : Re: Libertarian librarians
amanda@visix.com ( : Re: Ownership rights
The addresses for the list are now:
comp-academic-freedom-talk@eff.org - for contributions to the list
or caf-talk@eff.org
listserv@eff.org - for automated additions/deletions
(send email with the line "help" for details.)
caf-talk-request@eff.org - for administrivia
-------------------
From: kadie@eff.org (Carl M. Kadie)
Subject: Re: ECPA and University Email
Message-ID: <1991Sep23.213325.27188@eff.org>
References: <1991Sep23.190848.24422@eff.org>
Date: Mon, 23 Sep 1991 21:33:25 GMT
I wrote:
> (Mike is the Staff Lawyer for the Electronic Freedom Foundation.)
Whoops!
EFF == Electronic Frontier Foundation
^^^^^^^^
- Carl
--
Carl Kadie -- kadie@eff.org or kadie@cs.uiuc.edu
I do not represent EFF; this is just me.
-------------------
Xref: eff alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk:1031 comp.admin.policy:1005 news.misc:1484 talk.politics.misc:18811 alt.censorship:1635
From: kadie@m.cs.uiuc.edu (Carl M. Kadie)
Subject: ALA's "Intellectual Freedom Statement"
Message-ID: <1991Sep24.033201.24899@m.cs.uiuc.edu>
Followup-To: alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk.comp.admin.policy
Date: Tue, 24 Sep 1991 03:32:01 GMT
[Followups to alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk and comp.admin.policy.]
This is the American Library Association's Intellectual Freedom
Statement. It is a general statement that applies as much
to computers and Netnews as to libraries and books.
It talks about the role of free expression in a democracy and the role
of an information provider ("We need not endorse every idea contained
in the materials we produce and make available."). It argues against
censorship and labeling. Finally, it talks about professional
responsibility ("We perceive the admirable, often lonely, refusal to
succumb to threats of punitive action as the highest form of true
professionalism: dedication to the cause of intellectual freedom and
the preservation of vital human and civil liberties.")
[This and many other library policy statements are available via
anonymous ftp. See file ftp.eff.org:pub/academic/library/README.]
- Carl
-------------------------------------------------------
INTELLECTUAL
FREEDOM
STATEMENT
An Interpretation of the
LIBRARY BILL OF RIGHTS
The heritage of free men is ours.
In the Bill of Rights to the United States Constitution, the founders
of our nation proclaimed certain fundamental freedoms to be essential
to our form of government. Primary among these is the freedom of
expression, specifically the right to publish diverse opinions and the
right to unrestricted access to those opinions. As citizens committed
to the full and free use of all communications media and as
professional persons responsible for making the content of those media
accessible to all without prejudice, we, the undersigned, wish to
assert the public interest in the preservation of freedom of
expression. Through continuing judicial interpretations of the First
Amendment to the United States Constitution, freedom of expression has
been guaranteed. Every American who aspires to the success of our
experiment in democracy -- who has faith in the political and social
integrity of free men -- must stand firm on those Constitutional
guarantees of essential rights. Such Americans can be expected to
fulfill the responsibilities implicit in those rights.
We, therefore, affirm these propositions:
1. We will make available to everyone who needs or desires them the
widest possible diversity of views and modes of expression, including
those which are strange, unorthodox or unpopular.
Creative thought is, by its nature, new. New ideas are always
different and, to some people, distressing and even threatening. The
creator of every new idea is likely to be regarded as unconventional
-- occasionally heretical -- until his idea is first examined, then
refined, then tested in its political. social or moral applications.
The characteristic ability of our governmental system to adapt to
necessary change is vastly strengthened by the option of the people to
choose freely from among conflicting opinions. To stifle nonconformist
ideas at their inception would be to end the democratic process. Only
through continuous weighing and selection from among opposing views
can free individuals obtain the strength needed for intelligent,
constructive decisions and actions. In short, we need to understand
not only what we believe, but why we believe as we do.
2. We need not endorse every idea contained in the materials we
produce and make available.
We serve the educational process by disseminating the knowledge and
wisdom required for the growth of the mind and the expansion of
learning. For us to employ our own political, moral, or esthetic views
as standards for determining what materials are published or
circulated conflicts with the public interest. We cannot foster true
education by imposing on others the structure and content of our own
opinions. We must preserve and enhance the people's right to a broader
range of ideas than those held by any librarian or publisher or church
or government. We hold that it is wrong to limit any person to those
ideas and that information another believes to be true, good, and
proper.
3. We regard as irrelevant to the acceptance and distribution of any
creative work the personal history or political affiliations of the
author or others responsible for it or its publication.
A work of art must be judged solely on its own merits. Creativity
cannot flourish if its appraisal and acceptance by the community is
influenced by the political views or private lives of the artists or
the creators. A society that allows blacklists to be compiled and used
to silence writers and artists cannot exist as a free society.
4. With every available legal means, we will challenge laws or
governmental action restricting or prohibiting the publication of
certain materials or limiting free access to such materials.
Our society has no place for legislative efforts to coerce the taste
of its members, to restrict adults to reading matter deemed suitable
only for children, or to inhibit the efforts of creative persons in
their attempts to achieve artistic perfection. When we prevent serious
artists from dealing with truth as they see it, we stifle creative
endeavor at its source. Those who direct and control the intellectual
development of our children -- parents, teachers, religious leaders,
scientists, philosophers, statesman -- must assume the responsibility
for preparing young people to cope with life as it is and to face the
diversity of experience to which they will be exposed as they mature.
This is an affirmative responsibility that cannot be discharged
easily, certainly not with the added burden of curtailing one's access
to art, literature, and opinion. Tastes differ. Taste, like morality,
cannot be controlled by government, for governmental action, devised
to suit the demands of one group, thereby limits the freedom of all
others.
5. We oppose labeling any work of literature or art, or any persons
responsible for its creation, as subversive, dangerous, or otherwise
undesirable.
Labeling attempts to predispose users of the various media of
communication, and to ultimately close off a path to knowledge.
Labeling rests on the assumption that persons exist who have a special
wisdom, and who, therefore, can be permitted to determine what will
have good and bad effects on other people. But freedom of expression
rests on the premise of ideas vying in the open marketplace for
acceptance, change, or rejection by individuals. Free men choose this
path.
6. We. as guardians of intellectual freedom oppose and will resist
every encroachment upon that freedom by individuals or groups, private
or official.
It is inevitable in the give-and-take of the democratic process that
the political, moral and esthetic preferences of a person or group
will conflict occasionally with those of others. A fundamental premise
of our free society is that each citizen is privileged to decide those
opinions to which he will adhere or which he will recommend to the
members of a privately organized group or association. But no private
group may usurp the law and impose its own political or moral concepts
upon the general public. Freedom cannot be accorded only to selected
groups for it is then transmuted into privilege and unwarranted
license.
7. Both as citizens and professionals. we will strive by all
legitimate means open to us to be relieved of the threat of personal,
economic, and legal reprisals resulting from our support and defense
of the principles of intellectual freedom.
Those who refuse to compromise their ideals in support of intellectual
freedom have often suffered dismissals from employment, forced
resignations, boycotts of products and establishments, and other
invidious forms of punishment. We perceive the admirable, often
lonely, refusal to succumb to threats of punitive action as the
highest form of true professionalism: dedication to the cause of
intellectual freedom and the preservation of vital human and civil
liberties.
In our various capacities, we will actively resist incursions against
the full exercise of our professional responsibility for creating and
maintaining an intellectual environment which fosters unrestrained
creative endeavor and true freedom of choice and access for all
members of the community.
We state these propositions with conviction, not as easy
generalizations. We advance a noble claim for the value of ideas,
freely expressed, as embodied in books and other kinds of
communications. We do this in our belief that a free intellectual
climate fosters creative endeavors capable of enormous variety,
beauty, and usefulness. and thus worthy of support and preservation.
We recognize that application of these propositions may encourage the
dissemination of ideas and forms of expression that will be
frightening or abhorrent to some. We believe that what people read,
view, and hear is a critically important issue. We recognize, too,
that ideas can be dangerous. It may be, however, that they are
effectually dangerous only when opposing ideas are suppressed.
Freedom, in its many facets, is a precarious course. We espouse it
heartily.
Adopted by the ALA Council,
June 25, 1971
Endorsed by the FREEDOM TO READ FOUNDATION.
Board of Trustees
June 18, 1971
[Made available by permission of the American Library Association.]
--
Carl Kadie -- kadie@cs.uiuc.edu -- University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
-------------------
From: SKAPUR@ccmail.sunysb.edu (Sanjay Kapur)
Subject: Re: ALA's "Intellectual Freedom Statement"
Message-ID: <917C2FD0A24073B3@ccmail.sunysb.edu>
Sender: SKAPUR@ccmail.sunysb.edu
Date: 24 Sep 91 04:52:00 GMT
Approved: usenet@eff.org
>From: kadie@m.cs.uiuc.edu (Carl M. Kadie)
>This is the American Library Association's Intellectual Freedom
>Statement. It is a general statement that applies as much
>to computers and Netnews as to libraries and books.
>
>Finally, it talks about professional
>responsibility ("We perceive the admirable, often lonely, refusal to
>succumb to threats of punitive action as the highest form of true
>professionalism: dedication to the cause of intellectual freedom and
>the preservation of vital human and civil liberties.")
>
I admire those who refuse to succumb and so I also admire the character
of Don Quixote. I also believe that Don Quixote was a stupid person.
I am not very sure that it is very professional for a computer professional
to espouse the political cause of Libertarianism which the ALA council seems
to endorse in its Library Bill of Rights.
Sanjay Kapur |Internet: Sanjay.Kapur@sunysb.edu
Systems Staff, Computing Services, |Bitnet: SKAPUR@USB
State University of New York, |SPAN/HEPnet: 44132::SKAPUR
Stony Brook, NY 11794-2400 |Phone:(516)632-8029, FAX:(516)632-8046
-------------------
From: kadie@eff.org (Carl M. Kadie)
Subject: Re: ALA's "Intellectual Freedom Statement"
Message-ID: <1991Sep24.061001.13417@eff.org>
References: <917C2FD0A24073B3@ccmail.sunysb.edu>
Date: Tue, 24 Sep 1991 06:10:01 GMT
SKAPUR@ccmail.sunysb.edu (Sanjay Kapur) writes:
[...]
>I am not very sure that it is very professional for a computer professional
>to espouse the political cause of Libertarianism which the ALA council seems
>to endorse in its Library Bill of Rights.
[...]
Can you be more specific? Do you mean "Libertarianism" (relating to
the political party) or "libertarianism" (relating to liberty)?
I doubt if there are too many Libertarian librarians since I think the
Libertarians oppose public libraries.
- Carl
--
Carl Kadie -- kadie@eff.org or kadie@cs.uiuc.edu
I do not represent EFF; this is just me.
-------------------
Xref: eff sci.math:2565 alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk:1034
From: ara@zurich.ai.mit.edu (Allan Adler)
Subject: The Christian Mathematical Association
Message-ID:
Date: 24 Sep 91 06:33:30 GMT
Sender: news@ai.mit.edu
This evening (September 23), Nightline addressed the issue of
"born again" athletes forming religious subgroups of the teams they
play on. For the most part, they were concerned with professional athletes,
but they also discussed the occurrence of such groups in nonprofessional teams.
Among the concerns were divisions in the work group, separation of
church and state (in the case of publicly funded school teams) and
instances of coercion directed at players who chose not to attend the
prayer meetings held in the locker room.
This reminded me that when I was an undefinable at the University
of Kentucky in Lexington, I found in my mail box in the math department
a solicitation to attend meetings of the organization whose name is
approximated by the subject of this message (I don't remember whether it is
Mathematics or Mathematical nor whether it is Association or Society
nor whether it is Christians' or Christian, etc).
I received such solicitation both semesters I was there. I found it
puzzling and somewhat distressing that there was an organization
with such a title. I was puzzled because I did not know whether it was
an organization of Christians who invited speakers to lecture on
mathematics [and in this case, whether for some reason they didn't want
Jews, Moselms, Hindus, Jains, Zorastrians, Taoists or atheists to attend]
or an organization of mathematicians who wanted to pray or discuss theology
together. I found it distressing because it seems to me that it is
unhealthy and undesirable to introduce divisions among mathematics on
the basis of religion.
I asked one of the professors whether he knew anything about
it and he said this was the first he had heard of it, so my receipt of
these invitations mgiht have meant that the group operated among the grad
students and my mail box was among the grad student mail boxes because of my
low status. Since I did not want to have anything whatsoever to do with this
group, I did not pursue the matter further.
My guess is that it was probably a group f born again math grad students
and that it was therefore comparable to the groups that were discussed
on Nightline. I would therefore be interested in seeing a
comparable discussion of this issue in the context of academic departments.
Allan Adler
ara@altdorf.ai.mit
-------------------
From: zane@infopls.chi.il.us (Sameer Parekh)
Subject: ALA and Minros
Message-ID:
Date: Mon, 23 Sep 91 18:34:38 CDT
Well, I'm glad the ALA agrees with me--but couldn't that be
called ILLEGAL? I know there is a law against distributing
"pornography" (whatever their definition of pornography is--maybe it
means work which is anti-establishment) to minors?
---
Sameer Parekh zane@ddsw1.MCS.COM zane@infopls.chi.il.us
Ask me about the Mail Your Congressperson Through the Net Project!
Apple IIGS Forever! Ask me about the GNO multitasking project!
-------------------
From: kadie@eff.org (Carl M. Kadie)
Subject: Re: ALA and Minros
Message-ID: <1991Sep24.184440.24489@eff.org>
References:
Date: Tue, 24 Sep 1991 18:44:40 GMT
zane@infopls.chi.il.us (Sameer Parekh) writes:
> Well, I'm glad the ALA agrees with me--but couldn't that be
>called ILLEGAL? I know there is a law against distributing
>"pornography" (whatever their definition of pornography is--maybe it
>means work which is anti-establishment) to minors?
There is no blanket law against distributing sexually explicit
material to minors, the law varies from state to state. The only book
I've seen that listed such a law came from Michigan. Michigan
explictly exempts libraries.
- Carl
--
Carl Kadie -- kadie@eff.org or kadie@cs.uiuc.edu
I do not represent EFF; this is just me.
-------------------
From: tk0jut1@mp.cs.niu.edu (jim thomas)
Subject: Re: ALA's "Intellectual Freedom Statement"
Message-ID: <1991Sep24.200349.27056@mp.cs.niu.edu>
Sender: tk0jut1@mp.cs.niu.edu
References: <917C2FD0A24073B3@ccmail.sunysb.edu>
Date: 24 Sep 91 20:03:49 GMT
Approved: usenet@eff.org
Sanjay Kapur writes:
>I admire those who refuse to succumb and so I also admire the character
>of Don Quixote. I also believe that Don Quixote was a stupid person.
>
>I am not very sure that it is very professional for a computer professional
>to espouse the political cause of Libertarianism which the ALA council seems
>to endorse in its Library Bill of Rights.
Normally Sanjay's non-sequitors and inaccuracies can be ignored, but posts
such as these force me to rethink my opposition to mandatory drug testing.
What's to be gained, Sanjay, by implying that the ALA is "stupid" for
opposing censorship? How on earth do you conclude that defense of
the Constitution, on which the basis for civil liberties rests, is
"unprofessional" and advocacy of "Libertarianism?" Is this more of your
obnoxious coconut throwing just to see who responds, or do you have
information that the rest of us don't? If the former, you owe some
apologies. If the latter, by all means share it with us so we can be as
wise as you.
For once, try articulating a coherent position before you insult groups
and the principles to which they adhere.
Jim Thomas
-------------------
From: robinson@mtsu.edu (David Robinson)
Subject: Re: Libertarian librarians
Message-ID:
Sender: knuth!robinson@uunet.UU.NET
References: <1991Sep24.061001.13417@eff.org>
Date: 25 Sep 91 00:57:59 GMT
Approved: usenet@eff.org
>I doubt if there are too many Libertarian librarians since I think the
>Libertarians oppose public libraries.
>
>- Carl
>
>--
>Carl Kadie -- kadie@eff.org or kadie@cs.uiuc.edu
>I do not represent EFF; this is just me.
As it happens, I am a librarian, and I also subscribe to the libernet
mail list. I'm not saying I'm a Libertarian, but I am interested enough
in their ideas of individual liberty to try to follow their
philosophical discussions. I've never seen a position expressed on the
libernet list (which is by no means an official organ of the Libertarian
Party, BTW,) regarding opposition to public libraries. I have posted the
question to that list, however, and will present a summary of their
responses to this list.
I could see where some libertarians might oppose public libraries, since
those are publically funded institutions. However, my investigations
into libertarian philosophy reveal to me that there is a broad spectrum
of philosophical positions from one favoring simply a reduction in the
size of government, through a desire to return to the ideals expressed
in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights (*all* the rights, not just
the First Amendment,) to outright elimination of government. We'll
see.
David Robinson robinson@mtsu.edu
Middle Tennessee State University
Murfreesboro, Tennessee 37132
-------------------
From: amanda@visix.com (Amanda Walker)
Subject: Re: Ownership rights
Message-ID: <1991Sep26.041948.27809@visix.com>
Sender: news@visix.com
References: <17840DD99E401E65@ccmail.sunysb.edu>
<1991Sep23.041527.1439@eng.umd.edu> <1991Sep23.152244.18876@eff.org>
Date: Thu, 26 Sep 91 04:19:48 GMT
kadie@eff.org (Carl M. Kadie) writes:
I see no reason that a machine can't be mostly for instructional use
and a little bit for recreational and personal use.
For example, the policy of the machine might be that classwork has
priority over game playing, that some newsgroups are available just
because the users find them interesting, and that email may be used
for personal use.
This is in fact how network access has been treated at the educational
institutions I've attended and worked for. Officially, the equipment and
the network connection are there to support instruction and research,
but a certain amount of personal use is allowed. One aspect of this
approach is that personal use becomes a marginal service: in effect, it
is provided in exchange for not having to police the resources.
Problems arise when policing the resources starts looking easier than
providing open access (scandals, flamewars that bleed off of the net and
into "real life," and so on)...
Personally, I'd rather see having a machine or cluster whose sole
reason for existence is to provide universal email and news to the
entire campus, but in most cases hardware is scarce enough to preclude
taking this approach.
Amanda Walker amanda@visix.com
Visix Software Inc. ...!uunet!visix!amanda
--
"Freedom is fragile and must be protected. To sacrifice it, even as a
temporary measure, is to betray it." --Germain Greer
From kadie Mon Sep 30 21:47:18 1991
To: cafb-mail
Subject: Computers and Academic Freedom mailing list (batch edition)
Status: R
Computers and Academic Freedom mailing list (batch edition)
Mon Sep 30 21:46:26 EDT 1991
In this issue:
kadie@eff.org (Car : Abstract of "Computers and Academic Freedom News" 1.26
JRL721F@vma.smsu.e : Re: Computers and Academic Freedom mailing list (batch ed
SKAPUR@ccmail.suny : Re: Computers and Academic Freedom mailing list (batch ed
kling@ics.uci.edu : Controversy in action ... here
kling@ics.uci.edu : Description of Social Issues in Computing Course
kling@ics.uci.edu : Re: Syllabus for Social issues in Computing Course
kadie@eff.org (Car : Abstract of "Computers and Academic Freedom News" 1.27
sbrack@bluemoon.rn : Re: Ownership rights
jtierney@magnus.ac : Re: Ownership rights
vtessier@vela.acs. : Re: Libertarian librarians
sbrack@bluemoon.rn : Re: ECPA and University Email
robinson@mtsu.edu : Libertarian's position on public libraries
ALILESTE@idbsu.idb : Re: Libertarian's position on public libraries
The addresses for the list are now:
comp-academic-freedom-talk@eff.org - for contributions to the list
or caf-talk@eff.org
listserv@eff.org - for automated additions/deletions
(send email with the line "help" for details.)
caf-talk-request@eff.org - for administrivia
-------------------
Xref: eff alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk:1040 comp.admin.policy:1008 comp.org.eff.talk:4099
From: kadie@eff.org (Carl M. Kadie)
Subject: Abstract of "Computers and Academic Freedom News" 1.26
Message-ID: <1991Sep26.213434.3682@eff.org>
Date: Thu, 26 Sep 1991 21:34:34 GMT
This is an abstract for the most recent "Computers and Academic
Freedom News" (CAF-news). Information about CAF-news followings the
abstract.
--- begin abstract 1.26 ---
[September 2, 1991 to September 8, 1991
The first three notes this week discuss the Computing Services Policy
at Central Michigan University. The first note critiques the policy,
saying that it authorities the University to steal user
files.<1991Sep2.192241.1731@eff.org> The second note corrects an error
in the first note. (The policy does allow the University to steal user
files, but not user copyrights).<1991Sep4.003030.2331@eff.org> The
third note suggests that apathetic users are in part responsible for
bad policies.<202C75A18080B52F@ccmail.sunysb.edu>
The next two notes offer arguments that might persuade a University
administrator or sys admin that user files should be
private.<1991Sep5.161230.19723@eff.org><199109040532.AA06854@eff.org>
In CAF-News 1.24 Neil Rickert described several scenarios that
illustrated the flexibility that a sys admin needs. The scenarios
cover everything from runaway processes to sending unwanted messages
to the terminals of others. Two notes address these scenarios. The
first outlines rules that in the opinion of the author respect the
user while allowing the sys admin solve the problems
presented.<1991Sep5.181039.22607@eff.org> In the second note, Mr.
Rickert tells he handled the real-life incidents on which the
scenarios were based.<1991Sep5.205747.17426@mp.cs.niu.edu>
The final notes are about the idea of applying library policy to the
network media such as Netnews. The first note warns that academic
librarians are not as privileged as it may seem. For example, some are
poorly paid.<9109031509.AA21419@ecsvax.uncecs.edu> The next note
argues that sys admins should not select newsgroups the way that
librarians select magazines; rather, they should select newsgroups the
way that airlines select
routes.<9109061947.AA00162@dsacg2.dsac.dla.mil> The third notes says
that the application of library policy to computer media does not
require a merger of a university's library administration and computer
services administration.<1991Sep6.215531.21421@eff.org> In the final
note, a sys admin opins that librarians who restrict access to Playboy
may say that the restriction is to protect the magazine but really it
is to avoid controversy.<5BCA15E24E81324C@ccmail.sunysb.edu>
- Carl]
--- end abstract 1.26 ---
CAF-news is a weekly digest of notes from CAF-talk.
CAF-news is available as newsgroup alt.comp.acad-freedom.news or via
email. If you read newsgroups but your site doesn't get
alt.comp.acad-freedom.news, (politely) ask your sys admin to
subscribe. For info on email delivery, send email to listserv@eff.org.
Include the lines "help" and "longindex".
Back issues of CAF-news are available via anonymous ftp or via email.
Ftp to ftp.eff.org. The directory is pub/academic/news. For
information about email access to the archive, send an email note to
archive-server@eff.org. Include the lines "help" and "index".
--
Carl Kadie -- kadie@eff.org or kadie@cs.uiuc.edu
I do not represent EFF; this is just me.
-------------------
From: JRL721F@vma.smsu.edu (James R. Layton)
Subject: Re: Computers and Academic Freedom mailing list (batch edition)
Message-ID: <199109280207.AA06374@eff.org>
Sender: JRL721F@vma.smsu.edu
References: JRL721F@vma.smsu.edu (James R. Layton)
Date: 28 Sep 91 02:00:11 GMT
Approved: usenet@eff.org
>
>Computers and Academic Freedom mailing list (batch edition)
>Fri Sep 27 16:01:52 EDT 1991
>
>In this issue:
>
>edguer@alpha.ces.c : Re: Academic Privacy Question
>ATKINSON@Kentvm.Ke : Re: Academic Privacy Question
>tk0jut1@mp.cs.niu. : Re: Academic Privacy Question
>SKAPUR@ccmail.suny : Re: Academic Privacy Question
>SKAPUR@ccmail.suny : Re: Academic Privacy Question
>ALILESTE@idbsu.idb : Re: Academic Privacy Question
>SKAPUR@ccmail.suny : Re: Academic Privacy Question
>SKAPUR@ccmail.suny : Re: Academic Privacy Question
>SKAPUR@ccmail.suny : Libraries vs. Computers: Availability of Controversial ma
>zane@ddsw1.MCS.COM : Re: Ownership rights
>
>The addresses for the list are now:
> comp-academic-freedom-talk@eff.org - for contributions to the list
> or caf-talk@eff.org
> listserv@eff.org - for automated additions/deletions
> (send email with the line "help" for details.)
> caf-talk-request@eff.org - for administrivia
>
>-------------------
[[Lines deleted - C. Kadie, acting caf-batch mailing list manager]]
>for it and should get what they are paying for.
>--
>Sameer Parekh -- zane@ddsw1.MCS.COM zane@infopls.chi.il.us
>Ask me about the Mail Your Congressperson Through the Net projectb
>Apple IIGS Forever! Ask me about the GNOmultitasking project!
CAN SOMEONE MAKE SENSE OF ALL OF THIS--WHY DID I RECEIVE IT--? TO
REPEAT IT TO ALL OF YOU SEEMED NECESSARY AND NEEDED. I AM NOT FAMILIEAR
WITH THE PROFESSIONAL JOURNALS CITED. ARE PLAYBOY AND PLAYGIRL CHILDREN'S
MAGAZINES WITH GAMES AND ACTIVITIES FOR CHILDREN? IS PENTHOUSE A DECORATORS'
MAGAZINE FOR DESIGNING HOMES? I AM CONFUSED BY THIS MESSAGE. I SHALL CONSULT
WITH MY ADVISOR.
/SIGNED/ AJAB ATPUKE :)
-------------------
From: SKAPUR@ccmail.sunysb.edu (Sanjay Kapur)
Subject: Re: Computers and Academic Freedom mailing list (batch edition)
Message-ID:
Sender: SKAPUR@ccmail.sunysb.edu
Date: 28 Sep 91 02:55:00 GMT
Approved: usenet@eff.org
>From: "James R. Layton"
>
>CAN SOMEONE MAKE SENSE OF ALL OF THIS--WHY DID I RECEIVE IT--? TO
>REPEAT IT TO ALL OF YOU SEEMED NECESSARY AND NEEDED. I AM NOT FAMILIEAR
>WITH THE PROFESSIONAL JOURNALS CITED. ARE PLAYBOY AND PLAYGIRL CHILDREN'S
>MAGAZINES WITH GAMES AND ACTIVITIES FOR CHILDREN? IS PENTHOUSE A DECORATORS'
>MAGAZINE FOR DESIGNING HOMES? I AM CONFUSED BY THIS MESSAGE. I SHALL CONSULT
>WITH MY ADVISOR.
> /SIGNED/ AJAB ATPUKE :)
I will not deny you the right, nor do I think any member of this list will
deny you the right, to sign off this list if you do not wish to receive the
list's discussions.
Sanjay Kapur |Internet: Sanjay.Kapur@sunysb.edu
Systems Staff, Computing Services, |Bitnet: SKAPUR@USB
State University of New York, |SPAN/HEPnet: 44132::SKAPUR
Stony Brook, NY 11794-2400 |Phone:(516)632-8029, FAX:(516)632-8046
P.S.: You did make a good collection of the relevant articles. To answer what
I percieve to be your real question: The issue is not the curtailment of
professional journals or newsgroups but of recreational journals and
newsgroups. We are trying to determine how to extend standards that apply to
libraries to computers in the same academic environment. To do this, we
have to determine what library standards really are rather than what the
American Library Association would like them to be. We are using Libraries as
a model because Libraries have had thousands of years of experience in
handling all sorts of controversial/recreational material in a similar setting
that newsgroups may be exposed to.
-------------------
From: kling@ics.uci.edu (Rob Kling)
Subject: Controversy in action ... here
Message-ID: <9109272240.aa22979@ics.uci.edu>
Date: 28 Sep 91 05:40:57 GMT
I have just redesigned my social issues in computing course so that
the students can see pertinent *controversy in action* by following certain
Usenet boards, including this one [see the description in the following
message]. There are about 45 students, all Info & Comp Sci majors.
The class will have a local board at
UC-Irvine for its own debates, and I'm not encouraging students
to post on Usenet bboards ... (unless they feel they have
something of real value to contribute the discussions) ...
whereas I am requiring them to post and participate
at some minimal level (1 message a week+) on our local class board ...
.... We will discuss "electronic communities" around the middle of the quarter ...
Rob Kling
Department of Information & Computer Science
UC-Irvine
Irvine, Ca
-----------------------------------------
-------------------
From: kling@ics.uci.edu (Rob Kling)
Subject: Description of Social Issues in Computing Course
Message-ID: <9109272242.aa23031@ics.uci.edu>
Date: 28 Sep 91 05:42:19 GMT
In-reply-to: Your message of Fri, 27 Sep 91 22:40:40 -0700.
Introduction
Computerization in Society
University of California, Irvine
ICS131, Fall 1991
(Version G:September 24, 1991)
Instructors:
Prof. Rob Kling -- Room: 458D ICS; Phone: 856-5955; email:kling@ics.uci.edu
Mr. Tom Jewett -- email: jewett@ics
Teaching Assistants: Jerry Davis jmdavis@ics
Jeanne Pickering pickerin@ics
Lecture Times: Mr. Jewett -- T-Th 2-3:30, Room: CS209
Prof. Kling -- T-Th 3:30-4:50 PM, Room:ICF 102
Discussion sections: TBA
A. Required Materials
Text: Computerization and Controversy: Value Conflicts and Social
Choices. Charles Dunlop and Rob Kling (Eds). Academic Press,
Boston. 1991.
We will also ask you to read other kinds of materials during the quarter
-- including timely newspaper or magazine articles and specific Internet
bulletin boards in which people report, discuss, and debate specific
social aspects of computerization.
B. What is This Course About?
The computerization of society is taking place at dizzying speed.
Already the words "computer" and "revolution" have been coupled like
"bread" and "butter". Almost every week we're bombarded with
information about new computer technologies, and predictions about their
influence on emerging social changes. But the real social choices and
consequences of computerization are not openly discussed in many places.
Professionals, technologists, policy-makers, as well as the public,
often have difficulty getting access to materials that help them
understand key issues in the major controversies, and which represent
different points of view. A steady stream of news and professional
articles mixes together many issues and perspectives in an enticing but
confusing flow. In the same week, one can read stories of stunning
technological advances, possibilities of computerization's transforming
the way people work, and how single people are finding mates on computer
bulletin boards. Mixed into this flow of generally buoyant articles are
short notes of seemingly idiosyncratic problems, such as a homeowner's
receiving a $500,000 water bill, a software bug's removing phone service
from 2,000,000 people for a day, a person suing a bank because of errors
in their debit card account, or the ACLU claiming that a new Federal
computer system threatens personal privacy. These diverse kinds of news
stories usually don't explicitly identify the nature of the debates of
which they are a part -- such as controversies about the kind of
protection the public needs and gets from providers of computer-based
services.
But many other experiences of computerization are essentially private,
so countless other daily triumphs, pleasures, hassles, tragedies, and
failed expectations are simply not reported. And it's hard for many
professionals to find articles that synthesize this complex mix of
themes into a more useful and coherent portrait. While computer
scientists often learn a great deal about specific technologies and
systems, they also work in locations which are socially quite distant
from many end users and their triumphs and troubles with computerized
systems.
This course goes behind the headlines and front-page stories about
hackers, viruses, multimedia computers, and new chips. It provides an
in-depth look at computers as they relate to productivity in business
firms, workplaces, communities, public policy, communication, social
control, safety, privacy, and moral values. It also explains how
controversies about computerization often rest on hidden conflicts
between competing interests.
Many of the key social choices surrounding the use of computer
technology are not yet fixed. Computers will transform our society as
dramatically as the automobile. But with computerized systems, we don't
yet have the equivalents of unbreathable air, congested freeways, and
foreign oil dependency. We may be able to avoid many such problems if
we recognize that computerization is fundamentally a social process.
Computerization involves much more than putting powerful computers on
every desktop, school desk, and throughout homes and factories. Social
progress doesn't automatically come from developing, distributing or
purchasing the right shrink-wrapped box.
This course highlights numerous questions that computerization raises as
computer use expands into virtually every corner of everyday life. When
does computerization really improve the productivity of organizations?
What risks do computerized medical devices involve? Is computerization
reducing personal privacy because organizations can now easily share or
sell records about their clients? What possibilities does telecommuting
really offer people for working at home, while at the same time reducing
gas consumption and air pollution? Do electronic mail and computerized
conferences promote the formation of new "communities", or do they
undermine intimate interaction? Does computerized surveillance of
workers establish a new and troublesome precedent, or is it a
fundamentally legitimate activity with strong historical roots?
This course is designed to help you understand the range of impacts that
computing has now and can have when it is used by business, public
agencies and individuals. Since computerization raises many social
issues (e.g. quality of work, unemployment, balance of social power,
privacy), this course is organized as a survey. Through selected
readings, discussion, lectures, and written assignments, you will become
acquainted with the major issues and social dimensions of different
computer technologies. (The topics of the lectures and readings are
listed in the associated syllabus. Please read it carefully.)
Computing is rapidly changing its "texture" as small machines and large
scale networks become commonplace. Thus, another major goal of this
course is to acquaint you with ways of thinking clearly about the social
roles of computing as you live and work with it in the next decades.
C. Why is This Course Required for ICS Students?
This course is required for ICS majors. The ICS faculty believes that as
technologists, we have a special need to be well informed about the
social aspects of the technologies we create, develop, promote and
maintain. High technologies are attractive to a large public because of
their possible social effects. They are also troublesome because of their
social effects. Competent Computer Scientists must understand both the
opportunities and problems engendered by different forms of
computerization.
As computer professionals you will be faced with controversies throughout
your careers. Controversies are not some distant events which take place
in Washington DC while Computer Scientists quietly do "real work" in a
basement laboratory in Illinois or an ocean view office in California!
There are several aspects of this course which have already been
controversial: First, the very existence of a course like this is
controversial in some computer science departments (but not at UCI).
However, there have been other controversies about our enabling you to
use an electronic bulletin board for class discussion (see below) and
giving undergraduate university students access to all of the Internet
bulletin boards. [Some people are offended by the kinds of discussions
about sex, politics or hacking tricks which take place on a few of the
several hundred such bulletin boards. In a pluralist society, it is
predictable that some people's interests will transgress the norms of
"decent behavior" held by other people. Since the Internet boards and
computer boards in universities are often supported (in part) with public
funds, their content is sometimes subject to unusual debate and demands
for policing. (See Computerization and Controversy, pp.325-326, 376-378
for more information about these issues.)
There are further controversies about the extent to which we should
require you to use a computerized bboard to supplement face-to-face
discussions and whether the instructors should participate actively in
the resulting electronic discussions. Even though you may not yet have
voiced a position in these controversies, you participate in them by
whatever actions you take or avoid which are relevant to them. This
particular example focuses on what are today "leading edge" uses of
computing in instruction. If you favor any of them, and act to support
them, you are a bit of a "computer revolutionary," not just a bystander.
As computer professionals you can expect to affect and be affected by the
controversies studied in this course. You will be expected as an
employee, co-worker, consultant, teacher, professional, teacher, citizen,
neighbor and friend to have developed a thorough, well-reasoned
understanding of any computing issue and to be able to act on this
understanding responsibly. This course will help you develop some of the
skills you will need to be a responsible and effective professional.
D. Goals for the Course
The course emphasizes skills in:
** Understanding the impacts of computer use on people and social groups;
** Understanding the social issues raised by the use of computing;
** Understanding the how the social controversies about the development,
use, and regulation of computing technologies are represented in
different kinds of publications, including newspapers, magazines,
professional journals, books.
** Analyzing situations of computer use to identify their salient issues.
** Writing your ideas in a coherent, well structured, expository term
paper.
Theories of how technologies "operate" in social settings, social values,
and selected facts are all relevant here. These will be studied through
reading and discussion.
Toward these ends, the course includes several different kinds of
intellectual challenge:
** It encourages you to connect very specific technical activity to a
broader human context;
** It encourages you to explore your own value positions relative to
these issues;
** It encourages you to think carefully about computing and its social
role.
** It introduces you to a variety of thinkers and scholars who have
carefully studied specific issues. Thus, it acquaints you with the
way some of these issues look when studied carefully (rather than
just bulled about casually.).
A course like ICS131 helps you increase your insight into the context and
rationale of computerization. Such insight can help you deal more
successfully with the variety of managers and users that you will face in
industry. It may also help you become more articulate in explaining that
which you do to others.
E. Course Format
We have organized the course with a series of two lecture/discussions
each week and also one dedicated face-to-face discussion section each
week. We expect you to participate in the discussion portion of the class
meetings and on a computerized bboard which we have set up.
This course differs from many other ICS courses since:
* Human values are central rather than peripheral to our inquiry. Some
of the skills you will learn in this course include understanding
the interplay between value and technical issues;
* We emphasize understandings as much as "findings"; and
* These understandings develop in a less sequential manner than in many
science courses. Our modes of inquiry are much more concentric--the
same issue is studied in several different settings and therein
takes on new meanings.
We have organized the major topics into a sequence that we believe has a
clear and helpful progression. However, these topics are not easily
organized or kept so.
** My role is an issue raiser/refiner and resource person as well as an
"information transmitter."
** We are studying some controversial topics which take the form of
poorly understood dilemmas. In contrast, in much of computer
science, there are, at worst, simply "tradeoffs."
** The process of reasoning through some of the situations we study is
more important than the conclusions we reach. (In this way it is
like a design course or programming course where exercising the
skills is more important than the particular system which is
designed and built.)
** Some of the class time is devoted to discussing the ideas presented in
lectures, in the readings, or of particular concern to you. These
discussions provide an opportunity to share our ideas, and think
aloud.... a very valuable and rapidly disappearing opportunity in
undergraduate classes at U.C.I.
** Many of the discussions do not reach a simple set of commonly accepted
conclusions. Rather, they conclude with a richer and possibly more
complex and ambiguous view of the topics we started to discuss.
These complexities don't mean that these topics are "bull." But they do
yield a different kind of understanding than that which is emphasized in
most science courses. We will sometimes take specific stands; but most
often, we are presenting different ways of viewing a particular issue and
underlining significant social aspects of computing developments. We want
you to understand some of the key positions about these issues and to
develop your own point of view.
F. Course Work and Grading
We believe that you develop your understandings of the social aspects of
computerization by:
** Carefully examining your personal experiences;
** Reading or listening to analyses developed by other people who hold
different points of view;
** Developing your own analyses by expressing your ideas to others
through writing and discussion.
This course is organized with a combination of lectures, readings, films,
discussions, a course notebook, and a term paper. Usually, there will be
two lectures and one discussion session each week. We are also organizing
a bulletin board specially for ICS131 as a forum for discussion of key
ideas, readings, news, etc.
The attached reading list outlines the major topics and readings we will
include this quarter. In addition to the readings, lectures, and
discussions, there may be outside speakers, special (ungraded) exercises
in class, and films. Further, we expect you to track the discussions on
certain Internet bulletin boards where people discuss social aspects of
computerization. These include comp.risks, alt.privacy, comp.society,
comp.society.development, and alt.comp.acad-freedom.news.
In addition to the readings, we are requiring the following.
** We are asking you to collect a variety of materials into a Course
Notebook -- including your comments on the assigned readings,
bulletin board articles, summaries of news reports and articles
that pertain to the course (and your reflections on them). (See
below for more details); (50% of your final grade)
** There will be a 15-20 page term paper in which you examine a key
social controversy about computerization by using the readings,
lectures, discussions, debates on the Internet bboards news stories
and other sources; (30% of your final grade)
** You will receive credit for participation in the discussion section
and the classes's special computerized bulletin board. (20% of your
final grade)
Grading in this course emphasizes the skills noted in this introduction.
It does not depend upon whether your values and evaluation of the social
opportunities and problems of different technologies agrees with mine or
the TAs. We are interested in the clarity of reasoning you use to reach
your conclusions, your use of evidence, your understanding of the sources
you read, etc. This does not mean that "all conclusions are merely
opinion" or that "all opinions are equally valid." It does mean that we
are studying topics over which people do disagree about what is humanly
desirable and what is less so. To get a good grade, you should not try
to take positions you don't believe in simply to "agree" with me. We
hope that you will use this course as an opportunity to learn about the
social dimensions of computer technologies and how different developments
align with your own values.
The attached syllabus lists the sequence of topics and assigned readings.
This course is designed to help you think critically about the role of
computerization in many spheres of social life -- from economic
competition to warfare, from the quality of working life to changes in
schooling. The articles from Computerization and Controversy: Value
Conflicts and Social Choices introduce you you to more than one way of
viewing what is important and what sense to make of it. This approach
requires that you read the books and articles.
You may be reading more pages each week (60-100) than in a typical
computer science course. The materials vary in their form and complexity.
Some of the bulletin board posts which you see on the Internet or on
ics.131 will be short and direct. Newspaper stories may be brief,
"factual," but not attempt to analyze the events which for the story. (We
want you to add your analyses and reactions to such stories in your
Course Notebooks). Some of the required readings will advocate a specific
position. Others are more scholarly attempts to characterize an issue and
weigh evidence.
We believe that much of this reading is more interesting and stimulating
than the majority of textbooks which you have read as a student. But we
also realize that you may need some help in understanding some of the
more complex or sophisticated readings. We will provide help, where you
may need it, through exercises, the lectures, and the discussion
sections. We also encourage you to post questions about concepts which
puzzle you on the ics.131 class bboard. (You will get some credit towards
participation if you ask questions or post comments which help other
students.) We expect you to keep up with the readings schedule which we
have listed in the syllabus.
1. The Course Notebook -- Some Details
A major purpose of this course is to sensitize you to a wide range of
social issues and consequences of computerization. The assigned
readings provide one route. But many issues about computerization
arise everyday and appear in conversations with friends and in the
mass media -- in newspapers, magazine articles, radio commentaries,
and TV documentaries.
We are requiring you to keep track of your notes about the assigned
readings, class discussions, and other materials in a loose leaf
notebook which you divide into specific sections with tabs. We will
work with you during the first few weeks of the quarter to specify and
refine an effective format and workable collection of materials.
We would like your Course Notebook to include materials such as these:
a. Your analysis and reactions to the assigned readings from
Computerization and Controversy (see below).
Expository notes on the assigned readings don't have to cover every
page and paragraph. But they should be complete enough that someone
not familiar with the assigned article would gain from your notes a
good idea of the article's essential message;
b. Your observations about the substance and process of the
discussions -- face to face and on the course's special computer
bulletin board.
c. Key stories and controversies about the social aspects of
computerization that appear in the news media and the ics.131 class
and Internet bulletin boards. You may wish to download and/or print
certain bboard messages to include in your Course Notebook along
with your "critical" comments (see below).
(Note: Please indicate your sources for this material: name / date
/ page numbers of newspaper or magazine; date and time of radio /
TV show, etc.)
This course is aimed toward social issues in computing. We're happy
to see in your notebooks some articles on new technology, but
please comment on the social implications of that technology --
whether or not the article's author does so. E.g., does the article
represent "technological utopianism"? How does the new product fit
with Wendell Berry's criteria for adopting a new technology? Do you
see important risks with this technology that the story does not
mention? Etc.
d. Your work on some special short assignments which we would like you
to add to your Course Notebook during the quarter.
"Critical" doesn't imply that you must disagree. Critical means that
you should examine the material analytically .. for its
strengths and weaknesses and relate it to something else, such
as your own experience, other articles or news stories, class
discussion, etc. Please don't just hand in summaries of the
readings, and don't just hand in news clippings without your own
reflections. In the case of news clippings, etc., the "critical
reflections" should indicate why you selected that piece, what
responses you had to it, and how it supports or contradicts
other materials you've read (or opens up new themes).
For each of the assigned readings, we would like you to develop a page
of notes which addresses questions like these:
i) What are the main themes of the work?
ii)Who is the author(s) and his/her relationship to the topic and
audience? What stakes do the authors have in their approach?
iii)What assumptions do the authors make (key starting points)?
iv)What sort of questions do the authors ask (e.g., questions about
possibilities or actualities; questions framed in economic,
social, or technological terms?)
v) In asking questions, what sort of concepts do the authors use
and emphasize? e.g;
1) Images of organizations, clients, organizational set,
markets, organizational change?
2) Nature of technology, role of technology in social life,
nature of technological changes?
3) Nature of workers, managers, clients & their actions &
relationships
vi)What sorts of methods do the authors use to find out about the
world? (How interesting & how valid are they?)
vii)What sorts of answers, solutions or explanations do the authors
give to the questions they ask?
viii)How does this article relate to other articles which you've read
or debates which you've heard/seen?
We will provide additional guidance about your Course Notebooks in
class. We may asked you to turn in the most recent week's
portion at any time, with one day's notice. We plan to review
your Course Notebook several times during the quarter. While we
will evaluate your complete notebook at the end of the quarter,
this evaluation will include our observations about its
"richness" during the quarter.
2. Discussions -- Face to Face and Electronic
We believe that analytical and exploratory discussions are central to
help you learn about complex ideas where there are several different
relevant perspectives. Many students enjoy discussions, but we realize
that some students are more timid in larger groups. Consequently, we
are providing two different discussion venues, in addition to the
discussions which take place with the lectures -- weekly small group
discussions with a Teaching Assistant and discussions on a computer
bulletin board which is devoted to this class (ics.131).
We expect you to contribute helpfully to both of these by sharing your
ideas, voicing your questions, building on other students'
observations, and introducing relevant timely articles/events (such as
those which you experience, which are reported in the news or
discussed on Internet bboards).
Our assessment of your participation depends more upon the quality
than the quantity of your contributions. But you must participate at
some minimum level in each of these forums, and in a significant way
in at least one of them. We will discuss this further in class.
We want you to regularly read certain Internet bboards, such as
comp.risks, alt.privacy, comp.society, comp.society.development, and
alt.comp.acad-freedom.news because they contain discussions whose
substance pertains to this course. However, the processes of debate
which you see on these boards should also be interesting and sometimes
serve as models for your own bboard use. (Also see Computerization and
Controversy, pp. 376-378, 647-652 for debates and discussions which
are reprinted from comp.risks).
a. PARTICIPATING IN DISCUSSIONS (or "I don't have anything to say!"):
There are lots of ways that you can contribute to the class
discussion in the face to face meetings or on the ics.131 bboard.
They do not all require having some fabulous insight or
world-shattering theory. Here are some (but not all possible)
suggestions of what might be a useful contribution:
MAKING COMMENTS
offering information
offering an opinion (someone else's or your own)
giving examples (or counter-examples) -- based in your readings
general knowledge, or personal experience
informing others about a source of information (such as a
pertinent book, magazine or newspaper article).
providing evidence (for or against)
pursuing and analyzing an argument, example, suggestion
CLEARING THINGS UP
revealing confusion
clarifying
indicating alternatives
testing for agreement
identifying areas of disagreement
suggesting an integrative agreement or compromise
SOCIAL & EMOTIONAL WORK
relieving group tension
encouraging
expressing feelings
agreeing with another participant's comment, question, feeling
DIRECTING TRAFFIC
bringing up a new topic
setting standards
pointing out prejudiced, narrow-minded, or simplistic arguments
gatekeeping (helping someone else in or out of the discussion)
summarizing
ASKING FOR THINGS
asking for clarification
raising new questions
paraphrasing another's statement to test for understanding
seeking information from other participants
seeking opinion from other participants
A high quality participation will include a variety of these types
of contributions.
b. ELECTRONIC ETIQUETTE AND USING THE CLASS BULLETIN BOARD
GENERAL ETIQUETTE: If you have a long post (more than 22 lines in
an 80 column window), please include a sentence or 2 abstract so
that people can decide if they want to read it. Edit your messages
before you post them to the Bboard for factual correctness, logic,
and grammar. Do not criticize individuals - criticize their logic,
data, etc.
SUBJECT LINES: Each message has a subject line, and these can help
you, other students, and the instructors track the thread of a
given discussion. Sometimes you will want to change the direction
of a discussion. If you change the subject, please create a new
subject line for your message which is is a good short description
of your new topic or approach. For example, if there is a
discussion about whether computer terminals emit harmful radiation,
the subject of that thread might be "VDT's and Health Problems." If
you want to shift the topic to the way that the manufacture of
computer chips leads to toxic wastes, you should change the SUBJECT
line to something like, "Health Hazards of Chip Manufacture."
GRADING THE POSTS: We will be reading the posts every day or two.
This means you should also be reading the ICS131 bboard several
times a week. We expect you to a make at least one post each week.
To make an informed post, you should have read the assignments for
the section to which you are referring. We will periodically grade
the posts for: 1) knowledge (i.e. have you read the assigned
materials?) 2) relevance (is your contribution helpful to the
discussion?) 3) logic (do you make good points and defend them
ably?) 4) etiquette (are you polite?) and 5) insight (do you look
at the problem in a novel, helpful way?). Please do not feel that
each and every post you make must score highly in all of these
areas (except for etiquette). Your class discussion grade will
depend upon the entire corpus of your posts as well as your
participation in the smaller discussion section.
c. Note: Our design of the role of the electronic bulletin boards in
ICS131 an example of a socio-technical design. In addition to
selecting a technological support system, we have made many social
choices, such as integrating bboard use into other class
activities, requiring a minimum level of active bboard use,
characterizing the kind of comments we would like to see, rewarding
"good use," deciding not to create anonymous accounts, and so on.
Social choices like these can influence effectiveness of the course
bboard as much as technical choices, such as giving you editors
which are better than vi or emacs (!) or multi-media conferencing
capabilities. We will discuss socio-technical design later this
quarter.
3. Term Papers -- Examine social controversies about computerization in a
15-20 page paper. (You may work in teams of 2 on this project, if you
produce a more thorough paper.)
a. Your paper should identify a specific social controversy about
computerization and cover these topics:
i) What are the major positions and arguments for and again them?
ii)Which social interests are well represented (and not well
represented) in the debate and action about it?
iii)Where is the debate conducted?
-media types such as popular, academic, special interest
- government institutions such as legislature, civil or
criminal courts
-workplace by collective bargaining, management or corporate
policy
-marketplace
-academia (academic publications, seminars)
iv)What are the stakes for different interests?
v) What is the quality of research/analyses that you see in the
debates?
vi)What is the character of analyses and studies supporting some of
the major positions?
vii)Describe the conception of computer technology & organizations
which develop/use/regulate technologies reflected in different
positions.
viii)What are your own conclusions about the debate?.
b. You should pick a controversy which interests you and which is
timely. During the quarter, you will learn about numerous social
controversies of computerization through the readings in
Computerization and Controversy, inevitable news stories which will
appear during the quarter, and discussions on the Internet bboards.
Some sample controversies include:
i) CAI: Is instructional computing at K-8th grade a source of
educational improvement or waste of scarce $$?
ii)Computer Literacy: What is computer literacy, who needs it, is
it primarily hype in practice?
iii)Consumer control: What kinds of control should (and do) people
have over the use of their names in being resold to other firms
for direct mail marketing?
iv)Military Research: How does the scale, focus, and style of
military research funding influence computer science as an
academic discipline, if at all?
v) Privacy protection: when is it necessary, and do we have enough?
vi)The Computer-Productivity Paradox: Businesses spend about 50% of
their capital budgets on computers and telecommunications
equipment, but white collar productivity is growing at about the
same slow rate that it did in 1980. Why are "computers showing
up everywhere, except in the productivity statistics?"
vii)Professional Accountability: Should computer professionals be
licensed?
viii)Reliable systems: Are computer systems to unreliable to use in
situations where people's lives are at risk? (A recent
Forester/Morrison article & the resulting debate on comp.risks
are part of this literature)
ix)Reliable systems: What is automatic program verification good
for; will it work in practice for substantial systems?
x) Software: What the important social elements of software
engineering, and to what extent are they supported by the
current generation of software research?
xi)Virtual reality: Is it being hyped? What is it good for? What
are the social issues?
xii)Worklife & effectiveness: What is Groupware good for? Is it the
next step in developing computer support for professional teams
or is it simply a new set of technological toys for "rich white
boys"?
xiii)Worklife: Does computerization improve or degrade the character
of working life in any deep ways?
We will ask you to identify the controversy you want to examine
more deeply in your term paper (and major sources of
information) around the 5th week of class.
c. Around the middle of the quarter we will ask you to identify the
controversy you'd like to write about, and to start collecting then
necessary materials for your term paper. We will also give you more
information about topics and sources. However, you can start by
examining issues in Computerization and Controversy and examine the
bibliographies at the end of the articles and the major sections
for further information. We are interested in your ability to
effectively integrate and interpret diverse sources of information
which reflect different perspectives and contexts of computer use
-- books, professional reports, analytical articles, recent new
stories, bboard debates, etc. Where possible, we would like you to
draw upon good examples from diverse kinds of sources rather than
using primarily one kind of source.
G. Why You Should Take this Course Now (in the Fall)?
Many students don't see the value of ICS131 and put off taking it until
the Winter or Spring quarters of their senior years. But once in ICS131,
most students find it unusually stimulating and valuable. They see that
they can learn systematically about the ways that people and
organizations do or don't computerize. The course helps provide
perspective on such practical matters different ways of organizing ICS
instructional labs (regimented labs versus open access terminal rooms),
the advantages and dilemmas of personal computing, the risks of using
inadequately tested software in high-risk systems such as air-traffic
control, automated teller machine nets, etc. They then wish that they
had taken it earlier in their programs. Some students wish that they
had taken ICS131 in their junior years so they could have begun building
on their new insights earlier in their lives.
ICS has a 3 quarter sequence of courses about the social analysis of
computing which you might find specially exciting (ICS131-132-135).
ICS131 examines the social issues raised by widespread computerization
and computer use in a social perspective. The follow-on courses teach
you a variety of skills so that you can investigate the social aspects
of computer development and use in specific settings -- businesses,
schools, hospitals, libraries, government agencies, etc. Some students
also wish that they had taken it early enough to take follow-on courses
like ICS132 and ICS135.
Acknowledgements: This introduction was prepared by Rob Kling in discussion
with Tom Jewett, Jeanne Pickering, Charles Dunlop (University of Michigan),
Charles Huff (St. Olaf's College), Gregor Koso (Purdue), Mitzi Lewison
(Galaxy Classroom), Clark Quinn (University of New South Wales), David
Stodolsky (Rothskilde University), and Hank Van Cleef (Iowa State). Special
thanks to Professor Dunlop for suggestions about the Course Notebook and to
Professor Huff for concrete suggestions to enhance the quality of class
discussions.
-------------------
From: kling@ics.uci.edu (Rob Kling)
Subject: Re: Syllabus for Social issues in Computing Course
Message-ID: <9109272243.aa23099@ics.uci.edu>
Date: 28 Sep 91 05:43:48 GMT
In-reply-to: Your message of Fri, 27 Sep 91 22:40:40 -0700.
SYLLABUS
COMPUTERIZATION IN SOCIETY -- ICS131
Rob Kling and Tom Jewett
Department of Information and Computer Science
University of California, Irvine
(Version D:September 24, 1991)
Prof Rob Kling: 714-856-5955 kling@ics.uci.edu
The readings come from Computerization and Controversy: Value Conflicts
and Social Choices by Charles Dunlop and Rob Kling (eds.) (Academic
Press, Boston, 1991).
In addition, we will draw upon continuing discussion from selected
Internet bulliten boards, such as comp.risks, comp.society, and
comp.society.development.
I. Oct. 1: INTRODUCTION TO THE SOCIAL STUDY OF COMPUTERIZATION - Week #1
A. Tuesday, October 1 -- Today we discuss the orientation of this
course, the work you will do, and the organization of
activities.
Readings:
1. Introduction to Computerization in Society, ICS 131, Fall 1991
2. Introduction to Social Controversies of Computerization.
Charles Dunlop & Rob Kling. General Introduction to:
Computerization and Controversy: Value Conflicts and Social
Choices.
II. Oct. 3-10: THE DREAMS OF TECHNOLOGICAL UTOPIANISM - Week #1-2
Are we witnessing a "computer revolution" or living in an
"information society?" In this unit we examine some fundamental
images about the role of computers in social life. We also examine
some of the major styles of analysis which technologists and others
often use to predict the social consequences of computerization.
A. Thursday, October 3 -- Today we will describe in detail the Course
Notebook that you will use to collect key materials and document
your observations and analyses during this term.
Readings:
1. Part I, Introduction: THE DREAMS OF TECHNOLOGICAL UTOPIANISM
-- Charles Dunlop and Rob Kling from Computerization and
Controversy: Value Conflicts and Social Choices.
2. Part I, #2: Sculley, John -- "The Relationship Between
Business and Higher Education: A Perspective on the
Twenty-first Century." Communications of the ACM 32(9)
(September 1989):1056-1061.
B. Tuesday, October 8 -- Readings:
1. Part I, #4: Berry, Wendell. "Why I Won't Buy a Computer." from
What Are People for? Essays by Wendell Berry. North Point
Press (1990)
2. Part I, #1: Feigenbaum, Edward and Pamela McCorduck. Fifth
Generation: Artificial Intelligence and Japan's Computer
Challenge to the World. Reading, Massachusetts:
Addison-Wesley, 1983. Excerpts: Prologue, Experts in Silicon,
Section 7 (Speculations in Knowledge Futures), Epilogue.
C. Thursday, October 10 -- Readings:
1. Part I, #3: Kling, Rob and Suzanne Iacono "Making a Computer
Revolution" -- Journal of Computing and Society 1(1):43-58.
2. Part III, #1: Guiliano, Vincent. "The Mechanization of Work"
Scientific American 247 (September 1982), pp. 148-164.
III. Oct 15-24: THE ECONOMIC AND ORGANIZATIONAL
DIMENSIONS OF COMPUTERIZATION - Weeks #3-4
In this unit we will examine how computer technologies shape and are
shaped by organizations. Organizations, such as IBM, DEC, Honeywell
and Apple, are the primary vendors of computing equipment and it is
difficult to understand the behavior of the computer industry
without some insight into the internal dynamics of organizational
life. Organizations are still the primary consumers of
computer-based products, and it is also difficult to understand
computerization without some insight into the dynamics of
organizational life. We will examine principles of organizational
behavior, and then examine computerization in light of them.
A. Tuesday, October 15:
1. Film: "Computers in Context." (about the design and impacts of
information systems on work, including expert systems)
(distributed by California Newsreel, San Francisco, CA.)
2. Reading: Part II, Introduction: "THE ECONOMIC AND
ORGANIZATIONAL DIMENSIONS OF COMPUTERIZATION" -- Charles Dunlop
and Rob Kling from Computerization and Controversy: Value
Conflicts and Social Choices
B. Thursday, October 17 -- Readings:
1. Part II, #1: Feder, Barnaby J. "Getting the Electronics Just
Right: Wells Fargo is a Case Study in How a Company can
Exploit the Information Revolution." New York Times, Business
Section, Sunday, June 4, 1989: pp 1,8.
2. Part II, #2:Frantz, Douglas. "B of A's Plans for Computer Don't
Add Up." Los Angeles Times. (Sunday). February 8, 1988.
3. Part II, #3: Baily, Martin Neal. "Great Expectations: PCs and
Productivity" PC Computing 2(4) (April 1989): 137-141.
C. Tuesday, October 22 -- Readings:
1. Part II, #6: Kling, Rob. "Social Analysis of Computing:
Theoretical Orientations in Recent Empirical Research".
Computing Surveys 12(1)(1980):61-110 (excerpt, Section 2)
2. Part II, #4: Salerno, Lynne. "Whatever Happened to the
Computer Revolution?" Harvard Business Review 63(6)
(Nov./Dec. 1985):129-138.
D. Thursday, October 24 -- Reading:
1. Part III, #5: Bullen, Christine and John Bennett. "Groupware
in Practice: An Interpretation of Work Experience"
IV. Oct 29-31: SOCIAL RELATIONSHIPS IN ELECTRONIC COMMUNITIES -- Week #5
Does the use of electronic communication -- such as electronic mail
and conferencing -- improve the sense of community which poeple
experience -- or does it leave them feeling alientated? For whom do
which kinds of changes take place, and under what conditions?
A. Tuesday, October 29 -- Readings:
1. Part IV, Introduction: SOCIAL RELATIONSHIPS IN ELECTRONIC
COMMUNITIES -- Charles Dunlop and Rob Kling from
Computerization and Controversy: Value Conflicts and Social
Choices
2. Part IV, #1: Sara Kiesler, Jane Siegel, and Timothy W.
McGuire, "Social Psychological Aspects of Computer-Mediated
Communication". American Psychologist, Vol, 39, No. 10
(October, 1984), pp. 1123-1134.
B. Thursday, October 31 -- Readings:
1. Part IV, #3: Lindsy Van Gelder, "The Strange Case of the
Electronic Lover: A Real-Life Story of Deception, Seduction,
and Technology". Ms., Vol. XIV, No. 4 (October, 1985), pp.
94, 99, 101-104, 117, 123, 124.
2. Part IV, #2: Judith A. Perrolle, "Conversations and Trust in
Computer Interfaces". Original manuscript prepared for
Computerization and Controversy: Value Conflicts and Social
Choices.
V. Nov. 5-14: SOCIAL CONTROL AND PRIVACY -- Weeks #6-7
Does the use of computerized communication and information systems
often lead to "invasions of personal privacy"? What do "matching,"
"profiling," and "fair information practices" mean in the context
of computerized technologies and privacy?
A. Tuesday, November 5 -- Readings:
1. Part V, Introduction: SOCIAL CONTROL AND PRIVACY -- Charles
Dunlop and Rob Kling from Computerization and Controversy:
Value Conflicts and Social Choices
2. Part V, #1: Rob Kling, "Value Conflicts in EFT Systems"
Excerpted from "Value Conflicts and Computing Developments:
Developed and Developing Countries". Telecommunications
Policy 1983, 7(1) March, pp. 12-34.
B. Thursday, November 7 -- Readings:
1. Part V, #2: Evelyn Richards, "Proposed FBI Crime Computer
System Raises Questions on Accuracy, Privacy . . .", The
Washington Post, February 13, 1989. [Posted on RISKS-FORUM
Digest, Vol. 8, No. 27 (February 16, 1989).]
2. Part V, #3: John Shattuck, "Computer Matching is a Serious
Threat to Individual Rights", CACM, Vol. 27, No. 6 (June,
1984), pp. 538-541.
3. Part V, #4: Richard P. Kusserow, "The Government Needs
Computer Matching to Root Out Waste and Fraud", CACM, Vol.
27, No. 6 (June, 1984), pp. 542-545.
C. Tuesday, November 12 -- Readings:
1. Part VI, #4: RISKS contributions by Martin Minow from Volume
8, Issue 30 (February 24, 1989), and by Les Earnest, John
McCarthy, and Jerry Hollombe [3 separate contributions] from
Volume 8, Issue 31 (February 27, 1989).
2. Part V, #5: Privacy Protection Study Commission, Personal
Privacy in an Information Society. Washington, DC: U.S.
Government Printing Office (1977), excerpts from pp. 3-37].
3. Part V, #8: Roger C. Clarke, "Information Technology and
Dataveillance", CACM, Vol. 31, No. 5 (May, 1988), pp.
498-512.
D. Thursday, November 14 -- Readings:
1. Part V, #6: James B. Rule et. al, "Preserving Individual
Autonomy in an Information-Oriented Society". In Lance J.
Hoffman et. al. Computer Privacy in the Next Decade, New
York: Academic Press (1980), pp. 65-87.
2. Part V, #7: Kenneth C. Laudon, "Comment on 'Preserving
Individual Autonomy in an Information-Oriented Society'". In
Lance J. Hoffman et. al. Computer Privacy in the Next Decade,
New York: Academic Press (1980), pp. 89-95.
VI. Nov 19-28: SECURITY AND RELIABILITY -- Week #8-9
In the 1960s and 1970s, the public viewed computer systems as
occasionally unreliable, but usually secure. Recent events
publicized in the mass media, as well as Hollywood flms, have
radically changed that image. Can systems be both secure and
accessible/easy to use? How much reliability can we build into
systems -- how much MUST we build in if our lives and the lives of
others depend on the system?
A. Tuesday, November 19 -- Readings:
1. Part VI, Introduction: SECURITY AND RELIABILITY -- Charles
Dunlop and Rob Kling from Computerization and Controversy:
Value Conflicts and Social Choices
2. Part VI, #1: Clifford Stoll, "Stalking the Wily Hacker".
CACM, Vol. 31, No. 5 (May, 1988), pp. 484-497.
3. Part VI, #2: Peter J. Denning, "Computer Viruses". American
Scientist, Vol. 76 (May-June, 1988), pp. 236-238.
4. Part VI, #7: RISKS-FORUM DIGEST excerpts
B. Thursday, November 21 -- Readings:
1. Part VI, #5: Jonathan Jacky, "Safety-Critical Computing:
Hazards, Practices, Standards and Regulation". Original
manuscript prepared for Computerization and Controversy:
Value Conflicts and Social Choices.
2. Part VI, #6: Brian Cantwell Smith, "The Limits of
Correctness". Issued as Report No. CSLI-85-35 by the Center
for the Study of Language and Information (Stanford
University), and marked Copyright 1985 by Brian Cantwell
Smith. Also printed in the ACM SIG journal Computers and
Society, combined Vol. 14, No. 4 and Vol. 15, Nos. 1, 2, 3
(Winter / Spring / Summer / Fall, 1985), pp. 18-26.
C. Tuesday, November 26 -- Readings:
1. Part VI, #3: Alan Borning, "Computer System Reliability and
Nuclear War". CACM, Vol 30, No. 2 (February, 1987), pp.
112-131.
2. Part VI, #4: David Lorge Parnas, "Software Aspects of
Strategic Defense Systems". Originally published in American
Scientist, Vol. 73, No. 5, pp. 432-440. Reprinted in CACM,
Vol. 28, No. 12 (December, 1985), pp. 1326-1335.
D. Thursday, November 28 -- THANKSGIVING HOLIDAY
VII. Dec 3-5: ETHICAL PERSPECTIVES AND PROFESSIONAL RESPONSIBILITIES
-- Week #10.
While most people may feel that they know what is right and what is
wrong, few will have worked out a systematic ethical theory. Are
ethical rules, including codes of professional practice for
computer specialists, absolute? When there are ethical conflicts
between what is good for your family or company and what is good
for your clients, how do you resolve them? This final unit will
help you to think carefully about some important issues that you
will face as professional computer scientists.
A. Tuesday, December 3 -- Readings:
1. Part VII, Introduction: ETHICAL PERSPECTIVES AND PROFESSIONAL
RESPONSIBILITIES -- Charles Dunlop and Rob Kling from
Computerization and Controversy: Value Conflicts and Social
Choices
2. Part VII, #3: "ACM Code of Professional Conduct". Reprinted
in Deborah G. Johnson and John W. Snapper (eds.), Ethical
Issues in the Use of Computers. Belmont, California:
Wadsworth Publishing Company (1985), pp. 31-34.
3. Part VII, #4: Provisional draft: IFIP Code of Professional
Conduct.
4. Part VII, #2: Rob Kling, "When Organizations are
Perpetrators". Computer / Law Journal, Vol. II, No. 2
(Spring, 1980).
B. Thursday, December 5 -- Readings:
1. Part III, #6: Ehn, Pelle. "The Art and Science of Designing
Computer Artifacts." Scandinavian Journal of Information
Systems, 1 (August, 1989), pp. 21-42. (Computerization and
Controversy -- Section 3)
2. Part VII, #7: Joseph Weizenbaum, "Against the Imperialism of
Instrumental Reason". Computer Power and Human Reason,
Chapter 10. San Francisco: W. H. Freeman and Company
(1976), pp. 258-280 + Notes to Chapter 10, pp. 286-287.
-------------------
Xref: eff alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk:1046 comp.admin.policy:1010 comp.org.eff.talk:4119
From: kadie@eff.org (Carl M. Kadie)
Subject: Abstract of "Computers and Academic Freedom News" 1.27
Message-ID: <1991Sep28.155229.23309@eff.org>
Date: Sat, 28 Sep 1991 15:52:29 GMT
This is an abstract for the most recent "Computers and Academic
Freedom News" (CAF-news). Information about CAF-news followings the
abstract.
--- begin abstract 1.27 ---
[Week of September 9, 1991 to September 15, 1991
The first eight notes deal with applying library policy to a Netnews
facility. The first note argues that while academic libraries can
concentrate on educational material, they should interpret the word
"educational" very broadly.<1991Sep9.085026.33361@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu>
The next note reports that Usenet/Netnews is historically educational
<9109092011.AA00258@dsacg2.dsac.dla.mil>. The third note defines and
distinguish "censorship" and
"selection"<199109091819.AA26087@eff.org>. The fourth, responding to a
note in CAF-News 1.26, asserts that librarians who keep Playboy under
lock and key really are doing it protect the magazine, not to avoid
controversy.. The fifth note suggests that
computer sites that try to ban "offensive" newsgroups, may be held
responsible when someone is offended by a note that gets through in an
"inoffensive" newsgroup.<199109090239.AA04619@eff.org>
A while back I posted a note to a library-related mailing list. The
note described Netnews and gave examples of (what I consider)
censorship. The examples included Stanford's removal of
rec.humor.funny (it was later returned) and Wes Morgan's statement
that his site might not subscribe alt.sex to avoid controversy. In the
sixth note, Wes Morgan objects to the idea that avoiding material to
avoid controversy is censorship.<1991Sep10.212523.3734@ms.uky.edu> The
seventh note is a reposting of my invitation to librarians.
<1991Sep11.175808.23857@eff.org>
The eighth note tries to define "library" to see how well term can
cover a Netnews service. The note lists the legal definition of
"library" for the few states that have such a definition. Indiana's
definition seems the best.<1991Sep12.185627.26936@eff.org>
The next to notes are about the CAF archive and CAF-News. The first
note announces a reorganized archive of academic computer
policies.<1991Sep10.015128.3970@eff.org> The second note explains the
editorial policy of CAF-News.<1991Sep11.220354.29371@eff.org>
The last two notes are about email privacy. The first note explains
the the law's ambiguous
protection.<92EC79568E81427D@ccmail.sunysb.edu> The second, opins on
the limited circumstances in which a sys admin could legally and
ethically look at a user's email.<94B10ABABE81427D@ccmail.sunysb.edu>
--- end abstract 1.27 ---
CAF-news is a weekly digest of notes from CAF-talk.
CAF-news is available as newsgroup alt.comp.acad-freedom.news or via
email. If you read newsgroups but your site doesn't get
alt.comp.acad-freedom.news, (politely) ask your sys admin to
subscribe. For info on email delivery, send email to listserv@eff.org.
Include the lines "help" and "longindex".
Back issues of CAF-news are available via anonymous ftp or via email.
Ftp to ftp.eff.org. The directory is pub/academic/news. For
information about email access to the archive, send an email note to
archive-server@eff.org. Include the lines "help" and "index".
--
Carl Kadie -- kadie@eff.org or kadie@cs.uiuc.edu
I do not represent EFF; this is just me.
-------------------
From: sbrack@bluemoon.rn.com (Steven S. Brack)
Subject: Re: Ownership rights
Message-ID: <4B0Z91w164w@bluemoon.rn.com>
Sender: nstar!bluemoon!sbrack@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu
References: <1991Sep23.041527.1439@eng.umd.edu>
Date: 28 Sep 91 22:22:26 GMT
Approved: usenet@eff.org
nstar!iuvax!eng.umd.edu!russotto (Matthew T. Russotto) writes:
> In article <17840DD99E401E65@ccmail.sunysb.edu> Sanjay Kapur >>From: kadie@eff.org (Carl M. Kadie)
> >>Paying tuition does give students *some* rights; it gives them
> >>contractual rights. If the student handbook says that students will
> >>not be censored and that students can have a free computer account,
> >>then students have a right to be free of censorship and to have a free
> >>computer account.
> >
> >What if the same handbook says (or implies) that the free account also comes
> >with a set of (maybe unwritten) rules? What if the free account is limited
> >custom or otherwise for instructional use only?
>
> Unwritten rules are worth the paper they are written on. If the free account
> is limited to instructional use, then USENet on that machine ought be limited
> to an extremely small set of topics, if it exists at all-- the question of
> censoring newsgroups because they are objectionable won't come up, as
> newsgroups would be provided with the only criteria being cost and relevance
> to instruction-- most likely, neither alt.sex nor rec.arts.startrek would eve
> come up for consideration.
In my own experience, if nothing else, IT SAVES TROUBLE to
explicitly state what is expected of each user, or better yet, to
limit users' access to those areas in which they have no need to
be.
Written policy goes a long way toward eliminating ambiguity &
misunderstandings between the maintainers of the system & its
users.
-- Steve Brack
_________________________________________________________________________
|Steven S. Brack | sbrack%bluemoon@nstar.rn.com |
|Jacob E. Taylor Honors Tower | sbrack@bluemoon.uucp |
|The Ohio State University | sbrack@nyx.cs.du.edu |
|50 Curl Drive | sbrack@isis.cs.du.edu |
|Columbus, Ohio 43210-1112 USA | brack@ewf.eng.ohio-state.edu |
|+1 614 293 7383 or 419 474 1010 | Steven.S.Brack@osu.edu |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
-------------------
From: jtierney@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (Joe R Tierney)
Subject: Re: Ownership rights
Message-ID: <9109290018.AA04252@bottom.magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu>
Sender: jtierney@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu
References: <4B0Z91w164w@bluemoon.rn.com>
Date: 28 Sep 91 16:18:24 GMT
Approved: usenet@eff.org
Dear Steve,
I see that your address is sbrack@bluemoon.uucp
Does this mean the Bluemoon BBS has a connection with Internet or with Ohio
State or both? I talked with someone at BlueMoon and they said they were going
to get an internet connection. Does Bluemoon have all the same access as one
has if they connect through Ohio State. Please respon.
--
=======================================================
<< Name: Joe Tierney | Ohio State University >>
<< Internet: jtierney@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu >>
========================================================
-------------------
From: vtessier@vela.acs.oakland.edu (Vince Tessier)
Subject: Re: Libertarian librarians
Message-ID: <9109290100.AA23066@vela.acs.oakland.edu>
Sender: vtessier@vela.acs.oakland.edu
References: <1991Sep24.061001.13417@eff.org>
Date: 28 Sep 91 17:00:58 GMT
Approved: usenet@eff.org
In info.academic-freedom you write:
>As it happens, I am a librarian, and I also subscribe to the libernet
>mail list.
Could you point me at libernet, please? Thank you.
--
Vince Tessier vtessier@vela.acs.oakland.edu
(soon to become vlt@ursus..mi.us)
"Capital punishment reduces the rate of recidivism to an acceptable level"
-------------------
From: sbrack@bluemoon.rn.com (Steven S. Brack)
Subject: Re: ECPA and University Email
Message-ID:
Sender: nstar!bluemoon!sbrack@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu
References: <1991Sep23.190848.24422@eff.org>
Date: 28 Sep 91 22:44:54 GMT
Approved: usenet@eff.org
nstar!iuvax!eff.org!kadie (Carl M. Kadie) writes:
> Last week in email, I asked Mike Godwin if the Electronic
> Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) could be reasonably construed to
> protect university email. (Mike is the Staff Lawyer for the Electronic
> Freedom Foundation.) With Mike's permission, I'm posting his reply.
>
> ---------
> Carl, I don't think it's been resolved whether ECPA reaches
> university e-mail, but I think there is an argument that it
> does. Consider two key terms in ECPA:
>
> a: "electronic communication service" [defined in 18 USC 2510]
> means any service which provides to users thereof the ability to
> send or receive wire or electronic communications.
If University email is covered under this, then is it covered by
the ECPA? If so, then to what extent?
>
> b: "remote computing service" [defined in 18 USC 2711] means the provision
> *to the public* [emphasis mine] of computer storage or processing services
> by means of an electronic communications services.
>
> Now, one obvious difference between (a) and (b) is the phrase
> "to the public"--a university email system might well qualify as (a),
> but probably would not qualify as (b).
>
> But some sections of ECPA add the language "to the public" to (a), which
> suggests a narrower class of (a) that may exclude such things as
> university e-mail systems and internal corporate e-mail systems.
>
> Does this mean that a university e-mail system is not covered
> by ECPA because it doesn't provide services "to the public"?
> I don't think so, if the system provides services to students.
> Students are not employees--they are educational consumers. In other
> words, they are more like "public" than like "employees." Presumably,
> access to the university system is something that's paid for, at least
> in part, by a student's tuition and fees--i.e., the student is paying
> for the service.
But, how is this changed by the University's quasijudicial power
over its students? A university's relationship to its students
differs significantly from, say, CompuServe's.
> Obviously there's a counterargument here--that "public" just means
> "general public"--but the issue of interpretation hasn't yet been
> resolved.
I believe that state universities (I don't know about private
ones) are classed as semi-public institutions. So, thew already
muddy waters may be even murkier than imagined.
- Steve
_________________________________________________________________________
|Steven S. Brack | sbrack%bluemoon@nstar.rn.com |
|Jacob E. Taylor Honors Tower | sbrack@bluemoon.uucp |
|The Ohio State University | sbrack@nyx.cs.du.edu |
|50 Curl Drive | sbrack@isis.cs.du.edu |
|Columbus, Ohio 43210-1112 USA | brack@ewf.eng.ohio-state.edu |
|+1 614 293 7383 or 419 474 1010 | Steven.S.Brack@osu.edu |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
-------------------
From: robinson@mtsu.edu (David Robinson)
Subject: Libertarian's position on public libraries
Message-ID:
Sender: knuth!robinson@uunet.UU.NET
References: <1991Sep24.061001.13417@eff.org>
Date: 28 Sep 91 17:56:35 GMT
Approved: usenet@eff.org
>SKAPUR@ccmail.sunysb.edu (Sanjay Kapur) writes:
>[...]
>>I am not very sure that it is very professional for a computer professional
>>to espouse the political cause of Libertarianism which the ALA council seems
>>to endorse in its Library Bill of Rights.
>[...]
>
>Can you be more specific? Do you mean "Libertarianism" (relating to
>the political party) or "libertarianism" (relating to liberty)?
>
>I doubt if there are too many Libertarian librarians since I think the
>Libertarians oppose public libraries.
>
>- Carl
>
>--
>Carl Kadie -- kadie@eff.org or kadie@cs.uiuc.edu
>I do not represent EFF; this is just me.
Referencing Carl Kadie's above comment about the lack of Libertarian
librarians, as promised, here are some of the comments from the libernet.
As you can see, it looks like Carl's right.
My question was:
Do Libertarians (and I note the capital 'L') really oppose public
libraries? Comments?
and they replied:
Of course not. We oppose publically FUNDED libraries. Most public
libraries in this country were started by private organizations and
were privately funded; such actions are perfectly consistant with
libertarian principles. What we oppose is the use of coercion, via
taxation, to support public libraries. However, no libertarian could
oppose a private individual choosing to spend his own money to start a
public lending library. (Andrew Carnegie started hundreds of such
libraries around the country, btw.)
-------------------
Libertarians do not oppose public libraries. The great bulk of
libertarians oppose government money being used for public libraries
or much of anything else; many are opposed to all forms of government.
Just about all are opposed to public schools, for example. I
personally am opposed to the present public schools on both libertarian
and non-libertarian arguments.
About all that libertarians can agree might be legitimate functions of
a government are such things as defense, protection of people from force
and fraud, and a justice system. They vary from having no government at
all, relying on private means of accomplishing this, to considering
government a necessary evil, as did our Founding Fathers. Fraud goes
a lot farther than in common use now.
Libertarians are opposed to any form of censorship.
-------------------
Libertarians would feel that libraries (among other things) should be
privatized. This would be one of the easier things to do, with the place
being supported by usage fees. People are totally willing to pay a fee
to rent a video tape; why not a book.
Being a private establishment would have advantages for the library.
Among other things, they would not have to tolerate being lounges for
smelly vagrants (as they now have to, after that recent court case),
any more than the neighborhood video store does.
-------------------
The answer to that really depends on what you mean by "public". I
think just about all Libertarians support the idea of their being
places where people can go to read and borrow books that they don't
want to have to buy just as we favor their being places where people
can go to eat a meal when the don't want to cook. In this sense a
public library would be just the same same as a public restaurant.
No public restaurants are supported by tax funds, however, and this
is the only part of "public libraries" that libertarians object to.
--------------------
David Robinson robinson@mtsu.edu
Middle Tennessee State University
Murfreesboro, Tennessee 37132
-------------------
From: ALILESTE@idbsu.idbsu.edu (Dan Lester)
Subject: Re: Libertarian's position on public libraries
Message-ID: <199109300637.AA05512@eff.org>
Sender: ALILESTE@idbsu.idbsu.edu
References:
Date: 30 Sep 91 07:25:59 GMT
Approved: usenet@eff.org
On Sat, 28 Sep 91 12:56:35 CDT David Robinson said:
>
>Of course not. We oppose publically FUNDED libraries. Most public
>libraries in this country were started by private organizations and
>were privately funded; such actions are perfectly consistant with
>libertarian principles. What we oppose is the use of coercion, via
>taxation, to support public libraries. However, no libertarian could
>oppose a private individual choosing to spend his own money to start a
>public lending library. (Andrew Carnegie started hundreds of such
>libraries around the country, btw.)
NO NO NO....Andrew Carnegie gave money to BUILD over 2,000 public
library BUILDINGS. The communities had to assure that there would be
continued funding for those buildings, their collections, and their staffs.
These communities assured that by public taxation.
Some might even conclude that Carnegie himself offered these communities
a form of coercion....by letting them know what they could get "for free".
And as those who try the drug dealer's "free sample" learn all too quickly
there "just ain't no free samples."
BTW, I do not hold to the literal truth of the sentence above...but know
those who do. Of course, even if I were not a librarian by choice, training,
and practice, I would still prefer people to read ANYTHING over using
mind-altering drugs of any sort.
>About all that libertarians can agree might be legitimate functions of
>a government are such things as defense, protection of people from force
AAAHHHHH...but defense against whom or what, and at what levels?
>and fraud, and a justice system. They vary from having no government at
Same question again.....Whose justice?
>
>being supported by usage fees. People are totally willing to pay a fee
>to rent a video tape; why not a book.
Many do...it is common for public libraries to charge a rental fee for
popular, best-seller books, at least when they are recently published.
Many universities have an explicit library fee that students have voted
upon themselves.
>Being a private establishment would have advantages for the library.
>Among other things, they would not have to tolerate being lounges for
>smelly vagrants (as they now have to, after that recent court case),
>any more than the neighborhood video store does.
OH??? You could ask some other establishments, such as McDonalds in
Chicago or Denver or..... about this issue. It is possible to nurse a
cup of coffee for hours, especially if you get free refills...and can even
make it semi-nourishing with LOTS of sugar and creamer.
dan
************************************************************************
* Dan Lester Bitnet: alileste@idbsu
* Associate University Librarian Internet: alileste@idbsu.idbsu.edu
* Boise State University
* Boise, Idaho 83725 You can be sure these ideas are my
* 208-385-1234 own; no one else would have them.
************************************************************************
