Update: a serious omission… Note that American Libraries was on this story Friday. Thank you, AL!
The irrepressible education advocate Andy Carvin has a great summary of DOPA, which is federalese for “Scared of MySpace.” Like CIPA, the Deleting Online Predators Act is FUD-riddled, flag-waving legislation, this time built on the dubious premise that when instant messaging is outlawed, only outlaws will have instant messaging. Also like CIPA, which it amends, DOPA would require schools and libraries receiving certain types of federal funding to filter out popular social software, though the legislation is so vague that interpretations of the law might encompass even Google. At one point I would have added “or so we hope,” but Google’s capitulation about censorship in China bodes poorly for its advocacy on this issue. Google doesn’t seem to understand that “Don’t be evil” is only meaningful when that maxim is paired with its activist corollary, “Do be good.”
At this point you might think the fearless leaders of the national organization representing libraries were rushing forward to lead the fray on yet another attack on civil liberties, but the Council list, which I monitor daily, spent two days gabbing about a miscommunication between ALA and Project VoteSmart that was as important, in the long run, as one of those conversations about which way to hang the toilet paper.
danah boyd wrote me to ask what LibraryLand was doing, and I replied that my PC was crashing (Thursday was a mountain of a day) and that though I agreed with her, I was hoping this time that I wasn’t the only member among 66,000 appalled by DOPA. Didn’t we just hold an election?
It pleaseth me doth greatly to see Library Garden take a whack at DOPA, since that’s turning into a great blog (sing it, Pete!), and indeed most of the usual suspects in the–ding!–biblioblogosphere are chiming in.
But ALA needs to step up to the plate. Hello, ALA? Are you ready to be good?
Posted on this day, other years:
- Surviving the Silly Season - 2010
- Blogs of Note: Global Voices - 2005
- Tulsa Caves in to Censors - 2005
- Movable Type 3.0 Out, MT Price Plan in Effect - 2004
Actually, Nancy Kranich blogged about it a couple of days ago, as did Gayle Keresey, so hopefully we’ll see more of it from ALA folks soon.
andy
This legislation is terrible, about 90% of the web falls within its definition. I really don’t think we have much to worry about, however. It is so clearly in violation of the first amendment that I doubt it will ever come to life. It is still an outrage, however, and we should still condemn it and make lots of noise.
Andy, that’s good news, not only that ALA politicos are talking about it but also that they’re blogging. Nancy ran a great ALA presidency. It’s still the case that the current ALA governance team seems to be in the Bahamas. As someone who was on Council until a couple of months ago, I’m all too aware who isn’t paying attention.
Actually, the ALA Washington office very quickly sent out messages about DOPA, net neutrality and EPA Toxics Release Inventory: Support the “Pallone-Solis Toxic Right-To-Know Amendment”
Those of us that have signed on to get this information out on the state level did that right away as well.
The goal being to get people in our states to call Congress.
I did not bring any of this up on the ALA Council site because it was being handled elsewhere. What good would have discussing it on the Council list have done? What we need to do is contact our own Congressional delegations, not discuss the issues forever amongst ourselves.
The ALA Washington Office continues to improve the advocacy site. It is easy to get information on who to contact, how, and what to say on the site, http://www.onlineadvocacy.net/ .
I always pass this kind of information on to our state discussion list and Legislation Committee as I am sure many ALA Council members do.
By the way, I often recommend in our state that people that are afraid to talk with people in the Congressional office call after 5:00 p.m. pacific time. I also recommend that they use their cell phones so that the call doesn’t cost them much of anything.
These issues are definitely out there and being addressed.
The DOPA news makes for a fun confluence with the release of the MySpace IM client. Let’s all zig when so many of our users are about to zag in a big way.
Diedre, I feel fairly plugged-in, and yet I don’t see the ALA “activism” on this.
I also find it interesting you don’t find this an important conversation for Council. In theory that’s the governing body of ALA.
I suspect that ALA is simply providing its information in olde tyme ways. I support ALA quite a bit, but I bet I could tap every bibliomilleniarist out there and the vast majority won’t know what ALA is doing. Is that because they don’t know the Right Way or because ALA isn’t delivering its information in a way that’s most effective?
Not to belabor this issue but I will try to restate my point in a better way.
My point was that the ALA Washington Office is already on top of this issue. I did not think that ALA Council needed to reinvent the wheel since the group appointed to deal with legislation was doing just that.
I suspect we will hear even more soon if we don’t actively make those calls to Congress and try to stop the legislation now! So, since we are ALA the burden is now on us to do our job. We have the bill, we have the facts, we have access to many ways to communicate with our own Congressional delegations. So, lets use them. Individuals messages will have FAR more affect then messages from just our association.
Do you have other suggestions about what ALA should be doing? If so, I will gladly post them to the Council list. I could even post them anonymously. 😉
I think you did what needed to be done today, though it was worded a tad grumpily. Someone–Wash Off., Leg Comm, etc.–needed to say “here is some very stupid legislation we hope will die a quick death, but that you need to know about since it’s central to our mission.” This is particularly true with issues that Councilors might not initially connect to ALA, even though it’s quite central to who we are as an institution. I think you could have left off the comment about Council discussing it to death.
Council is the governing body of ALA. At minimum, its members need awareness. It’s not a given that they will be aware of an issue through the usual channels. It’s also interesting, in stepping back from the issue, that in this L2 world, it’s not particularly easy to find out who in ALA took what action. I know, it was on a list, and it will be in a report. I just think that sounds so last-century at this point.
Well, yes, I was a bit grumpy and maybe I still am. I had just been pointing out that the Washington Office sent the word out right away. They had the responsibility for doing it and did it. Many of us interested in what is happening in Congress subscribe to their list and get the word that way. Those of you interested in being on the list can go here for information on signing up: http://www.ala.org/ala/issues/electronicdiscussionlistsa/discussion.htm
Now I end up being the one responsible to do more. Ok, I will but I did call my Congressional delegation, which I think is the MOST important step.
I have now written about the issue twice on the Council list. However, I think it would have much more affect if people took the Washington office information and posted it on places like your blog, PUBLIB, IFFORUM, etc. where it will reach more people. Don Wood often does this so I didn’t do it. So now I will practice what I preach and post to those places as well.
And for those of you that haven’t looked at LibraryLaw Blog there is more information there: “The slippery slope has slipped – new legislation to block more MySpace et al at libraries and schools” http://blog.librarylaw.com/
Interesting how ALA didn’t waste any time posting news that the Board had decided to meddle in LC’s business about series…
I also have DOPA information on my blog, as well as information on other legislation news.
Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner (R-Wisc.), the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, is proposing that ISPs be required to record information about Americans’ online activities so that police can more easily “conduct criminal investigations.” Executives at companies that fail to comply would be fined and imprisoned for up to one year.
Sensenbrenner’s proposal–called the Internet Stopping Adults Facilitating the Exploitation of Today’s Youth Act, or Internet Safety Act–“follows in a long line of bad laws that are written in the name of protecting children,” according to Sonia Arrison of the Pacific Research Institute in San Francisco. In addition, Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, called it an “open-ended obligation to collect information about all customers for all purposes. It opens the door to government fishing expeditions and unbounded data mining.” (See also Surveillance in America.)