Privacy Please! (Blog #5)

I found an interesting article for this week's post called Privacy is Not Dead, Just Evolving. It was written in March of this year comparing the ideas of Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg and Microsoft's Danah Boyd in regards to privacy. Zuckerberg has been quoted as saying that privacy is dead. Boyd believes that privacy is not dead, but rather is evolving with technology. Everyone has their own ideas about what information should be kept private, how to keep that information private, and what exactly privacy is. As technology changes so does the way in which we share information. For some people that means sharing more information and for some people this means that they are unaware of just how much information they are sharing. The line between the private and public is tenuous in the age of technology. Is an act public if it can be seen from the street (public space), even if it is preformed in a home (private space)? How much control should we have over our own images? How much control have we given up of our own information? Technology is evolving and so are the ways in which we use it. As these changes occur so will our perceptions and fears in regards to privacy. Where the questions and debates will end cannot be seen from where we are now. But everyone should have a great interest in the debating process, as the answers will affect everyone.

Libraries limiting free speech? (Blog #4)

For those of us who have been in the SLIS program for a while the idea of deciding how library facilities can be used and by whom is not a new one. There are several classes that speak to managerial issues like policy making. One of the decisions that is made is how meeting rooms can be used and by whom. While looking through sources for this week's blogs I came across the OIF Blog that was informing libraries about a letter writing campaign lead by the ADF. The letter writing has been followed up by legal action by the ADF in some cases. The ADF claims that by excluding religious groups from using meeting rooms libraries are infringing upon those group's rights. The ADF has not just homed in on libraries, but government facilities of all kinds. The institutions listed on its website included libraries, schools, and community centers. While the ADF is focused on the rights of Christian groups, the language used in parts of its arguments would be as applicable to any religious group. The group has one many of its suits regarding such policies. The question I wanted to pose with this posting was do such policies actually infringe upon the rights of religious groups? Since most policies (I would assume all, but I hate to assume anything. You know what assuming does.) restrict all religious groups equally are they unfair policies? I also began to wonder how these policies would treat a request for use by an atheistic group. I've taken a couple of course where such policies were talked about, but I never really considered the question from an IF standpoint. Mostly for this post I wanted to highlight this issue and see what other people think about what is happening.

ADF

OIF Offers Assistance to Libraries Receiving Letters on Meeting Room Policies

Speak no evil? (Blog #3)

The article I wanted to share in this week's blog is from The Chronicle of Higher Education (V.55, Issue 22). It isn't a new article, it was published in 2009. I like this article right now because we have been talking a lot about the free flow of information (of course, we are in a class on intellectual freedom) and our rights to free speech and access to information. This article shows that free speech can be a double edged sword, and just because you can say something doesn't always make it wise. "How not to lose face on Facebook" focuses on the case of a Dartmouth professor who let off some steam on Facebook, not realizing that her privacy settings allowed more than just people she had added as friends to see her wall posts. (I was very impressed that her department chair was completely behind her when the story of her social networking fiasco became far flung.) For the amount of coverage that this story got I was surprised at how mild her comments were. But the story does bring up the idea that while we have the right to say anything, there is a time and a place for everything. We must be particularly careful of how and when we make statements that could affect our careers. (Just look at the more recent effect of Helen Thomas' statements regarding Israel.) "Can" does not always mean "should."

Video Games (Blog #2)

I feel like this blog is a little bit of an extension of last week's blog. I ran across an editorial from the New York Times this week that looked back on the 2005 attempt of California to restrict the sale of violent video games to minors. I had actually forgotten about the media coverage of this bombshell decision.

Now, I abhor the gratuitously violent video games. I do not play them nor would I approve of the younger children in my family being exposed to them. However, the First Amendment does not mandate my approval of an item for it to be acceptable in the open market.

I called this an extension of last week's blog because it was another example of an attempt to censor ideas through lack of access. I don't really want these games in the hands of children either, but it isn't the place of the government to put those types of restrictions onto children. Nor is it the place of a commercial entity (i.e. any retail store) to enforce those restrictions. I know that we put those restrictions on some substances, like alcohol, and expect stores to enforce those restrictions, but ideas are a very different matter. Parents are really the only people who should be regulating their child's exposure to ideas. Not because they "know better" than their children, but because they know their children.

"Explicit" Content in Indiana

When looking for articles of interest this week I found an older blog posting about one Indiana State Representative who tried to walk a not so fine line to predict and limit where books with "explicit" material could be sold within the state. The law that Terry Goodin proposed in 2008 would force vendors who wanted to sell books with explicit content to declare this fact and to pay a $250 registration fee in order to do so.

This bill was born in response to an adult book store that opened off of Interstate 65, which had originally been zoned as a convenience store. The local community was shocked when The Lion's Den, an adult book store, opened instead. Goodin's law was very vague in the definition of what "explicit" materials entailed and while the law originally passed in 2008, it was voided by Judge Barker in that same year. Lawmakers who had supported the bill expressed the desire to come back with a more clearly worded law during the next year. I was unable to find any more recent action taken with this particular law.

There was an outcry from local book sellers when this bill was designed. Almost any store that sold books would be considered to sell "explicit" materials as designated in the bill. There is a deeper concern for those who think about this bill. By charging a fee, and therefore restricting the businesses that can sell certain types of materials, would the Indiana State Legislature in fact be censoring those materials? And if such a bill passes and is not revoked what types of books would be worthy of that fee next?