There have been a good handful of you that have visited and commented on my postings for this blog. Thanks! Your comments have allowed me to continue my research and post new findings. At this point, there have been five of you who have taken the survey located to the right of this blog dealing with CIPA. If you are reading this and you have not yet taken the poll, please do so now as this posting will focus on information from that survey.
CIPA (Children's Internet Protection Act)
Background
The CIPA is one of several bills that the U.S. Congress has proposed in order to limit adolescent's exposure to explicit content available online on school and library computers. Senator John McCain was responsible for introducting the bill that would later become CIPA to the U.S. Senate in 1999. President Bill Clinton is credited for signing the bill into law on December 21, 2000 and it was upheald by the U.S. Supreme Court on June 23, 2003.
CIPA in a Nutshell
CIPA requires schools that recieve federal funding from either the E-Rate program or Title III, to enforce Internet safety policies with technology protection mesaures. Failure to adopt a policy that implements a protecetion measure on technology could cause a school to lose federal funds. District are free to select filtering or blocking programs, however, there are no specifics about whose access must be filtered and what types of material must be blocked/filtered by schools receiving federal funding.
In addition, the ALA decided to challenge CIPA in 2001. Wikipedia does a good job of explanining why ALA believed that the law was unconstitutional. The following information is available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children. Please visit this site and read the section on the suit that challenged the law and respond to the questions at the end of this post.
For more informatoin regarding CIPA visit the following websites:
http://www.cybertelecom.org/CDA/Cipa.htm
http://www.fcc.gov/cgb/consumerfacts/cipa.html
http://ifea.net/cipa.html
http://www.universalservice.org/sl/applicants/step10/cipa.aspx
http://cipa.neric.org/
http://www.llrx.com/features/cipa.htm
Please respond to the following:
1. Do you believe CIPA is necessary in school settings?
2. Should schools filter online content or should students have unlimited access to the Internet?
3. Does CIPA violate the mission of libraries?
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3 comments:
I believe that CIPA is necessary, but it picks at my brain and makes me wonder and reflect upon intellectual freedom.
Personally, I think that schools should filter online internet content. However, I know that ALA disagrees with this personal opinion.
I don't believe that CIPA counteracts the missions of libraries. If a patron really has the need to view explicit/inappropriate material, I believe it is at a responsible adult's discretion to monitor a minor's use.
I have heard that a Senator Kirk is trying to resurrect the Defense of Online Predators Act, which would block social networking sites in schools (except for educational purposes and under adult supervision), and in public libraries.
I do not agree that social networking sites should be blocked in public libraries, and I think that the statistics used by Sen. Kirk are disingenuous. I attended a presentation from Pew Research that said that most children who are victims of online sexual predators unfortunately were already at risk for dangerous behaviors in the Real World. Helping those children seems more important to me than blocking access.
On the other hand, I don't think kids need to be spending a lot of time using social networks purely for socialization during the school day.
I believe in CIPA..but I think there is a more effective means of monitoring. I believe that students miss out on educational material due to schools being CIPA complient.
As for your blog, it is really great and well organized. You have done a nice job -- and love the photo.
Mrs. M.
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