Slippery pig

Recently in class we discussed "equity of access". In library school, this comes up a lot though under different guises. "Equity of access" also appears under "intellectual freedom" and "freedom of information" and "censorship". Call it what you want and discuss what you want about it, it all boils down to people (and I type "people" meaning the broadest sense of the word) getting access to the information they want (and I type "information" meaning the broadest sense of that word). That means people of any race, religion, sexual orientation, social, financial status, etc. can have open and free access, without compromising privacy, to information, any information, all information. Now, the Internet has changed who can access information, where they can access it, and how they access it. The "who" that can access it is just about everyone. You have a computer and a phone line? Great, you can get the internet. You don't? Well, how about a library nearby? BAM! Free Internet. The "where" is virtually anywhere. Lots of people, even people who don't have computers (at least in my experience at the library where I work) have smart-phones. With a pretty affordable plan, anyone, anywhere (as long as you have a cell phone signal) can access the internet. The "how" of getting information is RIGHT NOW. Magic. Instantaneous. I would like to know what the capital of Brazil is. Brasilia. Done. That took like a second. (Well, I already knew it, but had I not, it would have taken just a few seconds to pull up the answer.) Libraries jumped on the bandwagon of the Internet and it has served them well.

Now, as anyone with a computer and Internet service knows, it costs money. "But libraries are funded with tax money!" You cry. Yes, they are. "But you take in fines from my late books every week!" You say. Yes, but if you turned your books in on time I wouldn't have to do that, and at $.10 a day that isn't really paying the bills. So how does a library afford to pay for all of those wonderful computers and all of that bandwidth that is used everyday? The government. At least in most cases. See, the government has a teeny, tiny stipulation on that. You have to filter the internet according to the Child Internet Protection Act, or CIPA. If you follow the standards presented in that act, then you get all kinds of monies and discounts for computers and Internet. Oh, you don't want to comply? Then good luck affording all of that technology.
Here is a good overview of CIPA so I don't have to type it all out here.
Basically the government wants to protect our little snowflakes from things on the Internet that might harm them. Forget about the Internet, how about lazy ass parents that don't pay attention to their kid. And guess what, the Internet is harmful to a lot of people, not just kids. Moving on...

For my class I had to read notes from the ALA (American Library Association) on the case for Internet filtering. In the notes a case in California was mentioned where a mother sued the library because her son downloaded copious amounts of porn from there. I mentioned that in class and wanted to get other people's thoughts on it. Everyone started talking about kids viewing porn. Yes, viewing porn in a public place like a library is not only creepy and weird, but can cause harm to other people around, especially small children. However, in order to download porn, you don't necessarily have to view it. That was the point I was trying to make. The library staff cannot monitor computers all of the time, nor do they want to. In my opinion, I could care less what you are viewing on the computer as long as it is not harming anyone else. The kid could have gone to a simple FTP site his friend set up and started downloading things by file name only. The library would have no idea it was porn. In that situation, who is liable. Hell, in just a normal situation of a teenage kid looking at some naked pictures on the computer in a library, who is liable? There is always a slippery slope. Never solid ground.

You probably know me....

I am stealing this blog post from The Shifted Librarian because I think it deserves posting again. It is about privacy and the world we currently live in. She thought about who out there has information about her and came up with a pretty impressive list of companies that probably know a whole lot. These are the companies that know the most about her (taken from her blog):
* Cell carrier/cellphone maker — they know my loca­tion at any given time, plus all of the data that goes through my phone (and I don’t have a land­line, so every­thing goes through my cell)
* Cable com­pany = they know what I watch on TV and what I surf on the net
* Bank = they know most of the places where I spend my money
* Credit cards = they know a lot of places I spend my money
* LISHost — hosts my web­site and email, which would include a lot of receipts for online purchases
* Google = knows most of the things I search for and many things I read (via Google Reader); even though I don’t use Gmail, any email I send to Gmail users is in their archives
* Ama­zon = knows about a lot of things I pur­chase and read (includ­ing via my Kindle)
* Face­book = knows a lot about what I say about myself via sta­tus updates and who my friends are
* Friend­Feed (now owned by Face­book) = aggre­gates a lot about what I say about myself pub­licly online, plus which con­ver­sa­tions and peo­ple I watch on the site
* Net­flix = knows a lot about what I watch
* Foursquare = knows some about where I am/go
* Flickr = knows a lot about where I am/go, who my friends/contacts are, and what inter­ests me
* Twit­ter = knows my net­work and who I inter­act with the most
* Health care provider = I’m lucky that I’ve been rel­a­tively healthy, but my provider(s) know about any problems
* Deli­cious = knows a lot about sites I’ve vis­ited and want to remember
* Dopplr = knows my trips and some of my friends
* Ever­note = knows about some things I want to remem­ber, although I haven’t put much per­sonal infor­ma­tion there yet
* Illi­nois Depart­ment of Trans­porta­tion (IDOT) = I don’t drive nearly as much as I used to any­more, but IDOT knows when I go on tollroads

Now if I think about who knows what about me...the list is very similar.
I love my privacy, but I also love technology and the ability to share things instantly with my group of friends and family. If I weigh out the options, technology wins.
I recently went on a weekend trip into a state park and had no internet and limited cell phone use. As soon as we crossed into a 3G area, I was looking for things to do on my phone just to use the technology. I had checked facebook and twitter and my e-mail and I was just surfing the web for the heck of it, just because I could. That's how much I love technology.
The first week in May (2-8) is the first annual Choose Privacy Week. I will probably be doing some talks at the library where I work about it. People don't realize what is out there, and being aware is the first and most important thing to do.
But for me, between technology and privacy...well, I'll just take my chances with the 3G network.