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Spring 2003: "Access Denied: Should Youth Access to the Internet be Restricted?"
Participants
Experts
David Burt | Marjorie Heins | Judith Krug | Bruce Taylor
David Burt
David Burt is public relations manager for N2H2, the leading filtering provider for public schools. Mr. Burt joined N2H2 in 2000 after nearly three years as president of Filtering Facts, an organization devoted to the study and promotion of filtering software.
Mr. Burt has frequently provided testimony on both the effectiveness of filtering software, and the problems generated by Internet pornography, testifying before the Congressional NCLIS and COPA Commissions, in the case Mainstream Loudoun, and before the California and Pennsylvania State Legislatures.
Mr. Burt possesses a Masters degree in Library Science from the University of Washington, and is a former librarian.
N2H2
N2H2 is a global Internet content filtering company. It produces Internet content filtering products used by hundreds of companies, schools and ISPs worldwide. From students online at school to government employees or workers on a corporate network - N2H2 solutions seek to enable each to access the content that's relevant to them - safely and securely.
N2H2's Bess® Filtering solutions help teachers and parents protect children at school and at home. The Bess brand of filtering products have been chosen by over 40% of all schools in the U.S. to protect their students online. Every Bess product for schools is compliant with the provision of the Children’s Internet Protection Act regulations.
A recent study of filtering software effectiveness conducted by eTesting Labs for the Department of Justice named N2H2 products number one among the four major Internet filtering providers in effectively blocking pornography in the Internet. N2H2 also performed well in the overblocking portion of the study. The software only blocked incorrectly one site out of the 300 tested. This study was commissioned in connection with the litigation of the Children’s Internet Protection Act.
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Marjorie Heins
Ms. Marjorie Heins is the director of the Free Expression Policy Project
and is the author, most recently, of Not in Front of the Children: "Indecency," Censorship, and the Innocence of Youth, which won the American Library Association's Eli M. Oboler Award in 2002 for the best published work in the field of intellectual freedom. From 1991-98, she directed the American Civil Liberties Union's Arts Censorship Project, where she was co-counsel in a number of Supreme Court cases, including National Endowment for the Arts v. Finley and Reno v. ACLU (the challenge to the 1996 Communications Decency Act). She is also the author of Sex, Sin, and Blasphemy: A Guide to America's Censorship Wars (1993, 1998), Cutting the Mustard: Affirmative Action and the Nature of Excellence (1988), "Three Questions About Television Ratings," in The V-Chip Debate (1998), and numerous other book chapters and articles about civil rights, civil liberties, and intellectual freedom. In 1998-2000, she was a fellow of the Open Society Institute, which supported the research for Not in Front of the Children. In the 1980s she was a staff attorney at the Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts, a visiting professor at Boston College Law School, and chief of the Civil Rights Division of the Massachusetts Attorney General's office. She graduated from Harvard Law School in 1978.
The Free Expression Policy Project
The Free Expression Policy Project (FEPP) began in 2000 to challenge the seeming preference of political leaders to attack violence on television, sex on the Internet, or
the general crudeness of popular culture than to champion the enduring
but seemingly abstract American value of free speech. FEPP provides empirical research, policy development, and other useful resources for anti-censorship advocacy. It analyzes tough censorship issues and seeks free speech-friendly solutions to the concerns that drive censorship campaigns.
FEPP does not believe that the First Amendment gives absolute protection to expression in all circumstances. Sexual and racial harassment, threats, and false advertising are examples of speech that does not, and should not, have First Amendment protection. But a painting or photograph of a sexual nature is not sexual harassment; and a work of literature or scholarship is highly unlikely to constitute a true threat.
Making distinctions in this area that protect artistic and intellectual freedom, and in the process stimulating more thoughtful debate about the value of free expression, is one of FEPP's goals. Ultimately, FEPP hopes to persuade policymakers that it isn’t necessary to take knee-jerk stands in favor of censorship in order to be responsive to popular concerns about media violence, sexual entertainment, racism, or other sorts of controversial expression.
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Judith Krug
Judith F. Krug has served as Director of the Office for Intellectual Freedom, American Library Association since 1967 and Executive Director of the Freedom to Read Foundation since 1969. She received her B.A. from the University of Pittsburgh where she studied political theory. In 1964, she earned her M.A. at the Graduate Library School of the University of Chicago, and has held positions in various Chicago libraries-including Reference Librarian at the John Crerar Library and Head Cataloger at the Northwestern University Dental School Library. Before assuming her present duties in the Office for Intellectual Freedom, Mrs. Krug was the research analyst for the American Library Association.
In addition to her professional responsibilities, Mrs. Krug serves as a Senator of the Phi Beta Kappa Society, vice-chair of the Internet Education Foundation, and a member of the Advisory Board of GetNetWise. She also serves on The Media Institute's First Amendment Advisory Council as well as its Cornerstone Project Advisory Council, and on the Board of Directors of the Council of Literary Magazines and Presses. She is the Immediate Past-Chair of The Media Coalition. She previously served on the Board of Directors of the Fund for Free Expression, the Board of Directors of the Illinois Division of the American Civil Liberties Union, the American Bar Association's Commission on Public Understanding About the Law, and the Advisory Council of the Illinois State Justice Commission.
Awards and honors received by Mrs. Krug include the Irita Van Doren Award, presented in 1976 by the American Booksellers Association for her many contributions to the cause of the book as an instrument of culture in American life; the 1976 Harry Kalven Freedom of Expression Award, presented by the American Civil Liberties Union to the Office for Intellectual Freedom of the American Library Association; the 1978 Robert B. Downs Award for her outstanding contribution to the cause of intellectual freedom in libraries; the 1983 Carl Sandburg "Freedom to Read" Award, presented by the Friends of the Chicago Public Library; the 1984 Open Book Award, presented by the Minnesota Civil Liberties Union; the 1985 President's Award of the Minnesota Civil Liberties Union; the 1990 Intellectual Freedom Award of the Illinois Library Association; the 1994 Ohio Educational Library Media Association/SIRS Award for Intellectual Freedom; the 1995 Freedom to Read Foundation Roll of Honor Award; and the 1998 Joseph W. Lippincott Award for distinguished service to the library profession.
Mrs. Krug is a noted speaker and author in the area of intellectual freedom; her articles on this subject have appeared in national library and education journals.
American Library Association
The mission of the American Library Association is to provide leadership for the development, promotion, and improvement of library and information services and the profession of librarianship in order to enhance learning and ensure access to information for all.
Founded in 1876, the ALA is the oldest and largest national library association in the world. Its concern spans all types of libraries: state, public, school and academic libraries; special libraries serving persons in government, commerce and industry, the arts, the armed services, hospitals, prisons, and other institutions. With a membership of libraries, librarians, library trustees, and other interested persons from every state and many countries of the world, the association is the chief advocate for the people of the United States in their search for the highest quality of library and information services. The Association maintains a close working relationship with more than 70 other library associations in the United States, Canada, and other countries, and it works closely with many other organizations concerned with education, research, cultural development, recreation, and public service.
The Office for Intellectual Freedom
The Office for Intellectual Freedom of the American Library Association is charged with implementing ALA policies concerning the concept of intellectual freedom as embodied in the Library Bill of Rights, the Association's basic policy on free access to libraries and library materials. The goal of the office is to educate librarians and the general public about the nature and importance of intellectual freedom in libraries. Intellectual Freedom is "the right of every individual to both seek and receive information from all points of view without restriction. It provides for free access to all expressions of ideas through which any and all sides of a question, cause or movement may be explored. Intellectual freedom encompasses the freedom to hold, receive and disseminate ideas."
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Bruce Taylor
Bruce Taylor is President and Chief Counsel of the National Law Center for Children and Families. At NLC, he provides specialized prosecution and First Amendment advice and litigation assistance to federal, state, and local prosecutors, law enforcement officers, and legislators on obscenity, child pornography and sexual exploitation, as well as Internet and broadcast communications law issues. He has filed numerous amicus briefs in the U.S. Supreme Court, as well as federal and state appellate and trial courts across the Country. He has also been legal advisor to Senate and House sponsors of Internet, obscenity, and child exploitation bills and is Counsel of Record on BRIEFS FOR MEMBERS OF CONGRESS AS AMICI CURIAE in support of the Communications Decency Act (CDA) in ACLU v. Reno (E.D. Pa. 1996), Shea v. Reno (S.D.N.Y. 1996), and Reno v. ACLU, 521 U.S. 844 (1997), and for the Child Online Protection Act (COPA) in ACLU v. Reno (E.D. Pa. 1999) and (3d Cir. 1999).
Mr. Taylor was most recently a Senior Trial Attorney for the Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ). While at DOJ, he was prosecutor in several cases, including the trials in: U.S. v. Reuben Sturman, et al. (D. Nev.), a federal obscenity-racketeering-conspiracy case against the world's largest hard-core porn distributor; U.S. v. Larry Lane Bateman (D. N.H.), a child pornography case against a Phillips Exeter Academy drama teacher; and U.S. v. Frederick Yazzi (D. Ariz.), a multi-year child abuse case in Indian Country.
Mr. Taylor first served as a Prosecutor and Assistant Director of Law for the City of Cleveland, prosecuting over 600 obscenity cases and 100 appeals, including an argument before the United States Supreme Court. Before the U.S. Supreme Court, he argued Larry Flynt v. Ohio, 451 U.S. 619, in 1981. He successfully defended the Ohio obscenity statute before the Ohio Supreme Court in State of Ohio v. Burgun (1978) and before the U.S. Court of Appeals in U.S. v. Sovereign News Co. and Turoso v. Cleveland Municipal Court (6th Cir. 1982), cert. denied 1982.
For ten years, Mr. Taylor was then General Counsel to Citizens for Decency through Law, Inc., where he assisted prosecutors, police, and legislators nationwide in the enforcement, investigation, and improvement of laws against obscenity, child pornography and exploitation, and child sexual abuse. While at CDL, he was special prosecutor and co-counsel in dozens of jury trials in several states and presented oral arguments before the Supreme Courts of Ohio and Colorado and the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the Sixth and Ninth Circuits, as well as presenting numerous law enforcement seminars, legislative testimonies, and media appearances. He also served as Assistant Attorney General of Arizona. Since 1973, he has prosecuted nearly 200 state and federal jury trials and 300 bench trials for various crimes of violence, theft, controlled substances, homicide, and illegal pornography, of which nearly 100 of the jury trials were obscenity cases, as well as trials on prostitution, RICO, child pornography, and child sexual abuse, has written over 200 appeal and amicus curiae briefs, presented over 50 appellate arguments, and has represented public officials, law enforcement personnel, and citizens in civil lawsuits on civil rights, municipal zoning and licensing, Internet pornography, nuisance abatement, injunction and forfeiture actions, criminal procedure, defamation, and federal challenges to federal, state, and municipal laws.
The National Law Center for Children and Families
The role of the National Law Center for Children and Families, (NLC) is to be a specialized resource to those who enforce state and federal obscenity and child exploitation laws, to counsel federal, state, and local legislators on the constitutionality and effectiveness of amendments to existing criminal and civil codes; and to provide a training and information clearinghouse on the specialized issues involved in illegal pornography and First Amendment related cases. NLC also provides advice and information to community leaders and concerned citizens on the laws and their enforcement at the local and national levels. NLC works to accomplish its mission through tested legal tools, the filing of "friend of the court" amicus curiae briefs in important cases, law enforcement training seminars, legal and reference publications, one of the nation’s largest specialized law libraries on child exploitation and pornography, video resources and guidance manuals for professionals involved -in sexual exploitation issues, citizen conferences to build support for law enforcers media appearances to educate the public on the issue, and federal state, and local legislative assistance.
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