Intellectual Freedom News – 8/18/2017
August 18, 2017 – Collated by OIF Staff and News Interns
Intellectual Freedom Highlights
- Webinar: Intellectual freedom is not just about censorship! | Wednesday, Sept 13, 2017 @ 5 – 6 pm EDT, presented by Michelle Luhtala and Kristin Pekoll
- New Banned Books Week opportunity: Partner with OIF for #RebelReader Twitter tournament! | OIF Blog; “During Banned Books Week, OIF is hosting a Rebel Reader Twitter Tournament and your library is invited to partner with us! Among the many benefits, partner libraries receive a digital tool kit and are entered into a drawing for intellectual freedom prizes.”
Censorship
- Board member opposes Fishers High School students reading ‘The Kite Runner’ | Indy Star
- Conejo school board president alone in opposition to Sherman Alexie book | Ventura County Star; “At the board meeting on Tuesday, the Conejo Valley Unified School District trustees approved The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian for ninth grade reading.”
- Library’s LGBT displays draw some ire – nearly two months later | Temple Daily Telegram (TX)
- “Hardline sexual ideology”: West Fargo Public Library refuses to remove LGBT book display | KVRR (ND)
- Kearney School District removes 2 gay students’ quotes from yearbook | KCTV5.com (MO)
Privacy
- We fight for the users | DreamHost blog; “For the past several months, DreamHost has been working with the Department of Justice to comply with legal process, including a Search Warrant (PDF) seeking information about one of our customers’ websites. At the center of the requests is disruptj20.org, a website that organized participants of political protests against the current United States administration.”
- DOJ demands files on anti-Trump activists, and a web hosting company resists | NPR
- Did you visit this anti-Trump site? The US government wants your IP address | The Guardian
- DOJ wants the IP addresses of 1.3 million people who visited a Trump protest website | Mashable
- Justice Dept. demands data on visitors to anti-Trump website, sparking fight | The New York Times
- A sweeping search warrant targets anti-Trump website in clear threat to the Constitution | ACLU
- A closer look at DOJ’s warrant to collect website records | The Washington Post
- The DOJ wants anti-Trump activists’ IP addresses — Here’s how to hide your IP address | Forbes
- Privacy advocates advise Supreme Court to protect phone location data under the 4th Amendment | TechCrunch
- Verizon – yes, Verizon – just stood up for your privacy | Wired
- With smart toys, kids’ privacy is at play | School Library Journal
- International privacy experts adopt statements on e-learning, intelligence gathering | EPIC
- Gaming and software companies fragged by child privacy class action | Lexology
- Apple, Facebook, and other companies ask Supreme Court to block warrantless cellphone tracking | The Verge
- Building America’s Trust Act would amp up privacy concerns at the border | Ars Technica
- US voting machine supplier leaks 1.8 million Chicago voter records | Gizmodo
See this week’s privacy updates on the Choose Privacy Week blog.
Net Neutrality
- Net neutrality investment study used ‘corrupted, made up data’ | Inside Sources
- How the end of net neutrality could affect your wallet | US News & World Report
- FCC extends net neutrality comment period by two weeks (Aug 30) | The Verge
Internet Filters
- Academic freedom triumphs over internet filtering policy | OIF Blog; “Peg Johnson, the library director at Santa Fe Community College, explains how she worked to change the campus’ policy on filtering content on the library’s computers.”
Academic Freedom/ Campus Speech
- White nationalist Richard Spencer’s request to speak at U. of C. rejected | DNA Info
- U. of Florida denies white supremacist Richard Spencer’s request for event space | The Chronicle of Higher Education
- Wisconsin’s crackdown on student hecklers | Newseum Institute
- The ‘Free Speech’ Hypocrisy of Right-Wing Media The New York Times
- Authority is constructed and contextual | OIF Blog
First Amendment Issues
- Interactive Constitution: The meaning of free speech | The Constitution Center
- Eighth Circuit upholds Nebraska Funeral Picketing Statute in first amendment challenge | Constitutional Law Prof Blog
- A Bill Intended to Stop Sex Trafficking Could Significantly Curtail Internet Freedom | Slate
- VDARE conference planned in Colorado Spring canceled amid uproar over white supremacists | Denver Channel
- The states trying to pass laws protecting drivers who hit protesters | CityLab
- White Supremacists are waging a war against public space | Citylab
- New media and the messy nature of reporting on the Alt-Right | Wired
- The Chilling Effects of Openly Displayed Firearms | The Atlantic
- Protest is legal. Intimidation is different | Crain’s Chicago Business
Hate Speech:
- Charlottesville is reshaping the fight against online hate | The Verge
- Supreme Court unanimously reaffirms: There is no ‘ hate speech’ exception to the First Amendment | The Washington Post (article from June 19, 2017)
- Facebook’s hate speech policies censor marginalized users | Wired
- There is no hate speech exception to the First Amendment | The Boston Globe
- What we learn from government speech about hate | Lawfare Blog
- Europe polices hate speech; time for the U.S. to do so, too | San Francisco Chronicle
- National revulsion over the Charlottesville march shows why we shouldn’t ban hate speech | Vox
- ‘Freedom’ is best response to white supremacy hatemongers | Newseum Institute
- The problem with making hate speech illegal | Foreign Policy Voice
- The Daily Stormer’s last defender in tech just dropped it | Wired
- Who are the antifa?: President Trump equated them with the white supremacists. Here’s why he’s wrong. | The Washington Post
- The rise of the violent left | The Atlantic
- What Trump gets wrong about antifa | The Atlantic
- ACLU of California splits from national group regarding speech that promotes violence | Talking New Media
- In backing Alt-Right, A.C.L.U. embraces role in defending ‘groups we detest’ | The New York Times
- ACLU takes heat for its free-speech defense of white supremacist group | CNN Politics
Around the Web
- A Texas assistant principal wrote an alt-right children’s book | Motherboard
- UVA employee suffers a stroke after campus class with white supremacists | The Chronicle of Higher Education; He works at the University of Virginia’s Alderman Library.
- FCC censorship rules vary for broadcast, cable, and streaming | Variety
- Escondido library privatization? No: Maintain public control | The San Diego Union-Tribune (CA)
- Libraries obsolete? No way, say Millennials. | The Christian Science Monitor
- The problem with reading levels | OIF Blog
International Issues
- Fanny Hill: Why would anyone ban the racy novel about ‘a woman of pleasure’? | The Guardian (UK)
- 250-year-old novel banned by a university because it’s ‘too racy’ | The London Economic
- It matters that school libraries are closing – not just for reading but for helping young lives in need | iNews (UK)
ALA News
- ALA condemns racism and violence in Charlottesville | ALA news
- Online Webinar: Back to School | Tuesday, Aug 29 @ 1 pm Central; Will feature new books and an update on Banned Books Week
- New e-Forum 9/5: Power that is Moral: Cataloging and Ethics | ALCTS; ”
At ALA Annual in June 2017, Elizabeth Shoemaker and Violet Fox spoke at the CaMMS Forum about “Power That Is Moral: Creating a Cataloging Code of Ethics”. This e-Forum is designed to continue that discussion about creating a document that would help guide ethical cataloging decisions.”
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