Illinois Bill Would Ban Social Networking Sites

AlexDV writes "Library blogger Michael Stephens is reporting that an Illinois state senator, Matt Murphy (R-27, Palatine), has filed a bill that 'Creates the Social Networking Web site Prohibition Act. Provides that each public library must prohibit access to social networking Web sites on all computers made available to the public in the library. Provides that each public school must prohibit access to social networking Web sites on all computers made available to students in the school.' Here is the bill's full text." This local effort harks back to an attempt last May to get federal legislation banning school and library use of social networking sites (Wikipedia summary here). The DOPA bill passed the House but died in the Senate.

Re:think of the children!

[Eukaryote]

The 14th Amendment makes the federal constitution apply to all of the states.

No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

States can have laws that ratchet freedom further, but they can't decrease your rights any more than the federal government Constitutionally is able to.

flamebait headline

[1u3hr]

The headline chosen by kdawson was "llinois Bill Would Ban Social Networking Sites", which is a ludicrous distortion.

Re:think of the children!

[Kiaser Wilhelm II]

That is not valid legal theory. The bill of rights only applied to the states after ratification of the 14th Amendment and many lawsuits later.

Regardless, the current tests for applicability of the 1st Amendment would not find anything wrong with the law being proposed.

Re:Good.

[AlexDV]

Given that I'd still say this bill is absolutely ridiculous. A better solution would be implementing blocks on a few clearly labeled computers, or allow librarians to use their judgment to give serious users preference over frivolous users if necessary. For some reason I doubt it will pass anyway.

I work for a public library, and this is exactly what we do now. Every day when school gets out, we're inundated with junior high kids coming in to monopolize our computers for their daily MySpace, RuneScape, and AIM fix. The solution that we've come up with is to reserve one third of our computers for "non recreational use." Specifically, this means no social networking sites, recreational IM, MMORPGs, or games of any kind. Basically, it's at the discretion of the staff to determine when this policy is being violated, and to discus it with the patron.

In short, we've already solved this problem without any help from our meddling "representatives" in Springfield. Same goes for porn. We don't filter our Internet access, but we do reserve the right to ask people to avoid sites that include explicit content, because the computers are all in a publicly viewable area. This is part of our own Internet Use Agreement, not some piece of legislation dreamed up by Senators with nothing better to do. In other words, we're perfectly capable of handling most of the perceived problems with public access computers without any interference from the government.

Federal vs. state

[Beryllium Sphere(tm)]

The founders believed that the states would protect their people against federal tyranny. It's in the Federalist Papers, which are utterly fascinating reading.

That idea did get turned upside down less than a hundred years after the Constitution was ratified.

Re:*scratches head*

[bmo]

"Seriously speaking, what percentage of parents are terrified of social networking sites these days?"

Plenty, if they read newspapers. Here's some trolling by Combs, published in my local paper.

http://www.cagle.com/politicalcartoons/PCcartoons/ combs.asp [cagle.com]

How would _you_ mod that as a slashdot moderator? Me: -1 Troll, -1 Flamebait -1 Stupid (if only) -1 overrated (so it can't be taken away in metamoderation).

--
BMO

Contact information

[zantolak]

If anyone would like to contact Senator Murphy about this, his email is info [at] gomattmurphy.com. I just did.

Re:think of the children!

[Xichekolas]

IANAL, but pretty sure it's established precedent that kids in school have no 1st amendment rights if those rights conflict with maintaining order in the school. For instance, the school can ban student publications (even independent ones) from being distributed on school grounds or read in class if those publications incite disorder or other discipline problems. This bill, however atrocious, would probably be defensible under the idea that social networking sites are disruptive to education.

Censorship, smenshorship

[Dunkirk]

It's inevitable: there will be people complaining about how this is an oppressive form of censorship. Let's face it: that argument is why this post was "greenlighted." But there's no censorship here; at least not in this case. The government is in no way telling those sites what to do with their content.

It's NOT the job of the government to give out free internet access as though it were an "inalienable right." If you want to go to those sites, and the library doesn't give you that permission, then go buy a computer and do it on your own.

Re:No, it's not.

[Alsee]

It's most likely not intended to universally block all access to social networking sites. There are, after all, internet cafes and home internet access available.

It is not "universal" - it only applies to schhols and libraries - but it is mandatory blocking.

It's most likely intended to give the librarian the authority to tell someone who is using the library computers to surf myspace.com to get off the computer and let someone waiting to do their homework have it.

Librarians already have the authority to do that.

The Fine Article has a link to the text of the bill. This bill explicitly says libraries and schools " MUST PROHIBIT access to social networking websites on all computers made available to the public / students". It contains enforcement provisions by which the Attorney General or any random idiot citizen of the State may initiate a court action if they are personally "not satisfied" with the school or library.

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