Laura Schlessinger is on a temporary or permanent break from the frequently muddled Santa Barbara News-Press, owned by Craig McCaw's famous first wife.Now almost billionaire, Wendy McCaw. Schlessinger and McCaw have both kept their sleepy little hamlet on it's toes or tap dancing through a world of unbounding entitlements and chicane coincidences.
Dr. Laura Saves Censorware Law
(all the links are no longer available)
WIRED
Leander Kahney Email 05.20.99 | 2:45 PM
Radio talk show host Dr. Laura Schlessinger is taking credit for resurrecting a controversial California measure that would force public libraries to use Internet-filtering software.
Having inadvertently appeared nude on the Net herself, Schlessinger late last week urged listeners to lobby for the Public Libraries Internet Pornography Bill, California SB238, after a deadlocked 3-3 vote rendered the legislation moribund in committee.
Schlessinger's appeal to the airwaves apparently worked.
See also: Dr. Laura Drops Her Suit
"We heard back from people in Sacramento; it was pretty overwhelming," said Keven Bellows, vice president and general manager of the Laura Schlessinger Program. "It definitely got the bill back on track."
On Wednesday, a motion to reconsider the bill passed after three members initially opposed to the measure apparently had a change of heart. The legislation will likely be reintroduced next January.
Bellows said that Schlessinger's daily program is the nation's most popular radio talk show, reaching 18 million listeners from 450 stations across the country.
In October, Net porn entrepreneur Seth Warshavasky purchased and posted nude pictures of Schlessinger to his Web site. She sued to have them removed, then abruptly dropped her action in mid-December.
Schlessinger has been an enthusiastic campaigner for Internet filtering in libraries.
In May, she was cited by Toys"R"Us for canceling up to US$1 million of funds for children's reading rooms, according to the American Library Association.
Toys"R"Us pulled the funding after Schlessinger allegedly "portrayed librarians as promoting pornography and pedophilia," according to an ALA newsletter story on the group's Web site.
The ALA said in its story that the deal took eight months to set up and would have been the fund's biggest corporate sponsorship of the year. The group could not be reached for comment.
The California library bill, introduced by Senator Joe Baca (D-San Bernardino), would force libraries to use blocking software to filter Internet access for children. Kids would be allowed to use unfiltered terminals only with a parent's signed permission or with direct adult supervision.
Pro-filtering group K.I.D.S. (Keep the Internet Decent and Safe), on Wednesday congratulated Schlessinger and her listeners for reviving the bill.
"We have a victory," the organization said in a letter to the talk show. "An appeal to Dr. Laura resulted in an avalanche of mail to three California senators ... [who] had a change of heart."
Filtering Facts, a pro-filtering group, also cheered the move.
"After the Littleton shooting, people are becoming more aware and are moving to protect children," said founder David Burt, a public librarian in Portland, Oregon. "And I think that's great."
But Jim Tyre, co-founder of the Censorware Project, said that the vote wasn't very significant.
"They only voted to reconsider it," he said. "Nothing of any great substance really happened."
Tyre said he was confident that the bill would ultimately go nowhere and cited the failure of lawmakers across the country to pass similar legislation.
The American Library Association also condemned the bill, saying that filtering software is too clumsy to be effective.
ALA spokeswoman Joyce Kelley said that filters frequently block material that shouldn't be blocked while failing to restrict the stuff that should.
Kelley said that, for example, filtering software blocks NASA's Mars Explorer site because the two words joined together spell "sex." At the same time, the software fails to filter interactive content, allowing pedophiles to reach children through channels such as Internet Relay Chat.
"We don't want to give parents a false sense of security," said Kelley. "We don't want people to think if a filter is there everything's all right."
The ALA encourages parents to actively supervise their children's Internet access, said Kelley. "We want to work together with parents to make sure their kids are protected."
But she said that the problem of children looking at porn in libraries had been blown out of proportion.
"Our librarians tell us they don't have problems with it -- it's very rare," said Kelley. "It's not what kids come to libraries for."
Related Wired Links:
Click Here for Safe Surfing
5.May.99
Library Won't Appeal Porn Ruling
22.Apr.99
Dr. Laura Drops Her Suit
15.Dec.98
Library Computers Logged Off
24.Nov.98
Site Sues over Dr. Laura Nudes
20.Nov.98
Library Filters Must Go
23.Nov.98
[3:47:00 PM]
wonk
