EDTECH
Report Cites Religious Bias In School Web Filters (eSchools)
Pennsylvania Cyber Classrooms Get a Rocky Start (WP)
INTERNET
City Draws Up Net solution (CT)
If ICANN Can't, Who Should? (Wired)
Can The World Be Copyrighted? (Wired)
OWNERSHIP
Protecting Media Diversity (NYT)
Jackson Champions Minority Businesses (SJM)
EDTECH
REPORT CITES RELIGIOUS BIAS IN SCHOOL WEB FILTERS
Issue: EdTech
A recent report from the Responsible Netizen Project of the University of
Oregon's Center for Advanced Technology in Education draws attention to
links between conservative religious groups and the Internet filtering tools
being used in several public schools. The report, titled "Filtering
Software: The Religious Connection," looks at 8 companies who are either
connected to conservative Christian organizations or who have expressed
conservative religious philosophies. Several of the companies profiled in
the report have used the Children's internet Protection Act (CIPA) as a way
to target public schools looking for technology solutions that will bar
students from seeing inappropriate online material. The report surmises that
there has been some conservative bias in the material that has been selected
to be blocked from students.
[SOURCE: eSchools, AUTHOR: Dennis Pierce]
(http://www.eschoolnews.com/news/showStory.cfm?ArticleID=3537)
PENNSYLVANIA CYBER CLASSROOMS GET ROCKY START
Issue: EdTech
5,100 Pennsylvania students are enrolled in "cyber charter schools," which
are home schools funded by tax dollars and supervised by far-flung public
school systems. The schools hold the potential for providing new educational
options to underserved students and home schoolers. Unfortunately, the cyber
charter movement is stuck in lawsuits and bureaucratic battles. School
districts have refused to pay cyber charter schools whose costs are unclear
and whose performance can not be monitored. "We don't oppose distance
education. But there is no law, in our opinion, that authorizes formation of
these schools," said Thomas J. Gentzel, executive director of the
Pennsylvania School Boards Association. "In a sense, cyber schools have been
shoehorned into our charter school law and we don't think they belong
there." Cyber charter schools in Pennsylvania, and in 12 other states, raise
a number of difficult questions. How should such schools be monitored? How
much funding is appropriate? How much profit should private firms be able to
earn from these ventures?
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Michael Fletcher]
(http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A1935-2002Feb25.html)
INTERNET
IF ICANN CAN'T, WHO SHOULD?
Issue: Internet
From its inception in 1998, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and
Numbers (ICANN) has struggled to fulfill its mission: preserving the
stability of the Internet's domain name system. Until recently, suggestions
for accomplishing this mission included more public participation, greater
transparency and new processes for adding top-level domains. Now, ICANN's
president, M. Stuart Lynn, has proposed radical reforms that quite possibly
could cut the public out of the process. Critics of Lynn's call for
increased government and corporate control worry that the public interest
will not be served. "This is closing the door, clamming upand being more
non-responsive to the public," says Karl Auerbach, ICANN board member and
sometime critic. Adds Alan Davidson, staff counsel for the Center for
Democracy and Technology, "So far there's nothing in (the proposal) to make
us comfortable that ICANN's activities are going to be properly constrained
and properly representative of the public's interest."
[SOURCE: Wired, AUTHOR: Declan McCullagh]
(http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,50670,00.html)
CITY DRAWS UP NET SOLUTION
Issue: Broadband
The Chicago municipality is receiving bids from telecom companies interested
in winning a 10-year contract to provide the city's voice and data services.
The project, called CivicNet is an unprecedented effort by the local
government to extend high-speed Internet connections to businesses and
residents without entering the telecom business itself. The project would
include wiring approximately 2,000 city-owned sites including schools,
libraries, housing projects, firehouses and police stations and provide $31
million annually to the winner of the bid. In an effort to maintain an open
market, Chicago will ask that the winning company keep the completed network
open to competitors. However, the 1996 deregulation of the telecom industry
has demonstrated that the controlling companies do not always make it easy
for others to share the network.
[SOURCE: Chicago Tribune, AUTHOR: Rob Kaiser]
(http://www.chicagotribune.com/technology/chi-0202250017feb25.story?coll=chi
%2Dbusiness%2Dhed)
CAN THE WORLD BE COPYRIGHTED?
Issue: Intellectual Property
The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) has announced two
treaties that would extend America copyright legislation to computer
programs, movies and music. The treaties were originally worked out in 1996
and formed the basis for the first legislation designed to protect Internet
intellectual property, the America's Millennium Copyright Act. While 30
countries have ratified the treaties, many of the biggest economies, such as
Japan and China as well as the European Union, have not agreed to the
copyright framework. Several public interest groups have criticized the
Digital Millennium Copyright Act for giving control of digital media
distribution to media conglomerates and copyright holders.
[SOURCE: Wired, AUTHOR: Brad King]
(http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,50658,00.html)
See Also:
SENATE CHAIRMAN ANNOUNCES HEARING ON DIGITAL CONTENT COPYRIGTH PROTECTION,
BROADBAND AND DIGITAL TV TRANSITION
[SOURCE: U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science & Transportation]
(http://www.senate.gov/~commerce/press/107-159.html)
OWNERSHIP
JACKSON CHAMPIONS MINORITY BUSINESSES
Issue: Ownership
Jesse Jackson has made numerous stops in Silicon valley since he and his
group, the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, opened an office in Palo Alto in 2000 to
help close the so-called digital divide. An important aid in closing the
divide, Jackson recently told a group of small and minority business owners,
is getting big companies to spend more of their procurement dollars with
women and minority-owned suppliers -- the vast pool of vendors that bigger
companies turn to for everything from document shredding services to
Internet gear. ``There is not a talent deficit, there is an opportunity
deficit,'' Jackson said at the short seminar sponsored by the Northern
California Supplier Development Council. The Rainbow/PUSH Coalition is
holding its third annual ``Digital Connections'' conference in Mountain View
and San Jose on April 24-25.
[SOURCE: San Jose Mercury, AUTHOR: Jennifer Bjorhus]
(http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/living/2733054.htm)
PROTECTING MEDIA DIVERSITY
Issue: Ownership
[Editorial] The past few years have seen the gradual dismantling of many of
the media ownership rules aimed at preserving competition and diversity. The
nullification of the FCC's cross-ownership limitations is the most recent
blow to a diverse and competitive information marketplace. A new debate
needs to take place about where, and how, to draw limits on media
concentration in this country. Americans do not want to wake up one day to
find that they have only two or three corporations providing all their
entertainment and news. Powerful economic interests that monopolize
information outlets are detrimental to the health of a democracy. Currently,
our path of deregulation is disjointed and leaves a large amount of
uncertainty in the marketplace. Sensible deregulation would entail a more
holistic restructuring of the regulatory system to ensure fairness and
protect the public interest. The FCC and Congress have an obligation and the
opportunity to take a fresh look at the issue and manage deregulation in a
way that preserves the diversity of news, opinion and entertainment.
[SOURCE: The New York Times]
(http://www.nytimes.com/2002/02/23/opinion/_23SAT1.html)
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