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When we talk about Privacy Issues today, it seems we are so consumed by the politically fueled current events of terrorism and the Patriot Act that we forget other dangerously close to home (at your doorstep) reasons to protect each others right to privacy. (I’ll warn you – this isn’t a cheerful post.)
For the most part, we believe in the goodness of other people and we inherently put our faith in that integrity which may or may not exist. It’s easy to get carried away with posting pictures… there’s so many things that make us happy and we desire to joyfully share with others. Acquiring people’s permissions become a fuzzy memory when they wind up in fun snap shots; it is sometimes difficult to reign ourselves in when we might need to double check if we’ll inadvertently provide enough detail to remove or destroy our privacy (or that of others).
I have always been hesitant to post photos online because unlike writing, photos are very tangible things that can easily erase the ability to be anonymous. Perhaps it’s my own experiences with abuse – either directly as a someone who recovered, or indirectly as a protective educator.
When I was a intern teacher in a public school, we had to post pictures and names of students with care. We had a student who was part of a foster family, and several others throughout the school who lived in divorced families. In a library setting, I was approached by a patron who was a foster-care parent. To help insure the privacy and protection of the children in their care, they requested that the children’s last names not be written on the little paper name tags that would be posted on one of the walls inside the library.
It’s a hard reminder that some children are in foster care not because they are orphans, but because they’ve been removed from parents who ought not to be; and there are reasons why some divorced families have a court ruling full custody in favor to one parent.
It’s an incredibly unfortunate thing to think about, but it’s a horrible reality: just as there are many wonderful, loving, caring parents and people in the world, there are unsavory ones as well. Resentful and/or abusive people have used the internet to try to locate minor children and previous spouses for malicious reasons. Finding an identifiable image and/or first and last name of a child on a school or public website may alert such harmful persons to the locale of the people who sought protection against them.
When taking on Privacy Issues from any standpoint -whether Legal, Library, or Activist- it’s important not to forget the ramifications if these invaluable protections were not in place.
I have a couple of irritations going on right now. One of them being related to my blog/etc. is that my laptop hard drive is dying which makes me very upset because now I can’t access or do things at home and on my own time. Everything in life is nuts right now. Oie! And it’s going to take time until I can get my Precious back to be. *sigh*
So anyway, last night while driving around running errands, I heard on NPR that Verizon (and I think other internet providers) made a statement admitting that they were going to block access to websites that posted child pornographic content.
Now this made me think: I’ll admit – I like that idea. I don’t think all porn should be blocked, but I think content that exploits children should be. But then… call it thinking ahead, thinking progressively, or playing devil’s advocate… but it seems that at first it’s all good and awesome that they’ll block such content, but then something else will be blocked, and something else, and initially we may all agree, but if it keeps going, lines are going to get blurred…
It made me stop and think, that that’s precisely how these big conglomerates are going to market their censorship: they’re going to market to concerned and protective parents and adults saying “Look, we want to protect your children too, and we’ll block sites for you. We’re the good guys!”
But I say, it’s the parent’s responsibility to protect and keep an eye on their kids -it shouldn’t be shirked off to anyone/anything else, and we shouldn’t keep creating opportunities for parents to hand over that responsibility. That’s why there’s filtering software available… for you to install as you see fit, so you still have the choice to say what’s acceptable for your children and what’s not.
I found a related article on Wired News and I’m looking for other related information as well. I’m curious to see how people on Net Neutrality sites will respond.
