Censorware has just become a requirement in all
public schools and
libraries if they want to continue to receive
federal funding for building a
computer network as part of the new
Congressional budget legislation. Besides the well-known
reasons why this is a work of sheer
insanity, there's also the fact that since mostly schools and other public institutions in poorer neighborhoods are using these funds, only the richer schools will be able to afford an uncensored
internet connection (though few of even those schools are still around, no doubt. Filtering had become very popular). This can be interpreted, depending on how you look at it, as discrimination similar to what was found in
Brown vs. Board of Education, though certainly not to the same
magnitude. The reason that the government needs to legislate it in this way is that, technically, they're not supposed to have such incredibly broad powers over the conduct of individual districts and states. However, they can conviniently get around this by restricting funding, which gives them the equivilant power of never having the original Constitutional protections implemented at all. Sometimes this works out for the better, but in this case the power is being severely abused. Oh well, just one more
freedom down the tubes, at least we're not like
some other countries.
But it could happen, step by step, if things like this become a precedent.