Data Privacy

Bruce Schneier has an interesting piece over at the Wired blog on data security

We need to take back our data.

Our data is a part of us. It's intimate and personal, and we have basic rights to it. It should be protected from unwanted touch.

We need a comprehensive data privacy law. This law should protect all information about us, and not be limited merely to financial or health information. It should limit others' ability to buy and sell our information without our knowledge and consent. It should allow us to see information about us held by others, and correct any inaccuracies we find. It should prevent the government from going after our information without judicial oversight. It should enforce data deletion, and limit data collection, where necessary. And we need more than token penalties for deliberate violations.

On another note, Brewster Kahle of Open Library fame, recently announced that the Internet Archive and he had been served with one of those pesky national security letters demanding information about one of its users. Kahle was under a gag order but the term of the settlement which ended the the demand allows him to comment on the incident.

Project Safe Childhood

Several bloggers have commented on the latest study from the study published in American Psychologist dealing with the myths and realities of online predators. To quote from the press release:

Contrary to stereotype, most Internet sex offenders are not adults who target young children by posing as another youth, luring children to meetings, and then abducting or forcibly raping them, according to researchers who have studied the nature of Internet-initiated sex crimes.

Rather, most online sex offenders are adults who target teens and seduce victims into sexual relationships. They take time to develop the trust and confidence of victims, so that the youth see these relationships as romances or sexual adventures. The youth most vulnerable to online sex offenders have histories of sexual or physical abuse, family problems, and tendencies to take risks both on- and offline, the researchers say.

The full text of the study is available from APA


This topic is not new -
Chatmag published an editorial debunking the myth of 50,000 online predators in 2006 which was used when Project Safe Childhood was announced. Neither the FBI nor the Center for Missing and Exploited Children can explain the figure. Benjamin Radford even explores the history of the alarming number and concluded that "The vast majority of crimes against children are committed not by released sex offenders, but instead by the victim's own family, church clergy, and family friends", not online predators.

As Libraries are increasingly becoming the target of battles against pornography, they are also being targeted as enablers of criminal activity. All across the country the discussion is heating up - Colorado, Sacramento, Gwinnett County, Georgia, and Brooklyn, to cite a few examples.

And just in case you think the Department of Justice isn't serious about this, on May 7th they announced the distribution of $5 million to fund 43 US Attorneys who are solely charged with combating "technology-facilitated sexual exploitation crimes against children"

Stumbling around censorship

I was stumbling around and found an interesting website called Project Censorsed which is a media research group out of Sonoma State University - they like to list things such as the top censored stories for the year - feel free to submit stories to them

Edible Books

At the last IFC meeting it was suggested that we participate in the Edible Books Show in Boulder and after a quick brainstorming session we decided on a book with words blocked out - here is our entry with a passage from "Being There" by Jerzy Kosinski



The Edible Books show has its roots in the book arts community and is hosted every year in Boulder by the Book Arts League.

Tell Us What You Thought!

Thank you to the over 400 people who attended the Saturday morning keynote at the CAL conference this year. So, what did you think of Brent Hartinger's speech? Did he raise issues you'd like to comment on? Do you have other thoughts on the keynote and awards event that you'd like to share? Tell us what you think.

- Karen

other titles?

So, what are your favorite, controversial, YA books? We all know that Harry Potter has been banned a thousand times over. But do you have any lesser known titles that we should be recommending to the teens in our lives? Something that might speak to them about tough issues.

is the issue of gay teens still controversial?

A few of you have commented in the "welcome" section that this is becoming more of a non-issue. Are teens more accepting of their gay peers now? I was just speaking with one of my co-workers and she suggested that the age cutoff for gay acceptance is 35 years old. But, I'm over 35 and I don't see myself or my friends having an issue with this. My parents generation, on the other hand, does seem to still be rather perplexed by the gay population. Is there an age line of intolerace, and if so, what age seperates the tolerant from the intolerant?

memories of teen love

As library professionals, many of us are a bit removed from our teen years. Did this book bring up old memories and feelings? Did it help to transport you back to those high school days? After all, that's one of the best things about books: their ability to put you in another place/time/frame of mind. Does this book help you better interact with the teens in your life? Care to share some of your teen love memories? We'd love to hear them.

welcome

Hey Everyone!!! Welcome to our new blog. Over the next couple of weeks we will be discussing Brent Hartinger's first book, "Geography Club". This book touches on the special considerations of gay teens, but anyone who has ever been a teenager will relate to it. Have you read it? Did you like it?

While you're at it, you might be interrested in reading Brent's blog: http://asifnews.blogspot.com