Censorship of the Internet:

The Job of Parents, Not Government

ABSTRACT
This paper presents arguments against censorship of the Internet. The Internet has become one of the most
valuable technological tools in our society. For the first time in history, people can freely express their opinions.
In fact, it has been suggested "that on-line systems give people far more genuinely free speech and free press than
[has] ever [occurred] in human history" (Com-Revere 71). The claim throughout this paper is that censorship
of the Internet by the United States government for the purpose of preventing children from viewing "offensive
material" is misguided. The main reason for this censorship stems from American's fears that children can view
online inappropriate material like pornography. This paper will contend that the government should not censor
the Internet for the sake of children because such suppression of ideas goes against the freedom of expression
protected by the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States. Moreover, only a small percentage
of online communication involves offensive material. Further, the involvement of parents, filtering software, and
digital signatures that inform viewers of what the site contains represent more viable alternatives for protecting
the interest of children than censorship. Using these alternative measures, parents can oversee the Internet
usage of their children, and adults can continue to enjoy Internet free from governmental intrusion. Finally, it
may be both politically and technologically impossible to censor the Internet. Therefore, government should
not encourage Internet censorship.

INTRODUCTION enabling other scientists in the same field of study, all over
the world, to share their findings within minutes. Other peo-
ple use the Net for communication, expressing their opinions
There is no turning back. Once a novelty, the Internet is
in newsgroups, obtaining up-to-date information, acquiring
now transforming how people live, think, talk and love; it is
changing how we go to school, make money, see the doctor, files by using File Transfer Protocol (FTP), and so on. In
and elect presidents (Newsweek 38). The Internet, though short, the ability to express ideas always has represented
the care of what makes the Internet unique and enjoyable
technically a network of computers, sociologically it consists
of a network of people who use this technology. Today, the for many people.
Internet community is far bigger and more diverse than the
group that used computer network to share science and engi- This emphasis on communication has characterized the In-
neering information three decades ago. These days, fourth- ternet from its inception. The United States government
graders, skydivers, historians, politicians, astrologers, and conceived the idea for the Internet about thirty years ago.
lovers of pornography, all pursuing their various passions, In the early 1960s, the government hired a group of people,
surf the network (Chandrasekaran A20). A wonderful place called a "think tank,'' to solve a military need. The U.S.
of entertainment and education, the Internet offers a vast Department of Defense (DoD) wanted to create a system
number of resources unavailable in any single geographical to ensure constant communication between all its strategic
location, but, this myriad of users and the breathtakingly command posts. Relying on research funded by the United
large number of interactions that result from Internet traffic States Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA), the
has brought about numerous negative effects as well. Easy DoD created a large decentralized communications network.
access to information on any topic may lead users, especially Its purpose was to ensure the protection and integrity of in-
children, to materials that would otherwise not be accessible formation passing between critical government entities in
and could be potentially harmful. the event of a national disaster or war. This project, called
ARPAnet, linked various government computer networks to-
Originally a place where people freely expressed their ideas gether (Caswell 6). This military-oriented development led
worldwide, the Internet has evolved into one of the world's to the creation of non-military computer system, including
most valuable types of technology because many professors, Ethernet local area networks (LANs) developed by various
scientists, and other professionals use e-mail for quick and universities. Most of these LAN workstations used Unix,
easy communication. Scientists, for example, post their cur- a very sophisticated, generic time-sharing, multiprogram-
rent scientific discoveries on the Usenet news groups, thus ming operating system developed at Bell Laboratories by
 •

Censorship of the Internet: The Job of Parents, Not Government 15

Ken Thompson and Denis Ritchie. Back then, computers petitions to stop government censorship. 1
were connected to each other like the cars of a train, one
after the other. If one of those computers broke down, then In order to understand whether the government should cen-
the whole chain would break and the network would be use- sor the Net, one must take into account both the advantages
less. By 1969, four universities- the Stanford Research In- and the disadvantages of the "Censor the Net" approach.
stitute, the University of California at Santa Barbara, the Censorship is that, ideally, unsuitable material will not fall
University of California at Los Angeles, and the University into the hands of children and teenagers. Many people be-
of Utah-came up with a brilliant idea. Instead of connecting lieve it is not fair to limit freedom and to damage the at-
computers one by one, they saw that connecting them like mosphere of free expression of ideas just for the safety of
the ropes of a fishnet, or the strands of a web, would elimi- children. Robert Corn-Revere, an expert on Internet cen-
nate the problem that would arise if one of the connections sorship and a partner in the Washington, D.C. law firm of
broke down. Another connection could be used instead. Howgan & Hartson, points out that the purpose of inde-
cency regulation is to keep adult material from falling into
the hands of children. When Senator Exon first introduced
In 1971, the ARPAnet connected only 23 university and a similar bill in 1995, he said that he was concerned that
military host computers within the United States. By 1980, the Information Superhighway was in danger of becoming
213 hosts had joined the network, with a new host join- an electronic "red light district." While Senator Exon had
ing every 20 days. Indeed, the ARPAnet grew so fast that fewer. reservations about adults banning access to such a
the DoD became concerned with the amount of traffic it material, he also feared that information would stop flowing
was handling. It therefore split the network into two seg- freely on the Internet. Nonetheless, he wanted to bar his
ments: a military network called MILNET and a civilian granddaughter's access to unsuitable information (24). In
network that retained the name ARPAnet. The term Inter- reality, only a very small portion of the Net contains offen-
net, however, was not used until 1983; and originally this sive material. The majority of the people do not use the
term referred to the Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Net for pornography. Warren Caragata, a Canadian jour-
Protocol (TCP /IP) that connected to the backbone, or the nalist and a senior staff writer who specializes in high-tech
major communication lines, that linked this increasingly and business coverage, in Maclean's magazine says that, "it
large network of host computers (Caswell 6). The word is pornography that stirs the most controversy. But while
cyberspace, which comes from the book Neuromancer by there is no doubt that pornography is popular, it amounts to
William Gibson, was not used until 1984. By 1987, the a trickle compared with everything else available on the Net"
Internet consisted of over 10,000 interconnected host com- (51). In short, most people use the Net for communication
puters. That may seem like a lot of computers, but in 1999 and information exchange rather than sexual gratification.
almost 200 million people worldwide used the Internet. By
2003, experts predict more than 500 million people will be Nevertheless, Senator Exon, joined by Senator Coats, in
surfing the Web (Newsweek 39). Today, most four-year col- 1995 proposed the Communication Decency Act(CDA). The
leges are connected to the Internet. All this activity points pervasiveness of this problem led Congress to pass the Inter-
to continued growth, evolving technologies, and job secu- net Censorship Bill of 1995, also known as the Exon/Coats
rity for Net workers (Willmott 107). Yet these- educational CDA. The bill amended section 223 (47 U.S.C. 223) of the
and business- oriented activities also have spurned numer- Communication Act of 1934 to establish a prohibition on
ous problems. commercial distribution of material on the World Wide Web
that is harmful to minors. The Act makes it a criminal
offense to make available to children any indecent mate-
The problem that concerns most people is the availability rial or to send anything indecent with the "intent to an-
of indecent material, such as pornography, online. Many noy, abuse, threaten, or harass" (Stop the Communication
high schools and most public libraries in the United States Decency Act). Under this bill, a person breaks the law if
provide Internet access to students and patrons. This ac- he/she puts offensive material like pornography on a web
cess is very useful for looking up information, but if a stu- page without making sure children cannot access the page.
dent or young patron intends to look for inappropriate ma- Furthermore, if a person verbally assaults someone on the
terial, he/she very likely can find such material by doing Internet Relay Chat (IRC), he/she breaks the law. Under
an Internet search. This access has led to many people's
the CDA then, at a university where some students may be
clamoring for governmental regulation of the Internet, of- under 18 years old, a LAN that carries the alt.sex. news-
ten called the "Censor the Net" approach. This is a way group (i.e., adult materials) breaks the law.
of keeping inappropriate materials out of minors' hands by
banning offensive material online. However, this approach However, in a landmark decision issued on June 26, 1997,
raises other issues because what some consider offensive ma- the Supreme Court held that the Communications Decency
terial is perfectly acceptable to somebody else. In the words Act violates the First Amendment's guarantee of freedom of
of Allison and Baxter, two experts on Internet censorship speech. The First Amendment of the Constitution, among
at Monash University, "possibly [offensive) topics are be- other things, states:
havior, nudity, political/economic/social opinion, violence,
racial/ethnic, religious, coarse language, sexual/gender ori- Congress shall make no law respecting an es-
entation, [and) sexuality" (3). Not surprisingly, the propo- tablishment of religion, or prohibiting the free
nents of this approach have focused on pornography because exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of
it greatly concerns too many people. The issue of whether speech, or of the press; or the right of the peo-
it is necessary to have censorship on the Internet is being ple peaceably to assemble, and to petition the
argued all over the world. There are numerous homepages government for a redress of grievances.
1
on the World Wide Web discussing this issue, some with http://www.eff.org/blueribbon.html
16 F.Cutugno

The Court's opinion, written by Justice John Paul Stevens, a problem about what kind of materials should be available
resoundingly rejected censorship of the online medium and on the Net.
established the fundamental principles that will guide judi-
cial consideration of the Internet for the 21st Century (EPIC The Internet is a world that consists of transactions, rela-
n.p.). On August 27, 1999, a coalition of cyber-rights groups tionships, and thought itself, arrayed like a standing wave
and Web publishers filed an appellate brief supporting a in the web of our communications. This is a world where
lower court decision enjoining enforcement of the Child On- anyone, anywhere, may express his or her beliefs, no matter
line Protection Act (COPA), also known as CDA II. The how singular, without fear of being coerced into the silence
case against COPA brought by the Electronic Privacy Infor- of conformity (Barlow 2). In fact, the most significant new
mation Center (EPIC), the American Civil Liberties Union properties of the Internet media are the diversity of infor-
(ACLU), and other organizations is now pending before the mation sources and their ability to reach almost anywhere
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit (EPIC n.p.). in the world. Authors range from major corporations such
as IBM and Disney to school children (Allison 3). As pre-
As these cases indicate, censorship of the Net implicates dicted by Corn-Revere, "At the very least, the law will force
one of the most fundamental rights of U.S. citizens. There- content providers to make access more difficult, which will
fore, this paper will argue that censorship of the Internet affect all users, not just the young" (70). Most Internet
by the U.S. government for the purpose of preventing chil- users are enjoying their freedom of speech on the Net, which
dren from viewing "offensive material" is misguided. In fact, is supposed to be protected by the First Amendment of the
there are many arguments against censorship that should be Constitution of the United States.
taken into account by the U.S. government and people be-
fore they make any further decisions about such an issue. On the other hand, there is a debate over what is meant by
Censoring the Internet for the sake of children means to freedom of speech. Some people will argue that free speech
go against the freedom of expression protected by the First only covers all the information that is educational, religious,
Amendment. Besides, only a small amount of information and its intentions are not to hurt anyone; therefore, it does
available on the Internet is "offensive," and it is important not cover offensive material like pornography. Others argue
to recognize that inappropriate material like pornography is that free speech fits the purpose of protecting the free fl.ow of
already legal. Also, taking a closer look, it is easy to see that ideas. In reality, the First Amendment protects democracy,
to censor the Internet is both politically and technologically so therefore it allows people to express their ideas whether
impossible. Based on such issues, government should not en- others agree or not. According to Corn-Revere, "it has been
courage censorship of the Internet; rather, people need to be suggested that 'on-line systems give people far more gen-
informed that there are many other alternatives to govern- uinely free speech and free press than ever before in human
ment censorship, some of which will be presented through- history'" (71). In fact, people express ideas every day, but
out this paper. never before could so many minds express themselves to so
many other minds in so little time. Therefore, censorship
of the Internet would be a heavy-handed attempt to impose
restrictions on the Net, and it could kill the spirit of coop-
ARGUMENTS AGAINST INTERNET erative knowledge sharing that makes the Net valuable to
CENSORSHIP millions (Rheingold n.p.). Freedom of expression is what
makes the Internet important and enjoyable, and it should
not be waived for any reason.
In many ways the Internet is like a political party; it has
its council of members, every member has an opinion about Many experts have pointed out that government censorship
how things should work, and they can either take part or on the Internet is not possible. Howard Rheingold, the ed-
not. It is the choice of the user. On the other hand, the itor of the Whole World Review, states that, "the 'Censor
Internet has no president, chief operating officer, etc. John the Net' approach is not just morally misguided, it's be-
Perry Barlow, co-founder and executive chair of the Elec- coming technically and politically impossible" (n.p.). As a
tronic Frontier Foundation, in One's Man Declaration of matter of fact, the technical issue is a huge problem. The
Independence of Cyberspace, states, "We have no elected question here is directly related to the fact that new web
government, nor are we likely to have one, so I address you sites are coming alive every day on the Internet. But, most
with no greater authority than that with which liberty it- of all, there remains the question of how to enforce such a
self always speaks" (1). The constituent networks may have regulation if the bill becomes law. In this case, it would
presidents and CEO's, but that is a different issue; there be necessary for the creation of some kind of virtual police
is no single authority figure for the Internet as a whole. officers, who will control the Net. Would this be possible?
Frances Hentoff, the staff writer for The Village Voice and Besides, they will not be capable of monitoring all mate-
the author of First Freedoms, states, "On an info super- rial being transmitted on the Internet. Considering the dif-
highway driven by individuals, there are no cops preventing ficulties with international boundaries, a licensing system
users from downloading" ( 1). This means that information faces many obvious practical hurdles (Allison 6). Regulat-
is available to everybody on the Net, and everybody with ing pornography in the U.S. would be impossible because
the appropriate tools can retrieve it and use it. Informa- about 30 percent of it is produced in foreign countries. Even
tion is obviously not a "thing." In fact, it is something that if regulation were not an issue, any trained Computer Sci-
happens in the field of interaction between minds or objects ence graduate could create a completely secure encryption
or other pieces of information. Internet users can broadcast system for concealment purposes. The material could even
or express anything they want. Therefore, the facts that be disguised. For example, pornography could be hidden
the Net has no single authority figure, and everybody en- 'inside' a perfectly innocuous picture (Allison 6). In fact,
joys their freedom to express anything they want, presents if a person wants to publish offensive material, he/she can
Censorship of the Internet: The Job of Parents, Not Government 17

design a formula to change the material with respect to a be left alone to deal with these shocking sights and sounds
key, and secretly tell other users what the key is. In this despite the moral fiber that their parents helped them culti-
way, they can retrieve the same material and pass unde- vate (Rheingold n.p.). Even if the Net does not contain any
tected through government censorship. For these reasons pornography, children could also be exposed to indecorous
many people believe that censoring the Net is technically material in many other places. Also, most authors using
impossible; it will damage the atmosphere of freedom of ex- electronic media do not produce material that is any worse
pression on the Net. Also, "the Internet is comprised of than that available from news agents, videos shops, or mail-
various digital media subsuming many of the distinct roles order sources (Allison 8). On that account, if the purpose of
of traditional media" (Allison 3). censoring is to prevent minors from being exposed to indeco-
rous material, much more than the Net needs to be censored.
People using this new technological tool have created a new Censorship of the Net will only eliminate one single medium
community in which they are not any more passive sub- that minors use to find vulgar, titillating material. Govern-
jects but active ones. They not only participate with the ment censorship is not the solution to the problem. On the
flow of information, but also with the Internet community contrary, the bill angers many parents because they want to
they use a large volume of technical terms. These terms are decide for themselves what kind of information is appropri-
now a part of everyday language. Most people feel resentful ate for their children to access on the Internet. For these
of those who try in any way to take away their common reasons, it is necessary to examine other alternative mea-
language. In order to understand what people are talking sur~s that will help censor the Net without the intervention

about and where one can retrieve information, it is nec- of the U.S. government.
essary to examine Internet terminology. The term "Net"
is frequently used in place of Internet. Electronic mail (e-
mail), which is one component of the Internet, allows us ALTERNATIVE MEASURES
to exchange messages through letters, memoranda, notes,
and even phone calls with individuals or groups. People
There are many alternative measures to government censor-
sometimes send sound and pictures along with the text. E-
ship that would prevent misuse of the Net and would have a
mail is mainly for private communication. Users send e-mail
better effect than censorship. The U.S. government should
to communicate with people across the street or across the
inform citizens that there are ways to protect children with-
globe. Another term that most users know is electronic
out legislative intervention: involvement of parents, filter
news (Enews/Usenet). Usenet is a communication tool that
software, and digital signatures that inform viewers of what
enables people to meet and discuss various topics online.
the site contains. If people use these voluntary measures,
Usenet organizes discussions under broad headings called
adults, under protection of the First Amendment, can re-
newsgroups. It contains specific addresses and sites on the
main protected from government control. However, if any
Internet where people leave messages for one another re-
future censorship bills pass, the First Amendment may ef-
garding a particular topic of interest. Also, the term FTP
fectively be excluded from cyberspace (Hentoff 1). This is
(File Transfer Protocol) refers to the method for transferring
not acceptable because the Internet is not only a network of
files from one computer to another. FTP started as an In-
computers, but sociologically, it is also a network of people;
ternet archival and retrieval medium, somewhat analogous
the same people whose freedom of speech is protected by the
to traditional libraries. Many computer users retrieve files
First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States.
from distant computers using a traditional text-based inter-
For these reasons it is very important for parents to provide
face (Caswell 14,15, 17). The World Wide Web (WWW),
moral guidance for their children, and parents should have
another component of the Net, allows publication of mate-
this responsibility. Moral guidance is the foremost long-term
rial that would traditionally appear in journals, magazines,
solution to the problem. In fact, if parents have control over
posters, books, televisions and even on films. Without a
their children's web-surfing on the computer, they are in a
doubt those terms are here to stay. Censoring the Internet
better position to protect them from at least accidental ex-
means to limit the accessibility of information and restrict
posure to inappropriate material (Zeichick E13). Rheingold
global communications. The U.S. government, therefore,
believes:
should not encourage censorship only because some Amer-
icans' fears that children can view inappropriate material This technological shock (pornography on the
like pornography. Net) to Americans' moral codes means that in
the future, Americans are going to have to teach
While some people are concerned about Internet pornog- their children well. The only protection that
raphy, it should be recognized that pornography is legal in has a chance of working is to give (their] sons
video and magazines. It is true that the Internet can be con- and daughters moral grounding and some com-
sidered a public display of information, and it is extremely mon sense. (n.p.)
easy for a child to access such information. However, it In America, like in other countries, minors can be exposed to
is also true that children still are exposed to pornography sexual material in many kinds of media. Providing children
through television, radio, magazines, and so on. Therefore, with moral guidance is therefore the best solution to the
it is inconsistent to ban the Internet equivalents because it problem. In fact, parents cannot watch their children ev-
will not solve the problem. Noone questions citizens' right ery second of every day, so when left alone or with friends,
to restrict the information flowing into their homes. They there is a good possibility that they will search for such
should be able to exclude from their home any subject mat- sites. The most important point here is that children need
ter that they do not want their children to see. But sooner to understand that pornography is extremely wrong, and it
or later, their children will be exposed to everything from is something that only exists because it creates a market of
which they have shielded them. Then these children will billions and billions of dollars throughout the world.
18 F.Cutugno

However, at the same time that parents carry out moral signed with a secure digital signature that can be traced to
guidance, Americans have to develop some short-term ap- a real person, company or organization" (4). The strength
proaches to solve the problem in a more efficient way. By of the material or the degree of which a specific subject
doing so parents can protect their children by limiting the is present in a Web site is often classified as "strong" or
scope of the Internet experience in two ways: by filtering at "weak." The attitudes of a given document towards a topic
the personal computer (PC) itself, or by ensuring that chil- are often classified as "advocates" or to speak in support
dren are using trusted sites and resources (Zeichick E13). of the particular topic, "discusses" or to talk specifically
An alternative to government censorship is the technolog- about a particular topic, "deplores" or to speak against a
ical fix, which would prevent misuse of the Net and per- particular topic, or "does not discuss" or do not talk about
haps would have better effects than government censorship. a particular topic. Additionally, in order to reduce the ef-
This involves the design of intelligent software to filter in- fort of classifying many individual items, particularly in the
formation. There is a rush to develop information-filtering case of FTP and WWW, classifications are often attached to
software and to get it to market. One example of this tech- directories and inherited by subdirectories and documents.
nological fix is "SurfWatch" software. It is a breakthrough In this way, readers can make informed decisions regarding
software product that helps parents deal with the flood of access of Internet material, and the programming of intel-
sexual material on the Internet. By allowing parents to be ligent software will be much easier, just by recognizing a
responsible for blocking what is being received at any indi- small number of terms of classification. This should not be
vidual computer, children and others have less of a chance of a problem because the classification of material has already
accidentally or deliberately being exposed to unwanted ma- been done on the Net. Most Internet materials are well clas-
terial. These same kinds of blocking devices have been used sified, and people have an idea of what they are going to see
on television. It seems that they already are working very beforehand. For instance, an article in a particular Usenet
well for TV; therefore, it is acceptable to think that these newsgroup can be accurately predicted by the name of the
devices will have the same effects for computers. Therefore, group. For example, soc.culture.hongkong.entertainment
a software like SurfWatch strives to preserve Internet free- contains discussion of the entertainment industry of Hong
dom by letting individuals choose what they see (Allison 6). Kong; alt.binaries.sex.pictures contains encoded binary files
The SurfWatch vendor intends to provide monthly updates of pornography. Internet users know what they are ap-
to cope with the fast changing Internet. Perhaps today the proaching beforehand, and minors know that they are not
best site-blocking software is Net Nanny Software Interna- supposed to browse those alt.sex newsgroups. The installa-
tional's NetNanny. This Windows-only software limits a tion of censoring software and the classification of material
child's access to inappropriate material via the web, email, is a better solution than government censorship. Frances
chat rooms and other parts of the Internet (Zeichick E13). Hentoff, a staff writer for Entertainment Weekly, mentions
Commercial Internet service providers, such as "America that "flexibility of interactive media ... enables parents to
OnLine,'' allow parents to control what Internet relay chat control what content their kids have access to, and leaves
(IRC) sessions are available to their children (Gidley 59). the flow of information free for those adults who want it"
Parental Control is a feature of many commercial Internet (1). This prevents unwanted material from reaching chil-
service providers. Users can turn on the Parental Control dren and allows adults to continue the enjoyment of their
function, and they will automatically be kept away from Internet freedom.
offensive words in IRC. In this way, children can be kept
away from offensive material and adults can continue to en-
joy their Internet freedom.
CONCLUSION
Another technological fix is for parents and guardians to
have a separate "proxy server" for their children's web The major problem of the Net is that, clearly, minors who
browser. A "proxy server" is a program that does not al- use the Net can easily obtain inappropriate materials. Be-
low the use of some specified Internet sites or Usenet news- sides, indecent materials are not only on the Net. Minors
groups. The parents need to actively select sites their proxy can obtain such materials without accessing the Internet at
server can access. Parental control tools are a very practical all. Internet censorship is not the solution to keeping minors
solution to the problem. As stated in the "Communication away from pornography. Rather, the best solution for pre-
Decency Act Issues Page" by the Center for Democracy and venting minors from viewing these kinds of materials comes
Technology, "what will help parents control their children's from parents taking a stronger role in their children's lives
access to the Internet is Parental Control tools and features, and to provide moral guidance for their children. At the
such as those provided by several major online services and same time, parents also need short-term technical solutions.
available as over-the-counter software" (n.p.). Tools for con- Intelligent censoring software and proxy servers can let par-
trolling Internet access by children are widely available, and ents deny their children access to certain sites, thus keeping
parents can already control their children's access to the their children from offensive online materials. While the
material on the Net. censorship approach embodied in the CDA and COPA have
superficial appeal, a closer examination of this approach
There are no computer programs to automatically and re- shows that it is fraught with constitutional infirmities that
liably classify material; only people can do it. As a re- would inappropriately suppress freedom of expression. For
sult, while practicing technological fixes, the classification the dilemmas paced by and unanswered questions that char-
of the contents of the material when posting is very im- acterize the digital age, traditional approaches, government
portant. Most Internet users classify their posting with censorship, simply do not work. In fact, censorship-oriented
standard categories, and leave a signature at the end of legislation goes against the freedom of expression protected
the posting. According to Allison and Baxter, "items are by the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United
 I

Censorship of the Internet: The Job of Parents, Not Government 19

States. Americans are going to have to accept less intrusive, Communication Decency Act. S 1482.is, 105th Congress. Novem-
probably more exotic solutions, such as providing intelligent ber 8, 1997.
software filters to those who want a G-rated version of In- Communication Decency Act. http://www.epic.org/cda Using
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FILOMENA is currently a junior Business major, concentrating in Accounting. She is scheduled to graduate in May
2001. She is Secretary of the Accounting Association, Vice President of the International Student Organization, and
a peer mentor for international students. Her paper was written for HlOO, Honors Freshman Colloquium. Filomena
became interested in this topic after reading the book My Tiny Life by Julian Dibbell and having participated in the
Scholar's Symposium (Fall 1999) where one section explored the importance of making information flow freely.