Congress to Universities: Filter Your Net or Lose Funding

November 12th, 2007 by Kevin Donovan

Fred Benenson over at Free Culture @ NYU is spreading the word about a Congressional bill which is under consideration which would eliminate student loans at schools which do not filter the Internet. As Fred puts it:

This bill contains wording that, if passed into law, would jeopardize federal aid for universities if they refused to filter their student’s internet access. In other words, the bill is designed to force universities to police their student’s internet connections in a way that no other ISPs in the world do. Besides encouraging a violation of network neutrality on campuses, this bill demands universities to do something that is technically impossible — how is NYU’s router supposed to be able to tell the difference between a Creative Commons licensed video podcast that you’re downloading via Miro and an “illegal” file your roommate is getting off of a file sharing network?  The point is they can’t — no technology has been invented that can properly discover whether a file is “legal” or not (consider how difficult it is for a judge to decide whether a use is fair, and then think of trying to create a chip that would do it) and no technology will ever be invented to do this.

The dubiously titled “College Opportunity and Affordability Act of 2007” (coming in at a staggering 747 pages, the relevant part is from pg. 411-413) is a bad deal and we need to let our representatives know it before they vote on it on Wednesday at 9am.

Take the five minutes to call your representative and let them know how dangerous this is to free speech and higher education. Committee members include:

Democrats

Republicans

Consider saying something like the following:

Hi, the Committee on Education and Labor of which ______ is a member is considering a bill entitled “The College Opportunity and Affordability Act of 2007″ which would strip universities of federal aid money if they do not filter the internet their students use. This is dangerous for free speech, education and the affordability of college. Please have ______ work to amend this.

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