Final PowerPoint
Presentation
The Wide World of
Censorship
By: Donnia Zack-Williams
Sarah D’Orsie
Katie Sullivan
What is Censorship?
Censorship is a term often associated with
totalitarianism, socialism, or anything but
democracy.
While the definition of censorship has
changed over centuries, the basic idea
behind it is simple and has gone untouched:
the protection of the most basic civil
institutions of the family, the church, and the
state
History of Censorship
In Ancient Greece, where democracy was
founded, the Ancient philosopher Socrates
fought against and eventually gave his life
rather than adhere to the Athenian
government’s censorship of his teachings.
With the Age of Enlightenment, the idea of
intellectual freedom began to encompass
political and economical thought as well –
The American Revolution.
The Supreme Court
Versus Censorship
The issue of censorship is one that
strikes the Supreme Court at many
angles with regards to the first
amendment rights.
Roth V. United States
Texas V. Johnson
Reno V. A.C.L.U.
First Amendment: Congress shall make no
law respecting an establishment of religion, or
prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or
abridging the freedom of speech, or of the
press; or the right of the people peaceably to
assemble, and to petition the Government for
a redress of grievances.
Obscenity is not protected under the first
amendment, however, a penumbra falls over
the exact definition of the word.
Freedom of Information
Act
(FOIA), enacted in 1966, was the first
law that gave Americans the right to
access the records of federal agencies.
The FOIA applies only to federal
agencies and does not create a right of
access to records held by Congress, the
courts, or by state or local government
agencies.
Public use of the Freedom of
Information Act continues to rise, with
1,965,919 FOIA requests filed with
federal agencies in fiscal year 1999.
The intent of the FOIA is to prevent
agencies from having “secret law” and
to make the government accountable to
the public for its actions.
The Privacy Act
The Privacy Act of 1974 provides safeguards
against an invasion of privacy through the
misuse of records by Federal agencies.
The act also permits an individual to gain
access to most personal information
maintained by Federal agencies and to seek
amendment of any inaccurate, incomplete,
untimely, or irrelevant information
. Agencies subject to the Freedom of
Information Act are also subject to the Privacy
Act
Internet Filters
The first way companies go about filtering
“inappropriate content” is by having a team of
human researchers reviewing thousands of
websites looking for not only trigger words but
also pictures and subject matter that may be
“inappropriate
The second way that Internet filtering companies
compile their databases is through the use of
electronic scanning devices, which continually
browse the Internet, looking for key words such
as “porn” or any other explicitives.
Along with the feature of updating one’s
filtering software, parents or whomever
is doing the filtering has the option to
manually set boundaries on what
content is allowed to be viewed and
what isn’t allowed.
Also, one of the most common Internet
filtering software in the world,
CyberPatrol®
, is offered to customers for the home,
the office, or even the school.
Censorship Abroad
While the United States, which is almost
totally free of any legal censorship in the
media, both electronic and print, other
countries today are not so liberal on their
views of censorship
the Official Secrets Act of 1911
To add to Great Britain’s governmental
censorship, the government also has a
system called D-notice
Our Opinion
After all the research that we have done, it is clear
that the United States, thus far, has done a noble job
in reserving many the rights of citizens that most
countries wouldn’t dream of reserving
While the First Amendment is sometimes seen as a
controversial Amendment that is always coming
under fire, it still protects many rights to which most
citizens take for granted. Therefore, while some the
material on the Internet can and should be deemed
legally “obscene,” there is still so much information
that, for the sake of intellectual progress, can never
be censored.