Chris views Chicago’s policy on the public selling of art as a matter of free speech. I won’t make his arguments for him — you can read up on his campaign on his blog. I will say that I find his argument compelling, and that our city would be better if these policies were overturned.

Recently Chris was ticketed for his activity of selling art without a vendor license, within the Loop area. On another occasion he was arrested and charged with a felony for taping his encounter with the police. There is a recent article in the Sun Times with a plethora of comments from supporters of the Free Speech campaign and decrying the misapplication of the eavesdropping law. I urge you to add your comments to the article, and to spread the word on this valiant campaign.

Here’s the comment I posted.

Mr. Drew is undertaking a heroic effort to make our city better – not just for Artists, but for all of us. I want my city to be a vibrant cultural center, with artistic endeavor at every scale. The art he offers for sale is of the most humble and accessible form.

Art indeed is speech, and if Mr. Drew’s account of Supreme Court opinion on Commercial Speech is correct, then it is clear that the city’s peddler law is overly broad and therefore unconstitutional.

If the law were really about public convenience (i.e. for pedestrian traffic, etc.) why would seeking donations rather than a sale exchange make a difference? I’m not up to speed on the legal distinctions or constraints against regulating these other activities, so I’d love to be informed. Perhaps the Sun Times could do a bigger story, exploring the irony of the eavesdropping charge, along with the contrasts of civil rights and free speech pertaining to different classes of behavior and different public spaces.

This of course brings to mind the absurdity of specially designated “Free Speech Zones” established during large scale events. That’s something else that needs to be challenged.

I do hope that local media will take up the broader issues, and do us a public service informing us on this important topic. Spread the word, for Free Speech, whether you agree with Chris or not, this deserves public consideration.

Just last night I watched him on PBS (my alma mater) on a Dublin pub crawl.

He was my English teacher at Stuyvesant. It’s probably the proudest thing I mention about H.S. I’ve been so pleased with his successful second act career and the honor he received as a result. But I have greater honor for his role as a teacher. We were so lucky to have him as our teacher – and we knew it. I was in his creative writing class, and was so glad I got in the class. I don’t know how I heard or how I lucked out.

I do know that my deeper awakening to writing can in part be credited to him and his teaching manner.

If social justice is the scale with which we are to measure our effectiveness and our national character, we must not blind nor bind ourselves in a hyper-localism amounting to a head-in-the-sand response to the many policy shenanigans now written out as the law-of-the-land, or passed over – de facto – in the exercise in neglect by those who are entrusted with enforcement of the law.

The extent to which Washington has been the party of money, irrespective of the party nominally in charge, has led to a long-standing regime of laws (and enforcement) at odds with principles of sound governance. This scenario has given many a strong motivation to dismantle government. We have long been distracted by conflicts over the legitimacy of entitlement programs, while we have overlooked the institutionalization of rampant profiteering at the expense of the people and our long term interests.

As citizens, community informaticists, civic and social entrepreneurs and philanthropists, what is our response to the challenge of restoring justice and good governance to the nation?

These writings provide a conceptual matrix for an interesting breed of Civic Entrepreneur- (it’s a partial list) … really a new model of Citizenship and Society/Polity. They aren’t new to a lot of you – and if you have other works that you think really need to be on the list, please let me know.

Movement as Network, by Gideon Rosenblatt, also: The three pillars of social source

David Isenberg’s Rise of the Stupid Network

Pushing Power to the Edges (pdf) by Jillaine Smith, Martin Kearns, Allison Fine

The Cluetrain Manifesto (Doc Searles, et al.)

Cory Doctorow’s Down & Out in the Magic Kingdom

Coase’s Penguin: (by Yochai Benkler … his book The Wealth of Networks is also recommended. There’s a wiki inviting discussion of his ideas.)

The list doesn’t represent any hierarchic ordering.

I like that it uses an open standard for managing my book collection: Z39.50.

I also like that I can export my data.

You can see a more extensive listing of my library here.

I’m taking a course on storytelling. Although I have been involved in community informatics for several years as an activist and organizer on digital divide/digital excellence and community networking, I found this work to involve the telling of stories and general reframing community and what we are about, or what is possible for us.

I was watching a video from the TED conference where Isabel Allende offered the old adage: What is truer than truth? The story. (Variants on this answer may be a matter of translation: Legend, Myth, Story, Narrative.)

I grew up on Grimm, and many mythologies… great preparation for an early encounter with Joseph Campbell via the Power of Myth (where Bill Moyers, another hero, interviewed him). I later made extensive study of semiotics and have an enduring interest in narrative, and the importance of story and discourse.

In recent years Italo Calvino brought me back to the play of stories/storytelling in the work of the OuLiPo — where art is craft that you work at each day, and good art or literature arises from finding the right combination of signs through experiment and experienced judgment.

Campbell’s work on myth and ritual, the idea of the story opening a path to greater truth than mere facts, or perhaps a greater truth in discourse around a story than in any particular telling or offering of an account, and the idea in Calvino that folktale is not myth degenerated but that myth arises out of folktale when the right combination his hit upon, these are all connected.

Storytelling is part of the natural and necessary repertoire of human behavior… it helps us cope and adapt as well as honor and remember. Though stories can be used to divide, their healing potential is critical in this moment. Our creative play can reconfigure our individuality and our collective life.

Gore has taken on the most important issues of the day: the environment, the politics of media, public life. These are grounded in the big questions of living together on this planet. His tone is measured. Had the Supreme Court handled the 2000 elections other than they did, would Gore be the Statesman he is now?

Common sense is not a simple thing. Instead, it is an immense society of hard-earned practical ideas – of multitudes of life-learned rules and exceptions, dispositions and tendencies, balances and checks.

WHEREAS, freedom of the press is a right of the readers of news and a responsibility upon the producers of news; and is not a privilege for owners of news channels to exploit; and

WHEREAS, reporting is a high calling which has fallen into disrepute because news writers have been too often degraded as hirelings compelled by their employers to serve the purposes of politicians, monopolists, speculators in the necessaries of life, exploiters of labor, and fomentors of war; therefore be it

RESOLVED, that the American Newspaper Guild strive tirelessly for integrity of news columns and opportunity for its members to discharge their social responsibility; not stopping until the men and women who write, graphically portray, or edit news have achieved freedom of conscience to report faithfully, when they occur, and refuse by distortion and suppression, to create political, economic, industrial and military wars.

Dear Colleagues,

Your Illinois libraries are concerned re this filtering legislation. You are probably aware that
internet filters are notorious for not being “smart”. They typically block health and other vital
information, We as librarians believe that filtering is a decision that should be made by a local
school, library, or community, not mandated by the state.

Please join us in unity on May 14th. Let your legislators and all who support free and open
access to the internet and local control know that you oppose this bill.

Thank you all for your support!

Monday, 14 May 2007 Is a Day of Unity for the Illinois Library Community to Demonstrate Our Opposition to House Bill 1727

Public Policy Committee’s Action Plan Regarding Proposed Mandatory Internet Filter Legislation

In response to the Illinois House of Representatives passing House Bill 1727, the Illinois Library Association’s Public Policy Committee met yesterday to determine the library community’s response. ILA requests that libraries communicate and/or demonstrate the negative effects of this legislation. Because the association is a strong promoter of local control, we are recommending that local libraries determine the most appropriate action for their community and act accordingly. The committee did, however, declare:

Monday, 14 May 2007 is a day of unity for the Illinois library community to demonstrate our opposition to House Bill 1727, the mandatory public and school library Internet filter legislation.

On Monday, 14 May, the committee recommends the following possible actions:

* Communicate with your Senator. Write, fax, and call. Please do all three. If you do not know your Senator or don’t know the Senator’s phone or fax numbers please go to: http://tinyurl.com/9m8ok type in your zip code and you will find your Senator’s contact and biographical information.);
* Turn off the Internet. If you proceed with this option, inform the public by posting signs in the library explaining why the Internet is turned off for the day. Possible language for the sign follows:

If HB 1727 becomes law,

Your library will be forced to filter all public computers.

Your library will be forced to provide a companion over the age of 21 for any minor requiring unfiltered computer use for homework research.

Your library will be required to attest to compliance in writing (and since we know how easily filters can be comprised, we cannot in good conscience attest to this) or lose the state per capita funds and any state grant funds.

Given the requirements of HB 1727, your library may need to remove all public computers due to:

the legal liability incurred by attesting to compliance when we know that filters do not work in all instances;
the costs of filtering software, and installation and maintenance costs for that software; and the cost of the additional staff required for providing supervision of any minor using an unfiltered computer for homework or other research and for the removal of filtering software whenever an adult has a legitimate, lawful need for using an unfiltered site.

This is an unfunded mandate.

* Download and install a demonstration filter. Be prepared to show how this filter blocks legitimate research use; and
* Maximize filtering software usage. If your library uses filters and if this legislation is passed, libraries will need to maximize the filter settings in order to fulfill the legislation’s intent. If on Monday, 14 May, your library maximizes your filters, this will demonstrate to the public both the problems with excessive filtering and the need for local control on establishing reasonable settings for your community.

Each library is encouraged to participate in some way to demonstrate opposition to HB 1727. To share what your library is doing for Day of Unity in Illinois Libraries go the http://illinoislibraryday.info. Use the form to describe how you are participating in the Day of Unity.

Be sure to include your name, library, and phone number.

Amendments

As stated in the previous ILA Update #9, House Bill 1727 was amended several times prior to the final Illinois House of Representatives vote. However, the basic mandated requirement to install filters on all public access computers was not changed. One amendment added a provision requiring loss of all state funding for noncompliance (for example, per capita grants from the state library), but also removed enforcement by civil lawsuits, fines, and perjury prosecutions.

Another amendment allowed unblocking of a computer for a minor, but only if the library makes sure a minor is continuously supervised by someone over twenty-one years old.

Talking Points
* ILA Supports Local Control. Local officials — library trustees, librarians, and other professional library staff — are the most qualified to decide how Internet access should be provided to
their patrons. House Bill 1727 overrules all local decisions and imposes a “one size fits all” approach.
* Filters Don’t Work and Provide a False Sense of Security!
Study after study has demonstrated that filters consistently block important information on science, health, political, and social issues and regularly allow objectionable material to get through.
* Filters are Expensive. Paying for filters diverts scarce resources from limited technology budgets. Money that could go to buying more computers, and paying for more reliable and faster Internet access. Typical network installation is $10,000, plus about $3,000 per year. This is enough to buy twenty computers and pay for Internet access.
* Filters are Inflexible! Filters don’t know if the person using the computer is 5, 21, or 65. This “one size fits all” approach treats adults, even senior citizens, like elementary school children. The user doesn’t even know what they are being prevented from accessing. We can’t expect patrons to ask to unblock computers when they don’t know what that particular filter has blocked.
* Filters are Biased! Private companies and groups with commercial, political, or religious agendas design filters to block what THEY find objectionable, including political candidates, social causes, basic health information, and even information on their own product’s faults.
* Filters Hurt the Poor! Less wealthy communities are the most in need of technology because more of their patrons lack these resources at home. This legislation forces less affluent areas to
choose between filling this need or spending money just to block access.
* This Bill is Ill-conceived with Five Amendments. It is a moving target, and it does not reflect thoughtful or constructive action to address the problems it seeks to solve.
* This is an Unfunded Mandate!

Illinois Senate
The bill has now been sent to the Illinois Senate and Senator Randy Hultgren (R-48, Winfield) is the Senate sponsor. All bills are first assigned to the Senate Rules Committee. A bill discharged from the Rules Committee is sent to a substantive committee for a public hearing. If House Bill 1727 is discharged from the Senate Rules Committee, we anticipate that it will be assigned to the Senate
Judiciary Civil Law Committee. The members of that committee are:

• Co-Chairperson: John J. Cullerton (D-6, Chicago)
• Vice-Chairperson: Don Harmon (D-39, Oak Park)
• Member: William R. Haine (D-56, Alton)
• Member: Michael Noland (D-22, Elgin)
• Member: Ira I. Silverstein (D-8, Chicago)
• Member: A. J. Wilhelmi (D-43, Crest Hill)
• Co-Chairperson: Kirk W. Dillard (R-24, Westmont)
• Member: Dan Cronin (R-21, Lombard)
• Member: Randall M. Hultgren (R-48, Winfield)
• Member: Matt Murphy (R-27, Palatine)

Based on the current Senate schedule, if House Bill 1727 is assigned to the Judiciary Civil Law Committee, it would most likely be heard in committee the week of May 14. If approved by the committee, the full Senate would then consider it in the last two weeks of May.

ILA will continue to inform the Illinois library community of any developments regarding this legislation.