And speaking of filtering...

...I coincidentally came across this guest editorial by Ernest Istook, the erstwhile Oklahoma congressman who principally authored the Children's Internet Protection Act.

Funny how some things-and some people-just don't change. Years out of office, he still beats the drum for his burdensome and unworkable solution to what was then (in 2000) and still is now a largely nonexistent problem. A dozen years ago, there was no such thing as a computer program capable of making subjective judgments about the data it processes-such as whether such data meets the legal definition of obscenity or "harmful to minors"-and there is still no such thing today. And he's shocked-shocked!-that more and more public library systems around the country have taken the route of responsible stewardship of their increasingly scarce resources and opted out of the E-Rate program rather than spend more money complying with CIPA than their E-Rate discount would be worth.

Poor Mr. Istook. He's just more evidence that boxer Muhammad Ali's famous quote is truly a sage observation of the human condition. Istook still sees the world the same as he did in 2000, and has thus wasted the past twelve years of his life.