Internet activists at the Censorware Project have released a report that blasts the overreach of SmartFilter blocking software on a statewide proxy server. According to "Censored Internet Access in Utah Public Schools and Libraries," SmartFilter blocked access for some 40 public-school districts and several public library systems to more than 500,000 sites from September 10 to October 10, 1998, among them the Hasbro toymaker Web site, the Starr Report and mainstream-news outlet stories about it, and digitizations of the U.S. Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, the Koran, and the complete plays of William Shakespeare.
"In its quest to eliminate so-called undesirable content," CWP co-founder Michael Sims concludes in the March 23 document, the Utah Education Network has instead undermined "the ability for citizens to speak and read freely, without the government watching over your shoulder."
The report was released some five months after UEN officials finally complied with Sims's freedom-of-information request to examine the proxy server's SmartFilter logs.
