Big Brother Alive and Well

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				THE
Column Archive				VIRGINIA GAZETTE
				WILLIAMSBURG, VIRGINIA
Big Brother Alive and Well				November 27, 2002

For those of you who thought that Orwell missed the boat in 1984 and that we’ve all emerged unscathed, think again. Turns out that he missed the mark by only 18 years.

It took a bunch of maniacal marauders on 9/11 and subsequent appeals to patriotism and a declaration of war on terrorism to bring it all about, but Big Brother has finally spawned and is now reveling in every spooky advance he makes against citizens who are snoozing their way through the demise of their constitutional rights to privacy.

Leading the advance is the ominously named USA Patriot Act, which assures the government the right to snoop into our phone conversations, our e-mail, our Internet usage and even to gain access to the titles of books we check out of the library.

Then comes the news that the Defense Department has its own spy network, led by John Poindexter, of all people, which now is free to nuzzle its snout into your credit and customer card purchases.

Not only do these self styled patriots want to know what you’re reading, listening to and buying, but they also insist there are certain things that good patriots simply don’t read, watch or listen to. And just so you know what areas of evil you shouldn’t be mucking around in, the omniscients label them “obscene” or “pornographic.”

The context in which the purveyors of purity operate usually involves the fact that we must protect young people from impressionable images on the Internet. The result of this is that, while it’s perfectly patriotic to read or watch the murder, madness and mayhem in something like Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus, Macbeth or Hamlet, we must not sully our eyes or ears with the lovemaking of Romeo and Juliet.

Reading from the Book of Good and Evil, our watchdogs of morality have declared the beauty and nakedness of the human body off limits and its reproductive capabilities little more than the ugliness of sludge.

To this end, they brought out in 2000 the Child Internet Protection Act, which forced libraries receiving federal funds to filter sites that were deemed to be pornographic and not fit for viewing by people under 18. Trouble was that the filters also blocked other material that was perfectly acceptable for adult study or research. This was fine with the patriots, but evidently not so fine with the American Library Association.

That uppity group has actually appealed the legislation to the Supreme Court on first amendment grounds, and the case has been accepted.

Fortunately, our local library system receives no federal funds in this area and hence has, much to its credit, refused to introduce Internet filters on its computers. According to John Moorman, the library director, privacy is their major concern, though the library does provide for children several alternatives to the Internet.

Moorman and his associates, however, are not off the hook completely. For, while the myopic mollusks in the state legislature are not in the mood to deal with such things as transportation and tax reform, they are definitely in the mood to maul the first amendment.

Just this year Del. Richard Black (R-32^nd) introduced a bill that would force libraries in the state to filter and block Internet access to pornography, obscenity, and “materials deemed harmful to juveniles,” whatever that means. This bill still lingers in the Committee on Science and Technology, but be assured that the patriots will be back at it next year.

More disturbing is the situation at the College of William and Mary. There, according to state law, staff members, including professors, must now get permission from their superiors to visit sites deemed by the state to be visually or textually pornographic. Furthermore, e-mail and written records may be monitored and reviewed by the college if a staff member engages in some undefined “misconduct.”

So, though one may read hard copies of the works of Swinburne, Hawthorne, Aristophanes or Eminem in Swem Library, a professor who wishes to read their complete works on the Internet or write about their bawdier passages on a college computer must first get permission.

Indeed, this law is so replete with lunacy that we must assume that a professor would have to get permission to read the Song of Solomon or other racy parts of the Bible on the Internet. And how unpatriotic is that?

All of this has led one professor, Terry Meyers in the English Department, to write a landmark article on the loss of first amendment rights in Virginia. Meyers, who has worked extensively with the unacceptably risqué Swinburne, published his article in the Sept.-Oct., 2002 edition of Academe, which is available on the web. However, if you’re a professor at William and Mary, you must get permission to read it on your college computer, since it includes quotes from Swinburne.

So fear not The patriots have won. Orwell is vindicated. Let us all give thanks.