By Casey Muller
The Peacefire organization is dedicated to an extremely important
task: Ensuring the free access of children to information. At first
glance this seems to be a minor problem compared to the multitude
of
social work that could be done, but it is more crucial than it seems
at first.
Censorship is insidous, and often begins by protecting minors. One
of
Peacefire's main functions is to show how to get around merely
technical solutions to the problem of restricting internet access
to
minors. This encourages parents and teachers to work on a solution
based more around educating and supervising the children.
Peacefire reveals the benevolent and useful websites that
are blocked
by various sites by accident, or for nefarious political purpose.
Some
of the websites so blocked have serious consequences. For example,
a
number of gay and lesbian teen support webpages are commonly blocked
by software installed in schools and homes. To deny these resources
to
a confused and volatile young person is very clearly wrong.
Peacefire presents its mission and philosophy very effectively,
touching on all sides of the issue, and coming across as a bastion
of
truth and justice. It is fighting to give the next generation the
same
open access to the internet that the last one did.
In addition to publishing guerilla filter-disabling techniques,
Peacefire tries to make itself a resource for the rest of the
free
speech community. They have decrypted or brute-forced the lists of
blocked webpages that most web filters block. They also provide expert
testimony to relevant court cases.
Peacefire fills an important niche in the network of organizations
protecting our rights in America, and they should be commended. The
webpage is well designed and filled with excellent political rhetoric,
hard facts and statistics, and of course technical information on
beating the various filtering systems. They should continue to protect
free net access for children as long as the threat of censorship
exists.