E-mail sent to Simon Cooper, Information Services Manager at Essex County Council
16th November 2003

Simon Cooper
Information Services Manager
Essex CC

Essex CC blanket censorship of illegal drugs websites using Smartfilter webfiltering

Simon

Following on from our telephone conversation on Friday 14th November.

I was most concerned to discover that Essex CC had www.ukcia.org (the website of the British Legalise Cannabis Campaigns), as well as a number of other websites, blocked from libraries under your control and that you are running a censorship regime aimed at websites concerned with illegal drugs.

You told me this is happening because of a decision taken in a sub committee of "The Peoples Network" (TPN) a couple of years ago that websites dedicated to the discussion of illegal drugs should be blocked from Essex libraries internet computers. You were unable to tell me how long UKCIA had actually been blocked, what other sites you were blocking, nor even how many, however you did indicate that you supported the censorship.

I have tried to take this up with TPN to discover the extent of this censorship and under what authority it was imposed. Having had a look around TPN's website www.peoplesnetwork.gov.uk I can find no remit for that organisation to impose web censorship as it seems to have done in Essex. However the contact address for TPN mailto:info@peoplesnetwork.com bounces.

Perhaps you can explain how this suggestion from a sub-committee of TPN came to be adopted by your department and how TPN or Essex CC came to assume the role of censor?

Further, you had not informed us of the censoring of our site nor given us any way of appealing. UKCIA is an accountable organisation and would always be willing to address any legitimate concerns you may have with our site and contact details are shown on the site should you wish to so so.

I find this an astonishing situation given the fact that cannabis is something of a current hot political issue and has been for some years now. You have effectively prevented one side of a serious political debate from presenting their case in libraries under your control during a period when the issue was at the centre of political debate in this country.

I have contacted Secure Computing, the owners of Smartfilter (the censorware you are using) and asked them to remove UKCIA from their list, they have not done this but they have admitted a "mistake" and re-categorised the site in such a way as it will no longer be blocked in Essex. UKCIA will be available on your system from November 18th.

However this does not address the cause of the problem, the unacceptable blind blanket censorship of the whole topic of drugs which you are trying to impose.

The governments own www.talktofrank.com is quite clearly a drugs website, giving information on the purchase and use of illegal drugs and would seem to fall into the same category as UKCIA in many respects. I assume it wasn't the intention to ban Talk to Frank? Can you therefore please explain the exact nature of the ban you are attempting to impose and what its parameters and limitations are?

As a matter of interest TTF is listed as "Politics/Religion,Mature" on Smartfilters website, which as a drugs information site aimed at young people is clearly a wrong listing.

I should state that whilst your crude attempt at censorship managed to block our website as well as other major sites covering the cannabis and wider drugs debate, it totally fails to stop many of the smaller, less authoritative sites which have not been picked up by the censorware software. You are still blocking some well regarded information sites however, such as www.ecstasy.org and others.

Finally, it should be noted that this blanket censorship does not apply to schools in Essex, so whereas children can access drugs information websites, adults using the library cannot. This is clearly an illogical situation which is hard to justify. I would therefore like to ask in the strongest terms that you cease applying such crude censorship immediately and recognise that the issue of drugs - especially the issue of the legalisation of cannabis - is of major public concern and that it is important that institutions such as yours safeguard the publics' right of access to all sides of this important debate. I would suggest also that you strictly define the aims and limits of your webfiltering in future.

Please remove this blanket censorship forthwith.

Derek Williams
Webteam UKCIA
The Greenhouse
Bethel Street
Norwich
NR1 1NR

Tel 01603 773044 (office)

http://www.ukcia.org