Information Technology Acts the Advancement of Information

Information Technology Acts

The advancement of information technology has generally been considered to be a good thing, but there are also problems that have been created by it. Some of these have to do with the lack of privacy, and others have to do with the protection of the most vulnerable members of society. Two acts will be discussed here: the Children's Internet Protection Act of 2000 and the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) of 1991. In both cases, the advancement of information technology created ethical issues that led to the need for the acts. When individuals and companies work to create new technology, it seems as though they often do not spend much time thinking about the possible ramifications of that technology. In some cases the technological advances are used in ways that were not expected, so the ramifications could not have been realistically seen or envisioned at the time in which the technological advance was actually created.

The Children's Internet Protection Act of 2000 came about because of the risk of children being exploited online. Teachers and schools had to agree to filter and protect their students' Internet activities in order to ensure that children would be less likely to be exposed to any kind of Internet predator. Libraries were also required to protect children that same way, and harmful content had to be banned for children under eighteen years of age (McClure & Jaeger, 2009). Schools and libraries that failed to comply with the law would not be able to get specific types of federal funding, which could seriously harm what they could offer to both children and adults. Libraries challenge the law as being unconstitutional, but the Supreme Court upheld the law (McClure & Jaeger, 2009). The reason it was challenge was based on the idea that it was blocking too much information that was protected under the constitution from too many people who had a right to see it.

By putting filters on the library (and school) computers, adults were also blocked from viewing specific sites. There were also some sites that were quite acceptable in terms of legitimate research, but were blocked because of their wording or content. Naturally, that was seen as a detriment to learning and considered a serious problem by both schools and libraries. Because the law was upheld, however, there was nothing else to be done other than enforce it if libraries and schools wanted to keep their federal funding (McClure & Jaeger, 2009). They were forced into it, and the law actually came about because of children viewing inappropriate images on school and library computers. As for what ultimately created the law from a technology standpoint, however, the answer is simple: the Internet. If it was not for the Internet itself, the law would never have come about. There would have been nothing against which children had to be protected, so there would have been no law needed. Anyone who wanted access to the information, however, would have to get it some other way. Most Internet users today cannot imagine what life would be like without Internet.

The Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) of 1991 came about because of so many unwanted calls on the telephone (Biggerstaff, 2001). Solicitors and telemarketers were calling people all the time, and they were even harassing some people - including calling them during unacceptable hours. Anyone with a telephone was at risk, because the solicitors would simply buy large banks of numbers from phone companies and other places that shared and sold information about their customers. When it came to what customers wanted, they wanted privacy and they wanted to be free from intrusions into their life from telemarketers and others to whom they did not want to talk. If it were not for the telephone itself, the law would never have been needed. The technological advance that allowed people to talk to one another via the telephone was what started people down the road of thinking that it would be a good way to advertise to others - even if the people to whom they were advertising were clearly not interested in what they had to say or what they had to sell.

The law set up times during which solicitors may not call a residence, along with a "do not call" provision that the solicitor had to honor for a minimum period of five years from the date the person requested to be placed on it (Sorkin, 1997). Autodialed calls and other ways of attempting to reach a large number of people quickly were also not acceptable in most cases, but there were certain circumstances in which prerecorded messages and autodialers could be used. However, if companies were found to be in violation of the law they could be heavily fined (Biggerstaff, 2001). They were usually only found to be in violation if they were reported by consumers who were called by them during inappropriate hours or if the calls did not stop after the person being called asked to be placed on the do not call list. Without the telephone, none of the provisions of the law would ever have been necessary. People would be solicited in other ways, such as through mailing advertisements to their homes or businesses.