On this page are the assignments for Thursday of Week Four. 

DEADLINES: You should have your assignments completed by Monday, June 14, at 7 p.m.

Specialized Tools -- and Ambush on the Internet

As you increase your understanding of Internet research, you will find that search engines sometimes are too broad and unwieldy for your research needs. You may simply want to check the credentials of a particular expert. You may need a mailing address. You may need a map.

More specialized tools might be better resources. These include people finders, yellow pages, mapping tools and document finders. We will look at a number of these resources.

1) I would like you to read another brief presentation I've prepared that gives you information about specialized tools.

4-Specialized

Please then send me an email that discusses what you learned from the presentation.

2) AMBUSH ON THE INTERNET

For our Discussion Board, I would like us to consider a very difficult issue taken from headlines of the past months. It involves an anti-abortion web site known as the Nuremberg Files. The web site has been embroiled in deep controversy. It shows pictures of aborted fetuses. More controversial: It posts names, home addresses and photographs of doctors who perform abortions. It gives the doctors' work schedules. It provides a checklist of doctors who have been injured or killed.

Doctors and clinics said the site was an incitement and invitation to murder. Events came to a head when a Buffalo, N.Y. doctor was killed by a sniper. Within 15 minutes of the killing, the doctor's murder was checked off on the web site. Doctors and clinics sued the web site.

The case to close down the web site has been on trial for years. Other sites now publish photos of women who visit abortion or family planning centers. The Nuremberg files site itself has been closed down by two different Internet providers. It opens and closes under different names. In one of the bizarre happenstances of life online, the URL www.nurembergfiles.com takes you to a pornography site.

The struggle between pro-choice and pro-life forces has been going on for years. What's of primary interest to this class is the influence of the Internet. Such global "publication" would not have been possible before the Internet. Should publication be allowed for such purposes.

3) Your job: Do a Google search on the Nuremberg Files. Visit some sites. Be prepared for some disturbing images and language. I want you to send me an email message that discusses the sites you saw. This is your only outside reading for this day so let yourself wander far and wide on the Internet.

4) Then please go to our online discussion area at http://bb.lehigh.edu and talk about what you found. And let's talk about whether you think the Nuremberg Files should be permitted on the Web. Do the creators of the web site have the right to free expression? When is "hate speech" protected? When does it cross the line?

If you have any questions, just email me at jack.lule@lehigh.edu.

Return to Jour 198 Home Page