Should public libraries use filters to block obscenity and pornography on the internet?

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H QC Libraries and the Internet

Researcher

Are filters needed to block pornography?

P eople of all ages — from school kids to senior

citizens — are going to public libraries to use

the Internet. But along with vast sources of

valuable information, the Web also provides

access to X-rated material regarded as unsuitable for

youngsters. A new federal law seeks to limit minors’

access to pornography on the Internet by requiring

federally subsidized libraries to install software filters to

block Web sites with objectionable material. But the

American Library Association and the American Civil

Liberties Union say the law violates freedom of speech.

Supporters and opponents of the law disagree about

whether filters work in blocking pornography. They also

disagree about whether using library computers to view

X-rated sites is widespread or rare.

◆ WINNER, SOCIETY OF PROFESSIONAL JOURNALISTS AWARD FOR EXCELLENCE

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erJune 1, 2001 • Volume 11, No. 21 • Pages 465-488

THIS ISSUE THE ISSUES ........................... 467

BACKGROUND ..................... 474

CHRONOLOGY ..................... 475

CURRENT SITUATION ........... 479

AT ISSUE ................................ 481

OUTLOOK ............................. 483

BIBLIOGRAPHY .................... 485

THE NEXT STEP .................... 486

LIBRARIES AND THE INTERNET

466 CQ Researcher

THE ISSUES

467 • Can filtering protectchildren from objection- able materials? • Can other policies protect children from objectionable Internet materials? • Is it constitutional to require libraries to install filtering?

BACKGROUND

474 Library RightsThe library profession’s advocacy for intellectual freedom evolved gradually.

476 Freedom to ReadLibrarians have strength- ened their commitment to intellectual freedom.

478 Cyberspace BattlesLibraries are embroiled in legal battles over efforts to regulate the Internet.

CURRENT SITUATION

479 Filtering PracticesDiffering views on filtering emerged in hearings earlier this year.

480 Legal IssuesThe ALA and ACLU oppose mandatory filtering.

OUTLOOK

483 Access IssuesSupporters and opponents of filtering remain at odds over the effects of the policy on library patrons’ access to information.

SIDEBARS AND GRAPHICS

468 Most Libraries HaveInternet Connections Ninety-six percent of public library outlets are connected.

469 Blocking Software Used atFew Libraries Three-quarters of the work- stations can’t block porn.

471 Protecting KidsRecommendations from the Commission on Online Children Protection.

472 Can Computers SolvePreservation Problems? New technologies create strains on libraries as well as new opportunities.

474 Many Libraries Treat KidsLike Adults Nearly half the nation’s public libraries do not have separate Internet-use policies.

475 ChronologyKey events since 1876.

477 School Libraries FacingFilter Mandate Filtering is more widespread in schools.

481 At IssueShould public libraries use filters to block pornography?

FOR MORE INFORMATION

485 BibliographySelected sources used.

486 The Next StepAdditional articles from current periodicals.

487 Citing The CQ ResearcherSample bibliography formats.

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Cover: Young people can use computers in public libraries to get valuable information from the Internet — or to visit pornographic Web sites. (AP Photo/Mark Crosse)

June 1, 2001 467CQ on the Web: www.cq.com

BY KENNETH JOST

THE ISSUES

Libraries and the Internet

K athleen R.’s 12-year- o l d s o n B r a n d o n was spending a lot of

time at the Livermore, Ca- lif., public library, ostensi- bly working on his home- work. But when Kathleen looked inside his gym bag one day, she found some- thing besides dirty clothes: a cache of dirty pictures from pornographic Web sites.

“He was spending the whole time at the library downloading pornography and taking it to my brother’s house and printing it,” Kathleen re- calls today. “I had a fit.”

Kathleen — who shields her last name to protect her son from pub- licity — complained to the librarian, who said there was nothing she could do. So Kathleen went to court to force the library to install software filters to block sites with sexually explicit material. “I can’t have porno day in my house for the neighbor- hood kids,” she explains. “So I want to know why the library can.”

California courts rejected Kathleen’s suit, but the state legislature is now con- sidering a bill to require public libraries to install filters to block pornographic sites. “We lost the battle,” Kathleen says, “but we’re winning the war.” 1

In fact, Congress is on her side on the issue, which is roiling librarians and library boards throughout the country. A new law, approved by Congress in late December and signed by President Bill Clinton, re- quires all federally subsidized school and public libraries to install soft- ware on their computer terminals to block “visual depictions” of obscen- ity, child pornography and sexual matter deemed “harmful to minors.”

Some patrons, however, say they want no limits on Internet access from library computers. Carol Will- iams, an administrative assistant to a civil liberties organization in Phila- delphia, says her teenaged niece, Marnique Tynesha Overby, needs an unfiltered gateway to the Internet in her local public library. “With the filtering system, you put in breast cancer or sexually transmitted dis- eases, and you couldn’t possibly get to some of the sites out there,” says Williams. She points out that young people may use Web sites to find information about sexual subjects that they do not feel comfortable discuss- ing with their parents or caregivers.

Williams cannot afford a personal computer in her home, so the library’s terminals are essential to her niece, who lives with her. Williams says filtering is just wrong. “It’s censor- ship,” she concludes.

The library establishment agrees with Williams. The American Library Association (ALA) strenuously op- posed the filtering legislation as it worked its way through Congress and filed suit in federal court as it was about to take effect. The group con-

tends the measure violates the free-speech rights of libraries and library patrons.

“Filters are anathema to what we as librarians want to accomplish,” says Judith Krug, director of the ALA’s Office of Intellectual Freedom. “The best filter is the individual. Every bit of information is not appropriate for every indi- vidual, but the best person to make that decision is the in- dividual or, for children, in concert with their parents or guardians.”

Supporters of the law, how- ever, contend that the mea- sure is needed to make librar- ies safe for young people.

“This simply says the federal govern- ment is not going to subsidize getting hard-core pornography in the librar- ies,” says Bruce Taylor, president of the National Law Center for Children and Families, an anti-pornography group. Without filters, Taylor says, “the library becomes the peep show section of adult bookstores.”

The law — the Children’s Internet Protection Act or CIPA (known as CIPA, or sometimes, CHIPA) — rep- resents Congress’ third attempt in four years to limit young people’s access to sexually explicit material on the Internet. The Supreme Court struck down the first of the laws: the 1996 Communications Decency Act (CDA). Congress responded by enacting a modified Child Online Protection Act (COPA) in 1998, but federal courts have blocked that law from going into effect, too.

For libraries, the filtering issue merges a new technology that is revolutionizing access to information with a 60-year tradition of battling for intellectual freedom. 2 Computer ter- minals are now nearly universal in school and public libraries. Students who once went to the library to use

Numerous computer workstations are available at the New York Public Library’s Science, Industry and Business Library, one of four NYPL research libraries. Many of the system’s 85 branches provide computer training.

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LIBRARIES AND THE INTERNET

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books and encyclopedias to do their homework now find the information they need on the Web.

“It’s a big part of the way we provide the public access to informa- tion,” says Ginny Cooper, library director for Multnomah County, Ore., serving Portland. Her library system is the lead plaintiff in a second law- suit challenging the new law, filed by lawyers for the American Civil Liber- ties Union (ACLU).

Before the new law went into effect, only a small number of the nation’s estimated 16,000 public li- brary outlets * were using filters, according to a survey by the U.S. National Commission on Library and Information Science. The survey, completed last year, showed that about 10 percent of public libraries used blocking software on all com- puter terminals and another 15 per- cent provided blocking at some

workstations. (See graph, p. 472.) By contrast, about three-fourths of school libraries use filtering or blocking software, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.

ies,” says David Biek, manager of the main library in Tacoma, Wash.

David Burt, a former librarian in the Portland, Ore., suburb of Lake Oswego, says sentiment in support of filtering among librarians is in- creasing. “The problems have gotten so much worse as the Internet has gotten more pervasive in libraries and pornography is much more perva- sive in libraries,” he says.

As for the threat to intellectual freedom, some librarians say the ALA’s arguments are overblown. “The dogma that the ALA establishment frequently espouses is put forward as an absolute: If you touch this, every- thing else will fall,” says Donald Davis, a professor at the University of Texas Graduate School of Library and Information Science in Austin. “There is a danger of that, but it is exagger- ated.”

In addition to the legal and philo- sophical arguments, there is a prac- tical technological question: Do the filters work? Theoretically, filtering software looks through a Web site for objectionable material and blocks the site when the program finds the words or images specified by the programmer.

Critics, however, say filtering pro- grams are notoriously inaccurate in practice: They block sites that should not be blocked (“overblocking”) while sometimes failing to block sites that should be (“underblocking”). In a test of six well-known filters, Con- sumer Reports found that several failed to test certain “inappropriate” sites and that some blocked “harm- less” sites — in some cases based on what the magazine called “moral or political value judgments.” 3

But Burt, who now works for N2H2, a filtering-software company in Washington state, says the critics are off base. Other filtering compa- nies also defend their products. “Fil- ters do work; they work very well,” says Susan Getgood, a vice president

Most U.S. Libraries Have Internet Connections

Connections to the Internet increased rapidly in recent years at the nation’s 16,000 public library outlets. Today, Internet connections, and public Internet access, are almost universal in the United States.

Source: National Commission on Libraries and Information Science, “Public Libraries and the Internet 2000: Summary Findings and Data Tables,” Sept. 7, 2000.

1998 1999

84%

73%

Public Library Connections

Public Access to Internet

* The figure for library outlets includes all branches of the nation’s 8,967 library systems.

Librarians opposed to filters say they clash with their understanding of providing free and open access to information. “The major loss is the loss of First Amendment rights and the concern about people’s ability to find information freely and openly,” says Leigh Estabrook, dean of the University of Illinois Graduate School of Library and Information Science at Champaign. “It’s an enormously high price to pay concerning the funda- mental freedoms that we have.”

Librarians who support filters, however, argue that most parents do not want their children using library terminals to view sexually explicit material or being exposed to porno- graphic images on screens being viewed by other patrons. “Many people would feel uncomfortable enough to stop coming to the librar-

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of the California-based company SurfControl. “Our customers buy them and renew them year after year because they do work well.”

For the moment, the government has decided that libraries have until July 2002 to decide whether to install filters without fear of losing federal aid or federally mandated discounts for Internet services.

As librarians and library patrons continue to make greater and greater use of the Internet, here are some of the major questions being debated:

Can filtering protect children from objectionable materials on the Internet?

A commission created by Congress spent nearly two years studying ways to reduce youngsters’ access to sexu- ally explicit materials on the Internet. The report by the 18-member group called on schools and libraries to voluntarily adopt Internet-use poli- cies, but stopped short of recom- mending mandatory use of filtering software.

“No single technology or method will completely protect children from harmful material online,” Donald Telage, chairman of the commission, said in announcing the commission’s 95-page report. Filters are “hopelessly outgunned.” 4

Filtering opponents hailed the commission’s report. “We hope Con- gress sees this as a wake-up call” to reject mandatory filtering, an ACLU spokeswoman said. But some com- mission members repeated their sup- port for the legislation. “If you use federal money for the Internet, we want you to take appropriate steps to make sure that kids are safe when they’re online using our money,” said Donna Rice Hughes, vice president of the anti-pornography group Enough Is Enough.

The simplest filters block Web sites that contain designated words or phrases anywhere on the site. Critics

say this type of filter carries an inevi- table risk of “overblocking” — pre- venting access to a site about “breast” cancer, for example, or even a site about the “Mars explorer” because of the embedded three-letter sequence “s-e-x.” At the same time, opponents say, some filters fail to block Web sites with patently objectionable material (“underblocking”).

Filtering supporters, however, say newer software is finer-tuned — look- ing at entire sites, not just an isolated word or phrase — and are therefore less susceptible to inaccurate block- ing. “The modern generation of fil- ters do a very good job,” says Taylor of the National Law Center for Chil- dren and Families. And filters will get better, he says, because the new law “uses federal incentives to foster advances in filtering technology.”

“There is a small amount of error,” says Burt of N2H2. “But when we talked with schools or with libraries,

we found that’s something that they don’t encounter much. And when they do encounter it, the librarian can override it.”

Opponents of filtering are unconvinced. “Filtering software does not work,” says Margaret Dempsey, head of Chicago’s public library system. “It arbitrarily blocks words over which we have no con- trol, and it inhibits access to legiti- mate research sites.”

“Experts continue to uncover thou- sands and thousands of [blocked] sites that people could not conceivably think are unsuitable for minors,” says ACLU attorney Ann Beeson. “I’m not talking about controversial sites.”

Defending the law, Taylor stresses that it requires libraries to block access only to visual depictions — not text — that fall into three catego- ries that are already illegal.

“Libraries have responsibilities to block illegal materials: obscenity,

Few Libraries Use Blocking Software

The Internet workstations at three-quarters of the nation’s public libraries do not have software that can block the downloading of certain words or information, such as X-rated material. Only 10 percent of the libraries have blocking software at all workstations.

Blocking of Internet services on all workstations

Blocking on some workstations

No blocking

9.6%

75.5%

15%

Note: Total does not add to 100% due to rounding.

Source: National Commission on Libraries and Information Science, “Public Libraries and the Internet 2000: Summary Findings and Data Tables,” Sept. 7, 2000.

LIBRARIES AND THE INTERNET

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child pornography and material that is harmful to minors within state law,” he says.

But Teresa Chmara, a Washington lawyer representing the ALA in chal- lenging the law, says all three catego- ries require judgments that cannot be made by a computer program. “Fil- ters cannot make the legal determi- nation whether material is obscene or harmful to minors,” she says.

Burt counters, however, that li- brarians are already charged with making those kinds of judg- ments. “People who work for filtering companies can apply a standard just as readily as a librarian can,” he says.

The law includes a fail- safe provision that allows a librarian to “disable” a filter- ing program in order to give a patron access to blocked material “for bona fide re- search or other lawful pur- poses.” “Even if a filter in- advertently blocks some- thing,” says Taylor, librar- ians “have the ability to unblock it.”

But librarians and civil liberties advocates say that procedure is an unfair bur- den on library patrons’ pri- vacy. “Most adults will be too stigmatized to go ask a librarian for access to a site that has already been blocked,” Beeson says. In addition, librarians say it is unclear how they are to decide what constitutes “bona fide research” for purposes of the law.

Even if filters did work as adver- tised, many librarians believe that the law gives them a responsibility for monitoring children’s Internet usage that instead ought to lie with parents. “I am not going to become the parent in absentia,” the ALA’s Krug says. “It’s not our role. It’s not our respon-

sibility, either legally or by virtue of being a librarian.”

But Burt says libraries have always had the responsibility to select the informational materials in their col- lections. “This is a very reasonable approach to a serious problem,” Burt says, “and it’s within the traditional mission of public libraries.”

Can other policies protect children from objectionable Internet materials?

The Tacoma library uses a filtering software designed by its systems manager to block visual depictions of sexual acts or full nudity on com- puter terminals. By analyzing the logs of Internet sessions, librarians com- piled some interesting information about the extent of the use of library computers for access to sexually explicit materials.

The findings, detailed in a paper prepared for a branch of the National Academy of Sciences, show that

Tacoma library patrons made nearly 28,000 attempts to access sexually explicit materials on the Internet during the calendar year 2000. Most of those efforts — about 53 percent — were by youngsters under age 18. And three-quarters of the logged entries occurred in the late afternoon, after kids leave school but before they go home for dinner.

Librarian Biek found the numbers disturbing. “Certainly, staff at the Tacoma Public Library would not

have guessed that Internet users made nearly 28,000 at- tempts to access sexually explicit materials last year,” Biek wrote in the 17-page report. “Many young people are not making ‘good choices’ in their use of the Internet, and it is debatable whether classes and tips offered by the library will affect this.” 5

Biek’s support for filtering in libraries puts him at odds with the position of the ALA and most librarians who have joined in the public debate. They argue that a combina- tion of formal Internet poli- cies, patron education and li- brarian oversight will ad- equately control misuse of library computers by minors or adult users.

“There are all kinds of ways libraries have developed in working with their com-

munities,” says the ALA’s Krug. “Some libraries have contacts with kids, some have contacts with the kids and their parents. If libraries have poli- cies, they will say you are not follow- ing the rules.”

Librarians opposed to filtering emphasize their efforts to educate young patrons on using the Internet. “The Internet is not a very fine tool,” says Portland library director Cooper. “It’s still pretty difficult to get infor- mation there. And with kids, we feel

Marnique Tynesha Overby, 15, tells a press conference why she joined the ACLU in challenging a new federal law

requiring federally subsidized libraries to install “blocking” software on their computers. She said she relies on public

libraries for Internet access to help with homework projects on health and cultural issues.

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we have a special responsibility to help them get information that’s ap- propriate for them.”

The Chicago Public Library employs tech-savvy college and high school stu- dents as “cyber-navigators” to assist young patrons in using the Internet. The program, funded by AT&T, “has been really wonderful,” says Chicago library chief Dempsey.

Tacoma’s Biek agrees that young patrons need instruction on using the Internet, but he says training is un- likely to reduce the misuse of library terminals to view pornography. “Most of these were very obviously inten- tional acts,” Biek says, referring to the Tacoma library study. “No amount of education is going to change a person who wants to look for sexu- ally explicit materials on the Internet if that’s their intent.”

Filtering opponents suggest sev- eral other steps. Some libraries use privacy screens to block other pa- trons’ view of a user’s screen. Time limits on computer use — necessi- tated by the demand for terminals — also help control viewing of objec- tionable materials, librarians say. And most libraries, it appears, set termi-

nals in children’s areas to log onto customized home pages designed for kids with links to other age-appropri- ate sites.

But supporters of filtering say these steps are inadequate. “We had pri- vacy screens,” Burt says of his expe- rience in the Lake Oswego Library. “That seemed to encourage people. We had one man in particular who took delight in taking the privacy screen off and having women see what he was looking at.”

Supporters of filtering believe that librarians simply disagree with the goal of regulating young people’s use of the Internet in libraries. “They won’t because they don’t want to,” says Taylor of the National Law Center for Children and Families. “They have said that they think it’s their job as libraries to provide un- filtered access to the Internet to anyone, whatever age. They have said that they have no intention of providing filtering because they be- lieve it’s censorship.”

Librarians frame the issue in those terms themselves, though with a more favorable spin. “Librarians have taken the position that without limiting

adult reading material, they cannot limit reading material for children,” says Louise Robbins, director of the University of Wisconsin School of Library and Information Studies in Madison. “The librarian’s responsibil- ity is to make as much information available as possible — given the constraints of budget, space and expertise — and let citizens make decisions about what materials they need,” she says.

Is it constitutional to require libraries to install filtering?

When Congress passed the CDA five years ago making it a crime to transmit sexually explicit materials to minors across the Internet, the ACLU and the ALA challenged it in federal court as unconstitutional. As one of their arguments, the two groups contended that there was a less re- strictive way to control youngsters’ access to pornography on the Web: filters.

The Supreme Court unanimously agreed that the law violated the First Amendment. But now that Congress has passed a law requiring software filters in public and school libraries,

Protecting Kids From Web Porn

Public Education • Major education campaign by government and private

sector to promote awareness of technologies and methods to protect children online.

• Promotion of acceptable use policies by government and industry.

Consumer Empowerment • Independent evaluation of child protection technologies. • Steps by industry to improve child-protection

mechanisms and make them more accessible online. • “Broad, national, private-sector conversation” on

development of next-generation systems for labeling, rating and identifying content.

Law Enforcement • Government funding of “aggressive programs” to

investigate, prosecute and report violations of federal and state obscenity laws.

• Listing by state and federal law enforcement of Internet sources found to contain child pornography or obscenity.

• Federal rulemaking to discourage deceptive or unfair practices that entice children to view obscene materials.

Industry Action • Voluntary adoption by Internet service provider industry

of “best practices” to protect minors. • Voluntary steps by online commercial adult industry to

restrict minors’ access to adult content.

T he Commission on Online Child Protection recommended the following measures to help reduce access by minorsto sexually explicit material on the Internet:

LIBRARIES AND THE INTERNET

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the ACLU and the ALA say that it, too, is unconstitutional.

Supporters of the new law — CIPA — say that given their previous po- sition, the ACLU and ALA are being disingenuous today in attacking fil-

tering. “They waited to come out against filtering until the CDA was declared unconstitutional,” maintains Burt of N2H2. “Then, as soon as the CDA was declared unconstitutional, they turned around and said, ‘Wait.

Filters don’t work. You can’t use them in libraries.’ ”

Lawyers for the two groups insist, however, that there is no inconsis- tency between their positions in the two cases. “We don’t have a problem

Are Computers the Answer . . .

I magine reading Mark Twain’s account of a trip to France in a Western literary journal published in 1868 while sitting at your home computer rather than

standing in the dark and dusty stacks of a distant research library.

Imagine clicking on your computer and seeing a representation of Michelangelo’s famous statue of David so detailed that you could make out the sculptor’s individual chisel marks.

Imagine using your computer to microscopically examine a fragile fossil or botanical specimen held in a laboratory halfway around the globe and too delicate to be moved.

No need to imagine. Internet-linked computers already allow professional researchers or amateur scholars to access such information resources. And more digital wonders are on the way.

Soon, you may be able to whistle into a computer a few bars of a vaguely recalled musical composition and get back not only the name of the piece and the composer but also a complete account of the work and its historical and cultural background.

These 21st-century advances are redefining libraries — or “media centers,” as some have been renamed — and creating countless new opportunities for serving patrons both inside and outside of the brick-and-mortar buildings. But new technologies also create logistical and financial strains on libraries, just as many are grappling with maintaining and preserving their primary collections of printed books, journals, magazines and newspapers.

At first blush, digitization — or converting printed material to digital form — may appear to be a panacea for a host of preservation and access problems. In fact, it poses a new set of preservation problems: Computers and

word-processing systems obsolesce, disks and drives deteriorate.

“Scholars are just now becoming aware that digital media are not preservable now,” says Abby Smith, program director of the Council on Library and Information Resources, a nonprofit group that studies issues affecting libraries.

In a draft report, a 15-member task force of scholars established by the council is calling for a more compre- hensive and coordinated approach to preserving informa- tion resources from all media — including sound recordings, films and photographs. 1 Among the major recommendations: more money.

“There is no library that receives a steady stream of funding to ensure coordination of preservation of collections,” Smith explains. “Preservation is an unfunded mandate, totally unfunded.”

Library preservation issues have received unaccustomed attention over the past two months thanks to the publi- cation of a controversial book sharply critical of how many libraries handle old print collections, including the Library of Congress. In his

book Double Fold, novelist Nicholson Baker contends that out of an exaggerated fear of disintegrating newsprint and paper, many libraries have dismantled their collections of books and old newspapers — microfilming them at considerable expense and then trashing the originals to save space and storage costs. 2

Baker was sufficiently concerned to use foundation grants and $26,000 of his own money to buy a trove of old U.S. newspaper collections that the British Museum was about to auction off. For now, he is storing the newspapers in a former textile mill in New Hampshire renamed the American Newspaper Repository.

Rare books and manuscripts can now be viewed on a digital book at the National Institutes of Health’s

National Library of Medicine in Rockville, Md.

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with blocking programs being avail- able in libraries as an option for patrons who want to use them,” the ACLU’s Beeson says. “And certainly the use of these programs in the home doesn’t present any constitu-

tional problem, which is very differ- ent from using them in a library.”

“It’s the same problem,” Beeson says of the two cases. “The govern- ment can’t act as a censor on the Internet, whether it’s by imposing

criminal penalties or by restricting access in libraries.”

The constitutional debate over CIPA turns on the question of how far Congress can go to limit the ac- cess of minors to sexually explicit

. . . To Libraries’ Preservation Problems? Librarians are as critical of Baker as he is of them.

“They feel he’s impugned the profession, and to a large extent he does,” Smith says. She calls Baker’s argument “one-sided,” adding, “He appears not to have a grasp of the understanding of the economics of the situation.”

Baker warns that digiti- zation may lead to “a new wave of book wastage and mutilation” and argues that digital preservation is more costly and less permanent than technophiles seem to suggest. “Digital storage, with its eternally morphing and data-orphaning formats, . . . is not now an accepted archival storage medium,” he writes.

Stephen Griffin, director of the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) digital libraries initiative, acknow- ledges the difficulty. “There are all sorts of problems with electronic media,” he says. “Your disk drives disintegrate. The software used to decipher what you wrote with your first word processor may be hard to come by.”

“I don’t think that digital technologies alone are a cure-all for printed materials, at least not yet,” Griffin concludes.

The NSF initiative is sponsoring an array of projects to make better use of computer technology in accessing and analyzing information resources. “We’re trying to make the best possible use of the Internet as a scholarly resource for the social good,” Griffin explains. “We feel we can do that by funding projects that place very high-quality

content on the Internet and that develop new technologies for helping to locate and to make that content available to users for a whole variety of purposes.”

One of the NSF-funded projects is aimed at improving search capabilities, Griffin says. Search engines based on recognition of words or phras- es are “inherently limited,” he explains. The solution is to permit searches for broader concepts by tagging texts — for example, marking all references to “political reform” or “poverty.” In similar vein, another project is aimed at making computer-based video collections searchable.

Some initiatives are already bearing fruit. In a project funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the University of Michigan has put online a collection of 19th-century Americana en- compassing 8,500 books and 50,000 journal articles. Smith says the online collection is far more accessible than the printed volumes — which the university did preserve.

“They were in secondary storage for years, never re- quested,” Smith says. “And now they have 9,000 hits per week.”

1 Council on Library and Information Resources, “The Evidence in Hand: The Report of

the Task Force on the Artifact in Library Collections,” March 2001 (www.clir.org).

2 Nicholson Baker, Double Fold: Libraries and the Assault on Paper, 2001. For reviews, see New York Times Book Review, April 15, 2001, p. 8; New York Review of Books, April 26, 2001, p. 16.

The Digital Archaeological Archive of Chesapeake Slavery depicts artifacts and digital images from Monticello and

20 other slave-quarter sites in the Chesapeake Bay region.

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Continued on p. 476

materials without violating young- sters’ free-speech rights or abridging adults’ access to materials that are not legally obscene. Obscenity and child pornography are illegal under federal and state laws, but the stan- dard for proving obscenity is difficult for prosecutors to meet.

However, the Supreme Court has given lawmakers some discretion to control youngsters’ access to sexual material that is not legally obscene. In 1968, it upheld a New York law prohibiting the sale of adult maga- zines to anyone under 17 if the material was “harmful to minors.” 6

Since then, the high court has re- peatedly said that protecting chil- dren from indecency is a compel- ling governmental interest that can justify restrictions that would violate the First Amendment if applied to adults.

On the other hand, the court has ruled that regulations to protect mi- nors from indecency cannot be sus- tained if they limit the availability of non-obscene materials for adults. In one such case, the court struck down part of a “dial-a-porn” law that pro- hibited commercial telephone mes- sages with either obscene or inde- cent communications. 7

Lawyers attacking CIPA say the law runs afoul of that principle. “It’s pretty clearly unconstitutional in that it’s requiring libraries to make a choice by giving up funding or using filtering mechanisms that plainly block adults from having access to materials that are plainly protected,” says Chmara, the ALA’s lawyer.

CIPA supporters say that it merely requires libraries to filter already-ille- gal material. “I can’t imagine the Su- preme Court telling libraries that they can’t block obscenity and child porn from computers,” Burt says. And even if filters block access to some non- obscene material, supporters say the law solves the problem by giving adults a right to ask librarians to unblock the sites.

Opponents of the law insist that the likelihood of legitimate Web sites being blocked is greater than supporters ac- knowledge. And they say that forcing library patrons to ask a librarian for access to sites with sexual information is itself unconstitutional. “There’s a long line of Supreme Court decisions that say you can’t force adults to ask for permission to access protected speech,” the ACLU’s Beeson says.

So far, only one court has ruled directly on the use of filtering. In

November 1998, a federal judge in Virginia struck down a filtering policy adopted by the Loudoun County public library. As one of her reasons, Judge Leonie Brinkema said there was insufficient evidence that view- ing pornography on library terminals was a serious problem. 8

Supporters and opponents of the law disagree sharply on that point. “Pornography is becoming a staple in one library after another,” says Janet LaRue, a lawyer with the conserva- tive Family Research Council.

But librarians say the instances of misuse are relatively few. “We feel patrons use the Internet responsibly,” says Dempsey in Chicago. “We don’t feel there’s any problem with rampant misuse of the Internet for objection- able material.”

BACKGROUND Library Rights

T he library profession’s advocacyfor intellectual freedom evolved gradually through the 20th century after an earlier period when librar- ians consciously acted as moral cen- sors and arbiters of good taste. 9 The critical turning point came in 1939 w i t h t h e A m e r i c a n L i b r a r y Association’s adoption of the “Library Bill of Rights.” The three-paragraph charter called on public libraries to select books on the basis of their “value and interest” without regard to the race, nationality or political or religious views of the authors and to represent all opinions “fairly and adequately.”

In their first half-century — after the founding of the nation’s first public library in Boston in 1854 —

Many Libraries Treat Kids Like Adults

Most of the nation’s public libraries have policies on acceptable computer use. About half have different policies for adults and children.

Have acceptable-use policy 95.5%

Differentiate 46.3% between young and adult users

Internet Policies at Public Libraries

Source: National Commission on Libraries and Information Science, “Public Libraries and the Internet 2000: Summary Findings and Data Tables,” Sept. 7, 2000.

June 1, 2001 475CQ on the Web: www.cq.com

Chronology

•

Before 1900 First public libraries established in United States; librarians view role as moral censors.

1876 American Library Association (ALA) founded; for several decades, ALA leaders exhort librarians to seek to elevate public literary tastes.

1901-1950 ALA gradually moves toward advocating “freedom to read.”

•

1920s-1940s Censorship battles are fought over “subversive” literature.

1939 ALA adopts “Library Bill of Rights” amid censorship battles over The Grapes of Wrath; establishes Committee on Intel- lectual Freedom one year later.

1948 Library Bill of Rights amended to call for active steps to oppose censorship and enlist support of other groups.

•

1950s-1960s Censorship fights persist over “subversive” literature, racial issues.

1951 ALA challenges loyalty oaths for librarians; also amends Bill of Rights to cover films, other non- print media.

1961 ALA backs integration of public libraries; also files friend of the court brief defending bookseller in Tropic of Cancer case.

1967 ALA establishes permanent Office of Intellectual Freedom; amends Bill of Rights to guaran- tee access without regard to age.

•

1970s-1980s Censorship battles continue.

1970 Freedom to Read Foundation established as ALA’s litigation arm.

1982 Supreme Court says school libraries can exclude books for “educational unsuitability,” but cannot remove books on political grounds.

•

1990s Congress seeks to limit sexually explicit mate- rial on the Internet, but is rebuffed in court challenges.

1996 Communications Decency Act (CDA) makes it a crime to transmit “indecency” on the Internet to youngsters under 18

1997 U.S. Supreme Court unanimously strikes down CDA.

1998 Child Online Protection Act (COPA) criminalizes commercial transmission of “harmful to minors”

material; federal courts later block law from going into effect.

1998 Federal judge in Virginia bars filtering in Loudoun County case; ruling is not appealed.

•

2000s Congress man- dates filtering at libraries; library groups, patrons chal- lenge law as unconstitutional.

March 2000 Filtering advocates publish report documenting use of computers in public libraries to access pornography on the Internet; state appeals court in California rules taxpayers cannot force libraries to install filters.

October 2000 Congressional commission calls for education, self-regulation to guide Internet use in libraries; takes no position on mandatory filtering.

December 2000 President Bill Clinton signs Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA), requiring federally subsidized public or school libraries to use filtering software to prevent children from access- ing Internet pornography.

March 2001 ALA, ACLU challenge CIPA in federal court on behalf of libraries, library patrons and organizations with Web sites; hearing before three-judge court set for July 23.

May 2001 Supreme Court agrees to hear government’s effort to reinstate COPA.

•

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476 CQ Researcher

Continued from p. 474

the mission of free libraries was making books more readily available to people of limited means. The li- brarian and author Evelyn Geller writes in her history of this period that public libraries “were established in opposition not to censorship but to privilege.” 10 Along with this mis- sion went a corollary effort to lift the reading tastes of the masses and to protect them from “bad” literature.

Toward that end, many libraries ei- ther excluded or restricted access to books dealing with sexual subjects — literary classics as well as popular en- tertainment. They also weeded out other popular reading, such as the Pinkerton crime novels or books with what they considered untoward moral messages — including Horatio Alger’s popular novels of boys rising over ad- versity and Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer. “As the library’s audience becomes larger,” ALA Presi- dent Arthur Bostwick declared in a 1908

speech, “the duty of sifting its material becomes more imperative.”

There were countercurrents to this censorial attitude, even in the 19th century. The trustees of the Boston Public Library resisted public pres- sure to purge the shelves of “all objectionable matter” in the 1880s — and gained partial backing from the city’s newspapers. “Nobody is forced to read what he does not wish to read,” the Sunday Herald declared in an editorial. A few years later, San Francisco experienced a similar fight.

By the early 1900s, Geller writes, librarians advocating censorship were “increasingly on the defensive.” The 1926 ALA catalog included some au- thors previously blacklisted, such as Oscar Wilde. But it still excluded such sexually themed works as Lady Chatterly’s Lover and some politically controversial books, both fiction and non-fiction.

Political disputes first drew the ALA into resisting censorship. In 1929, the association unsuccessfully opposed a ban on importation of “seditious” literature. Five years later, the ALA made its first protest against the banning of a specific publication: a pamphlet entitled You and Machines, which had been prepared for use in Civilian Conservation Corps camps. The camps’ director refused to circu- late the pamphlet, saying that it might induce a desire to destroy existing political and economic structures. In a letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt, ALA leaders called the censorship “unthinkable.”

With freedom of speech under attack because of widespread De- pression-era political agitation, the librarians’ development of an anti- censorship ethos first found full voice from a librarian in the country’s heartland. Forrest Spaulding, head of the Des Moines Public Library, wrote a bill of rights for libraries that was adopted by the library’s trustees in November 1938. In early 1939, the

Library Bill of Rights was published in library journals and was adopted with minor modifications by the ALA’s governing council in June. Its three provisions opposed censoring books because of the author’s political or religious beliefs, pledged to repre- sent all opinions “as far as available material permits” and called for li- brary meeting rooms to be available to people “on equal terms . . . regard- less of their beliefs or affiliations.”

That same year, the association had the chance to join battle over efforts to ban John Steinbeck’s con- troversial novel The Grapes of Wrath. The portrait of harsh working condi- tions faced by migrant agricultural workers in California provoked a rash of bannings. The ALA responded indirectly by asking Spaulding to study current censorship and recom- mend a policy. At its next annual meeting, the ALA in May 1940 adopted Spaulding’s recommendation to create a permanent committee — verbosely named the Committee on Intellectual Freedom to Safeguard the Rights of Library Users to Freedom of Inquiry. Eight years later, the name was shortened: the Committee on Intellectual Freedom.

Freedom to Read

L ibrarians have strengthened theircommitment to defense of intel- lectual freedom in the six decades since the ALA adopted the Library Bill of Rights. In 1967, the ALA forti- fied the effort by creating an Office of Intellectual Freedom and a litiga- tion arm, the Freedom to Read Foun- dation, in 1970. For their part, rank- and-file librarians gradually came to share the organization’s commitment to intellectual freedom as what the University of Wisconsin’s Robbins calls “the credo of librarianship.” 11

Urban Libraries Have the Most Workstations

The nation’s public libraries have an average of eight Internet workstations per library; libraries in cities have 17 stations, on average.

Source: National Commission on Libraries and Information Science, “Public Libraries and the Internet 2000: Summary Findings and Data Tables,” Sept. 7, 2000.

No. of Internet Stations

Rural 5

Suburban 9

Urban 17

June 1, 2001 477CQ on the Web: www.cq.com

In 1948, the ALA took another step strengthening its position, when it amended the Library Bill of Rights to include a proactive anti-censorship provision. It stated that libraries must challenge book censorship — whether advocated by “volunteer arbiters of morals or political opin- ion” or by “organizations that would establish a coercive concept of Ameri- canism.” It also called on libraries to enlist support from science, educa- tion and book publishing groups to help resist “all abridgement of free access to ideas.”

In the early years of the Cold War, the ALA opposed requiring loyalty

oaths for librarians and labeling materials deemed “subversive.” In response to efforts to suppress left- leaning films, the association in 1951 also amended the Bill of Rights to cover “all materials and media of communications used or collected by libraries.”

The profession’s fortified position on access to controversial titles was seen in the differing responses to the publication of two sexually themed works more than a decade apart. When Alfred Kinsey’s Sexual Behav- ior in the Human Male was pub- lished in 1948, many librarians al- lowed circulation only to specified

types of patrons. “What God-given faculty has the librarian to determine who are the ‘wrong people’ to read Kinsey?” an ALA leader complained.

By contrast, after Tropic of Cancer was published in the U.S. in 1961, the ALA filed a friend-of-the-court brief in defense of a California bookseller convicted under that state’s obscen- ity law for selling the book. The conviction was overturned.

The civil rights era raised new intellectual freedom issues for librar- ies. In 1960, with segregated public libraries still existing in parts of the South, the ALA’s board declared its support for non-discrimination but

School Libraries Facing Filter Mandate

M ost school libraries use filters on computers to block access to some sexual material on the Internet. And, for now at least, there are no legal

challenges to the new law mandating filters in schools receiving federally subsidized rates for Internet connections.

Lawsuits filed by the American Library Association (ALA) and the American Civil Liberties Union against the new law — the Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA) — apply only to the provisions affecting federally assisted public libraries. In a disappointment to many school librarians, the ALA concluded that it had no standing to represent schools in challenging the law.

“School library centers do not receive federal funds,” explains Harriet Selverstone, a high school librarian in Norwalk, Conn., and president of the American Association of School Libraries, a division of the ALA. “The funds are sent to school districts.”

Some school groups — including the National School Boards Association and the National Education Association (NEA), the largest teachers union — opposed the mandatory filtering proposal as it moved through Congress. Even so, filtering is more widespread in schools than in public libraries.

A survey of School Library Journal subscribers last year found that 53 percent of respondents said filtering was used at their schools. 1 More recently, a U.S. Department of Education survey indicated that 74 percent of schools were using filtering software. 2 Among public libraries, only 25 percent use filtering: 10 percent use it on all terminals and another 15 percent use it on some.

Many schools using filtering seem satisfied with their experience. “It does protect [students] from a lot of crummy stuff, and it doesn’t prevent them from getting to what

they need to do,” says Deborah Arlington, manager of e- mail and Web services for a regional agency serving 110 school districts in western New York. She says about 70 of the state’s school districts use filters, including the largest: Buffalo.

The New York City school system has been using filters since 1999. Last month, when the Board of Education held a hearing on Internet-use policies, none of the witnesses discussed filtering, a spokeswoman said.

But in Connecticut, Selverstone says her school does not use filters and she opposes them. “I work with students who are dealing with a myriad of topics, and they would not be able to access the information if we had filters,” she says.

A legal ruling against the public library provisions of the law might cast doubt on the school-related provision. But schools may have a weaker case to challenge the law because they function in part as surrogate parents, and because they have broader discretion to control information for students than libraries have for patrons.

In any event, an NEA spokeswoman says she is not aware of any plans to challenge the law on behalf of schools. And even without the law, school boards and administrators may elect to keep filters or install them where they are not already in use.

But tech-savvy students may outwit whatever filters are installed. “Kids are so smart, they override filters,” says Selverstone. “Students are very adept technologically.”

1 See School Library Journal, Jan. 1, 2001. The results reflected returns from 465 school library subscribers out of a sample of 2,000 — a lower than normal return rate, the magazine noted. 2 National Center for Education Statistics, May 2001. Results were based on 1,104 returned questionnaires from a sample of 1,218 schools, a 91 percent return rate.

LIBRARIES AND THE INTERNET

478 CQ Researcher

added that it would not “intrude on local jurisdiction.” However, after study by a special committee, the ALA adopted a more forthright posi- tion in early 1961: It advocated inte- gration of libraries. “The rights of an individual to the use of a library should not be denied or abridged because of his race, religion, national origins or political views,” the new Bill of Rights provision read.

In another expansion of the Bill of Rights, the ALA in 1967 moved to protect young people’s access to information by stipulating that the use of a library should not be limited be- cause of age. The move fol- lowed a conference on “In- tellectual Freedom and the Teenager,” jointly sponsored by the ALA’s young adult ser- vices division and the Ameri- can Association of School Li- brarians. Speakers unani- mously emphasized the need for young people to have un- limited opportunity to ex- plore issues of concern. Geller, writing in Library Journal, noted that the con- ference failed to deal with the issue of parental control of children’s reading.

Librarians’ actual practices, however, appeared to lag be- hind the Bill of Rights’ rheto- ric. A study by a California researcher, Marjorie Fiske, in 1958 reported that even though most librarians ex- pressed “unequivocal free- dom-to-read convictions,” nearly two-thirds of those in- volved in book selection reported instances in which the controversial nature of a book or author resulted in a decision not to buy.

But the intellectual-freedom ma- chinery established by the ALA at the end of the ’60s helped fortify librar- ians’ resistance to censorship. “The

support system has helped librarians who have had materials challenged,” the University of Wisconsin’s Robbins says.

The ALA’s Krug says the court record in censorship disputes is ben- eficial for librarians, even though the ALA generally relies on others to carry on the litigation. In the most impor- tant ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court turned aside an effort by outside groups to bar a list of controversial titles at a school library in Island Trees, N.Y. In a 5-4 ruling, the court

in 1982 said school libraries cannot remove books on political grounds, though they can select books based on “educational unsuitability.” 12

“A lot of these [disputes] don’t wind up in court judgments,” adds Robert Peck, a lawyer and former president of the Freedom to Read Foundation.

“More often than not, we provide legal advice and assistance, and the situation gets resolved.”

Cyberspace Battles

T he Internet opened up vast, newinformation resources for librar- ies and library patrons. But the pros- pect of children’s easy access to sexu- ally explicit material alarmed many

parents — and some librar- ians — and embroiled librar- ies in the legal battles over efforts to regulate the Net. The ALA joined other First Amendment advocates in successfully challenging Congress’ first attempt to limit the availability of sexual material to youngsters on the Internet while also resisting calls for use of filtering soft- ware to control access in li- braries. 13

The CDA, signed into law in February 1996 as part of a broader telecommunications reform act, made it a federal crime to transmit online any “indecent” material to a per- son known to be under 18 or to display “patently offensive” material “in a manner avail- able” to a person under 18. The law was immediately challenged in companion cases — one filed by the ACLU and the other by the ALA and the Freedom to Read Foundation, along with

online companies, booksellers, pub- lishers, and others.

A little over a year later, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled the law unconstitutional. 14 The court ac- knowledged the legitimacy of the goal of protecting children from harmful materials, but concluded that

The Boston Public Library

uses software filters on all

computers in children’s

sections, but not on other PCs.

The policy also allows children

under 16 to use unfiltered

terminals, but only with

parental permission. “The key

for us is permitting the parent

to have [a] choice, to make

that judgment for children.”

— Bernard Margolis, Library President

June 1, 2001 479CQ on the Web: www.cq.com

the CDA’s broad reach “effectively suppresses a large amount” of con- stitutionally protected speech for adults. Writing for the court, Justice John Paul Stevens also said that Internet users “seldom” encounter sexual material accidentally. And he also noted that one less-restrictive regulation would be to “tag” sexually explicit material so parents could use filtering software to control their children’s access on computers in their homes.

Congress responded by approving the narrower COPA law in 1998, which seeks to ban commercial online transmission of material “harm- ful to minors.” Again, the ACLU led a coalition of free-speech advocates challenging the law’s constitutional- ity. (The Freedom to Read Founda- tion joined a friend-of-the-court brief urging that the law be struck down.) A federal court judge in Philadelphia blocked implementation of the law in February 1999 on the ground that the defenses permitted for online publishers — credit card or age veri- fication — were inadequate.

The Third U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld that ruling in June 2000, but on a different basis. It ruled that the use of local community stan- dards in applying the “harmful to minors” provision was too restrictive on the Internet because online pub- lishers have no way to tailor their sites to particular locales. The Su- preme Court agreed on May 21 to the government’s request to review the ruling. 15

Meanwhile, the filtering controversy was finding its way into the court sys- tem. The library trustees for Loudoun County, Va. — a fast-growing exurban jurisdiction near Washington — adopted a mandatory-filtering policy for all computers in 1997. Under the policy, all library computers were to be equipped with software to block any sites displaying material deemed harm- ful to minors.

The effectiveness of the software used by the library — known as X- Stop — was one of the issues in a federal suit challenging the policy. Publishers of three Web sites — Safer Sex Page, Books for Gay and Lesbian Teens/Youth and Renaissance Transgender Association — estab- lished that their sites were blocked at least for a time even though they included no prohibited material. The library board, defending the policy, maintained that the software worked well and that bugs were worked out later.

In a thoroughgoing ruling, how- ever, Judge Brinkema in November 1998 rejected the defense of the policy, point by point. A former li- brarian herself, Brinkema found that the complaints offered as evidence — one incident in another Virginia library and three other reported in- cidents from around the country — were “insufficient” to show that the policy was “reasonably necessary.”

In any event, Brinkema said, the library could use less restrictive means to limit children’s access — including privacy screens, monitor- ing of Internet use or filtering soft- ware. Moreover, she said filtering was legally defective because the library did not know what standards the software manufacturer was using to block sites, and a Web site publisher had no procedural safeguards to contest a blocking decision. The policy, the judge concluded, “offends the guarantee of free speech in the First Amendment and is, therefore, unconstitutional.” 16

Despite the judicial setback, con- gressional supporters of filtering began pushing legislation at the start of a new Congress in 1999 to man- date use of the software in any schools or public libraries that re- ceive federal funds or federally man- dated discounts for Internet services. The House and the Senate both approved versions of the legislation

last year as amendments to the mam- moth appropriations bill for the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services and Education.

“We need to ensure that pervasive obscene and violent material is screened out and that our children are protected,” Sen. John McCain, R- Ariz., a cosponsor of the Senate version, declared.

The Clinton administration had opposed the provision, calling in- stead for a softer measure to require libraries to adopt Internet use poli- cies. Rather than send the entire spending bill back to Congress, how- ever, Clinton signed it into law with the library-filtering mandate. Lawyers for the ACLU promptly said they would challenge the law. “This is a mandated censorship system by the federal government,” ACLU attorney Christopher Hansen said. 17

A month later, the ALA’s executive board also voted unanimously to challenge the law. “No filtering soft- ware successfully differentiates con- stitutionally protected speech from illegal speech,” the ALA said in a news release. Filters “are not effec- tive in blocking all content that some may find objectionable, but they do block much useful and constitution- ally protected information.” 18

CURRENT SITUATION

Filtering Practices

T he Boston Public Library — thenation’s oldest — uses software filters on all computer terminals in children’s sections, but not on other

LIBRARIES AND THE INTERNET

480 CQ Researcher

Continued on p. 482

PCs. Adopted four years ago, the policy also allows children under 16 to use terminals with unfiltered ac- cess, but only with parental permis- sion.

The policy gives a “healthy re- spect” both to parental responsibility and to the First Amendment, accord- ing to the library’s president, Bernard Margolis. “The key for us is permit- ting the parent to have that choice, to make that judgment for children,” he says.

Margolis likens Boston’s policy to that of the Multnomah County library in Oregon. But the policies actually are different, says library director Cooper in Portland.

Children’s terminals in Multnomah County libraries are set with age- appropriate home pages and links, Cooper explains, but a youngster can gain access to any site by typing in the necessary address. “We’ve made the decision not to limit children’s access,” he says.

The differing views on the filtering issue within the library community also emerged in testimony before a congressional subcommittee earlier this year. Two librarians testifying on April 4 before the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Tele- communications and the Internet disagreed about the need for filtering or the wisdom of the federal law mandating the practice.

“CIPA will have a devastating impact on the ability of all library users to access valuable constitution- ally protected material,” Carolyn Caywood, a branch librarian in Vir- ginia Beach, Va., told the subcommit- tee. She said the Virginia Beach li- brary uses filters on terminals set aside for children’s use but also al- lows youngsters to use terminals with unfiltered access.

But Laura Morgan, a reference li- brarian from Chicago, sharply criti- cized her system’s opposition to fil- tering. “The easy availability of por-

nography on the Internet at the Chi- cago Public Library and in libraries across the nation has great potential for negatively affecting the staff, patrons (especially children) and the overall environment,” Morgan said.

She became concerned about the issue when colleagues from the children’s section told her that young- sters were “occasionally” accessing pornographic and violent Web sites on library computers. She also con- tended that “porn surfers” were cre- ating a sexually hostile environment for female patrons and staff mem- bers.

Librarians at the Minneapolis Pub- lic Library have filed a complaint with the federal Equal Employment Op- portunity Commission (EEOC) con- tending that they are subjected to a sexually hostile work environment by exposure to Internet pornogra- phy. The agency issued a finding of probable cause on May 24 and in- vited the librarians and library system to join it in trying to reconcile the dispute. An earlier attempt at media- tion failed. The librarians said that time limits and ID requirements adopted by the library system were inadequate. 19

In Tacoma, librarian Biek says he thinks the atmosphere in the system’s libraries would be “disruptive” with- out filtering. “A number of libraries here in western Washington have had incidents of looking at kiddie porn,” Biek says. He says he is not aware of any complaints that Tacoma’s policy is too restrictive.

Cooper acknowledges receiving a few complaints about the lack of fil- tering in the Multnomah County sys- tem. “There are people who are very concerned about what kids, espe- cially, might inadvertently see,” she says. But she suspects many of the complaints come from non-library users. “We get way more complaints that we only allow people one hour a day on the computer,” she adds.

In Boston, Margolis says he has personally received no complaints about the policy of filtering for chil- dren. He recalled one mother who told him that the policy gave her “added assurance” about allowing her children to use the library.

At the same time, he recalls, a mother who had given her teenage son permission to use unfiltered ac- cess was “amazed” at the kind of sexual material her son could access on the Internet. “But she also said that she would not change that,” Margolis says.

Despite its use of filtering, the Boston Public Library is not a party to the lawsuits challenging CIPA. However, Margolis hopes the law is struck down. “I don’t think the fed- eral government should be intruding on our ability to deliver appropriate service,” Margolis says. “This is more red tape [and] bureaucracy. And the policy and practice that we’ve had for over four years is working just fine.”

Legal Issues

T he ALA and the ACLU are mount-ing a broad legal assault against the mandatory filtering law, contend- ing that it violates a half-dozen es- tablished free-speech principles. 20

The government has yet to file its first pleading in the case, but sup- porters of CIPA continue to defend its constitutionality.

For the moment, the government says it will not try to enforce the penalty provisions of the law before July 1, 2002. Meanwhile, school and public libraries are expected to com- ply with other provisions of the law, requiring the adoption of Internet- use policies and considering filtering options. With the government’s deci-