Article...Checking out books–and pornography?
Libraries protest a new Internet filtering law
By Katy Kelly
usnews.com
It happened at the Princeton (N.J.) Public Library. Kim Perisho, 40, saw a man using a library computer to surf the Internet for pornographic images. And standing a few feet behind him was a boy, riveted by the screen. "I would guess he would have been about 12," says Perisho. "Maybe a seventh grader." For Tallie Grubenhoff, 27, it was in the children's section of the public library in Selah, Wash. Her sons, Jared, then 6, and Hunter, then 3, joined other kids looking at a computer. Later she learned they saw pictures of a man and woman engaged in oral sex.
Incidents like these persuaded Congress to pass the Children's Internet Protection Act (CIPA) in December. The law, scheduled to go into effect this month, requires schools and public libraries that take certain federal funds to equip all computers that might be used by kids with a system to block sites that are obscene or show material harmful to minors. (The communities themselves are supposed to decide what technology to use and what to block.) Supporters of the law say a free-for-all Internet policy lets kids see disturbing pictures, whether by accident or on purpose, and draws unsavory adults into libraries. But late last month, the American Library Association and the American Civil Liberties Union filed suits in U.S. District Court challenging the law on the grounds that it violates the right to free speech and discriminates against people of all ages who don't have home Internet access. Whichever side wins, an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court is expected.
Libraries have long struggled with how, when, and whether to make explicit material available. Often, they have locked it away from everyone but scholars. (From the 1800s until the 1960s, France's Bibliothèque Nationale kept forbidden books hidden in a department known as Enfer, or hell.) But with the Internet came a constantly growing body of far more explicit material than had ever been housed in public libraries. At the same time, of course, the Internet is also an extraordinary research tool–and as such, is central to their mission. "It's the libraries' responsibility to provide access to a wide range of information," says Daniel Mach, a lawyer for the ALA. "It's not the libraries' responsibility to become the parent, just as it's not their responsibility to feed or clothe children, either."
The "sexplorer." Critics also charge that filtering software is flawed. They point to imperfect services that have blocked sites about human biology, birth control, even a site about the Mars Explorer (the filter read "MarSEXplorer"). What's more, some porn sites still get through. "So what if there's only 20 million sites instead of 200 million?" says ACLU lawyer Ann Beeson. "It's all one click away anyway. And if it's there, your child is going to be able to see it." Commercial filter providers counter that technology has become much more sophisticated: Early filters looked for certain words, but "now we can view a whole site and tell if a site is pornographic or educational," says Kelly Rodnon of 8e6 Technologies, makers of the X-Stop filter.
Emily Sheketoff, executive director of the Washington, D.C., office of the ALA, says filters set up "a false sense of security." She says libraries can instead offer courses on navigating the Net and show how to make a quick exit from an unwanted site. Some libraries install screens over computers that make it harder for kids to sneak peeks. In addition, she says, "there are certainly times when a librarian will walk behind someone and say, 'That's inappropriate.' "
If they're allowed to, that is. Last year, the Minneapolis Public Library had become a mecca for men surfing for porn. "They would watch for 10 hours a day," says librarian Wendy Adamson. "It was like a club. We had people who would intentionally sit down near children" and call up porn. Playboy magazine was kept behind the desk, but staff were told "we needed to defend people's rights to access" the Internet. After local media reported the situation and library staff signed a protest letter, the library adopted an anti-porn-site policy, and the "club" disbanded.
But in many libraries, kids who are determined to see the sites will. " 'Just say no' doesn't work," says Donna Rice Hughes, author of Kids Online: Protecting Your Children in Cyberspace and a spokeswoman for filter provider FamilyClick.com. "Anytime a kid has unrestricted access, they're at risk of being exposed to pornography." Search terms like "toys, boys, girls, dolls, horse, and dogs" can bring up porn, she says. CIPA supporters note that library staff can customize a filter, open a mistakenly blocked site, or override a block at a patron's request. Sheketoff says that's an unreasonable burden. "If you're a gentleman in a small town and you have a health problem that's, maybe, a little embarrassing, you're going to have to walk up to the librarian who perhaps knows your wife and say, 'I want to look up sexual dysfunction.' " Gone are the days when all a librarian had to say was "Shhhhh!" |
