more on Supreme Court Reviews Speech And Library Pornography Fil ters

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

------ Forwarded Message
From: "Hitchens, Ralph" <Ralph.Hitchens () hq doe gov>
Date: Thu, 06 Mar 2003 08:41:51 -0500
To: "'dave () farber net'" <dave () farber net>
Subject: RE: [IP] Supreme Court Reviews Speech And Library Pornography Fil
ters

Dave -- 

As a former member of the Montgomery County (MD) Library Board who was
involved with the issue of implementing filters on Internet-accessible
library computers, I'd like to respond.  With all due respect, Mr.
Frankston's e-mail reeked of the sort of condescending, detached, academic
analysis that presupposes a divide between the common people and the
educated elite -- of course "these people" don't understand anything; how
could they?  We, on the other hand.....

My advice is to get down in the trenches, visit a public library, and talk
not to the librarians but to the parents.  Most of us aren't interested in
burning books, but we wonder why the sort of objectionable material that
would never be considered by any public library for acqusition in hard copy
must be allowed in through the "back door" represented by the Internet, with
the preposterous notion that if we fail to do so we are endorsing
censorship.  

I realize that commercially-available filters are far from perfect, but I do
think that 1) they're undoubtedly getting better (as are search engines),
and 2) the perfect is enemy of the good enough.  My county library system
elected to install filters on the computers in the children's sections of
our libraries only, while exploring the use of privacy screens and other
solutions for the unfiltered computers available to the general population.
Anyone -- even a minor -- can use one of the unfiltered computers if they so
desire.  I think this is a fairly responsible and constructive approach,
although it falls short of satisfying the the zero-sum anti-censorship
activists.  The latter remind me of second amendment zealots who see even
the mildest constraint on gun ownership as stepping onto a "slippery slope."

Ralph Hitchens 
Poolesville, MD 

------ End of Forwarded Message

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