more on Supreme Court Reviews Speech And Library Pornography Fil ters

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

------ Forwarded Message
From: Jonathan Weinberg <weinberg () mail msen com>
Date: Thu, 06 Mar 2003 13:24:56 -0500 (EST)
To: Dave Farber <dave () farber net>
Cc: "Hitchens, Ralph" <Ralph.Hitchens () hq doe gov>
Subject: Re: [IP] more on Supreme Court Reviews Speech And Library
Pornography Fil ters

Dave --

    The Montgomery County approach that Mr. Hitchens describes is
illegal under CIPA (the statute challenged in this case), so long as the
Montgomery County Library System receives funds under the Museum and
Library Services Act or discounts under the e-rate program.  The statute
mandates that libraries install software filters on *all* computers with
Internet access, even those used only by adults (indeed, even those used
only by staff), and that these filters protect against access to obscene
materials and child pornography.  The filtering companies don't have
categories corresponding to "obscenity" or "child pornography," so in
practice the only way to comply with the statute is to set the filter on
*all* library computers to block at least the set of sites that Cyber
Patrol, say, designates as "Adult/Sexually Explicit."

    The fact that the Montgomery County library's policy isn't
consistent with CIPA isn't a problem now, since the lower court stopped
the government from enforcing the statute.  (The policy *is* consistent
with the lower-court opinon striking CIPA down.)  But if the Supreme Court
upholds CIPA, then the library board will need to adopt a new policy.

Jon


Jonathan Weinberg
Professor of Law, Wayne State University
weinberg () msen com


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