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more on Supreme Court Reviews Speech And Library Pornography Fil ters
From: Dave Farber <dave () farber net>
Date: Thu, 06 Mar 2003 13:30:53 -0500
------ 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 ------ End of Forwarded Message ------------------------------------- You are subscribed as interesting-people () lists elistx com To manage your subscription, go to http://v2.listbox.com/member/?listname=ip Archives at: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/
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- more on Supreme Court Reviews Speech And Library Pornography Fil ters Dave Farber (Mar 06)