Judges overrule Internet restrictions on libraries

CAPE LIBRARY 'PLEASED' ~

Southeast Missourian

The Cape Girardeau Public Library is "kind of pleased" with action taken Friday by three federal judges who ruled that public libraries cannot be forced to use Internet filters designed to block pornography.

"We felt that filtering system also blocked out information which could be used in research," said Cape Librarian Betty Martin.

The local library uses a filtering system on some children's computers, said Martin.

Friday's decision, by 3rd U.S. Circuit Judge Edward R. Becker and U.S. District judges John P. Fullam and Harvey Bartle III, overturned a new federal law, signed by President Bill Clinton in 2000, that would have required public libraries to install the filters by July 1 of 2002, or risk losing federal funding.

The law had been criticized by the American Library Association and the American Civil Liberties Union.

"Some libraries don't have the filtering system," said Martin. "It is costly to install. We'll leave the filter system in place on the children's computers. They had not been installed on the adult computers."

Most librarians have some sort of written policy in tact to protect children.

"During the eight years we've provided computer services, we have had only a few incidents where we had to ask a user to get out of a web site," said Martin.

The Children's Internet Protection Act, or CIPA, went to far, said the judges. "Any public library that adheres to CIPA conditions will restrict patrons' access to a substantial amount of protect speech in violation of the First Amendments," they ruled.

Any appeal of the decision by the judge would go directly to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Vague law

The decision was applauded by the American Library Association and the ACLU, which contended the law was unenforceable, unconstitutional, vague and overbroad. They argued it denied poor people without home computers the same access to information as their wealthier neighbors because the software could mistakenly block Web sites on issues such as breast cancer and homosexuality.

Schools and school libraries are still subject to the law, the American Library Association said.

Justice Department lawyers argued that Internet smut is so pervasive that protections are necessary to keep it away from youngsters, and that the law simply calls for libraries to use the same care in selecting online content that they use for books and magazines.

They also pointed out that libraries could turn down the federal funding if they want to provide unfiltered Web access.

David Burt, a spokesman for N2H2, a Seattle-based maker of filtering software, said that while the programs do improperly block some sites, the error-rate is low enough that libraries should be able to use them.

The Children's Internet Protection Act was the third anti-Internet-porn law brought before federal judges for constitutional challenges.

The 1996 Communications Decency Act made it a crime to put adult-oriented material online where children can find it. It was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.

The 1998 Child Online Protection Act required Web sites to collect a credit card number or other proof of age before allowing Internet users to view material deemed "harmful to minors." The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals barred enforcement of that law, saying the standards were so broad and vague that the law was probably unconstitutional.

The Supreme Court partially upheld the law in May, but did not rule on its constitutionality as a whole. It remains on hold for further action in lower courts.