Ruling on porn filtering in libraries makes common sense
Blog: Common Ground
April 19, 2012
This week, I had the opportunity to sit down with North Central Regional Library director Dean Marney to talk about the landmark federal court case that the library just won that allows them to continue filtering pornography.
Marney, who has been director for 15 years, said the decision to filter out porn was an easy one to make. Many of the programs at the library are aimed at children and he said he felt a responsibility not only to them but also to his employees who would be exposed.
They visited other libraries where filters were not in use and concluded that it created a hostile and inappropriate atmosphere for all concerned, he told me in a video interview that is posted on our web site. The American Civil Liberties Union, which actively tries to ensure that individual freedoms aren't trampled on in this country, sought to force the library to remove the filters. They asserted a First Amendment argument that individuals ought to be able to use public resources like library computers to view Constitutionally-protected material. Keeping pornography out by the use of an Internet filter, so the argument goes, restricts freedom and should therefore not be allowed.
Although I am an ardent and vocal proponent for the First Amendment, I cannot come up with a single reasonable argument for requiring public libraries to allow individuals to watch pornography. Having a filter in place seems like a common sense position, although the American Library Association has taken the opposite position. There's concern that filters will block important and appropriate health sites.
The common sense solution in such cases, it seems to me, is to get the library staff to unblock a specific site. It's a lousy argument, in my view, for having a free-for-all where anything goes.
The lawsuit against our library has been going on for six long years. The good news is that the legal expense involved with the lawsuit have been handled by the library's insurance company and hasn't come out of our local budget.
The best news is that now there is federal case law that clearly states that libraries have the authority to limit this kind of information to the public. It's good to see our local library being a national leader on this issue and not bowing to the curious and inexplicable standards of the American Library Association. Let's hope that libraries around the country rethink their position, protect children, and keep sexually graphic images out. The public library is no place for those images.
Isn't it wonderful when common sense prevails?
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kyook 1 year ago
Ruling on porn filtering in libraries makes common sense
I wonder if a patron, even one of our oh so impressionable children, can go into the library and google how to build a bomb, or get lessons on how to use a gun, or research the basic tenets of NAMBLA.
I wonder how deep the filters go.
I wonder if Rufus can come up with a single reasonable argument for requiring public libraries to allow individuals to do these things or if the objections simply stop at porn.
Chuck 1 year ago
Ruling on porn filtering in libraries makes common sense
Didn't you already post this? and weren't there more comments (in both number and diversity of opinion?)
Chuck 1 year ago
Ruling on porn filtering in libraries makes common sense
On the 20th. Dug up a link to it I'd sent to a friend. So, since we're reposting old news, here's my comment from that thread:
"Nobody was advocating 'porn' in this case, but rather the rampant over-blocking of websites caught in the filtering trap.
Additonally, the name, phone #, and email address requirements for review of erroneously blocked websites continue to raise some serious privacy concerns for NCRL patrons.
And if all access will continue to be blocked at this library system, then why do they require patrons log in to use wi-fi on their privately owned latpops, with no written policy on NCRL's part as to how their ISP information is stored, tracked, or shared?
By framing the debate as "porn" and steadfastly refusing to interview any plaintiffs in this case, you and your paper have done this entire region a shameful disservice. One that casts some serious doubt on your stance on the Constiutionally enumerated libery of freedom of speech in the public arena.
All too often it seems that the institutions founded and run in this city are perhaps a little too willing to make light of the rights of the individual. In so doing, they wreak great harm on the collective.
Thank you for illustrating yet another classic example."
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