[Commons-Law] US Supreme Court upholds library Internet blocking

[Badri Natarajan]

The US Supreme Court has upheld a law requiring libraries that receive 
federal government funds to install filtering software to protect minors, 
as the EFF press release given below explains.

One thing to note - the Supreme Court judgment also makes it clear that any 
library patron (an adult that is) can request to have the filters turned 
off for him so that he has unfettered access to the Internet. Early 
indications suggest that this will affect the free speech rights of website 
publishers who are blocked (justifiably or otherwise) more than it will 
affect people who actually use the Internet in libraries.

Supreme Court Supports Library Internet Blocking Law
Damages Free Speech of Library Patrons and Web Publishers
Electronic Frontier Foundation Media Release

San Francisco - The Supreme Court ruled today that a federal statute 
requiring Internet blocking, also known as filtering, in libraries 
receiving certain federal funds or discounts is constitutional. Reversing a 
lower court decision by the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, the court 
noted that the use of Internet blocking to comply with the Children's 
Internet Protection Act (CIPA) in libraries is constitutional because the 
need for libraries to prevent minors from accessing obscene materials 
outweighs the free speech rights of library patrons and website publishers.

The CIPA law requires all schools and libraries that receive federal funds 
or discounts to install and use a technology for blocking Internet speech 
that is obscene, child pornography, or in the case of minors, "harmful to 
minors." However, based on extensive evidence, the lower court in this case 
found that many studies report that Internet blocking software is incapable 
of blocking only the materials required by CIPA, a conclusion supported by 
many independent studies. The CIPA law is also problematic because speech 
that is harmful to minors is still legal for adults, and not all library 
patrons are minors.

"The Supreme Court today dealt a tremendous blow to the free speech rights 
of child and adult library patrons and Internet publishers by supporting 
Congress' mandate that libraries must install faulty Internet blocking 
software to obtain federal funding or discounts," said Electronic Frontier 
Foundation (EFF) Attorney Kevin Bankston, an Equal Justice Works / Bruce J. 
Ennis Fellow.

"The tragedy is that millions of library patrons now join the millions of 
students, many of them no longer minors, who face the Internet blocking 
barrier to obtaining a proper education at schools nationwide," said EFF 
Media Relations Director Will Doherty. "The Children's Internet Protection 
Act holds library patrons and students hostage to faulty blocking software 
created with arbitrary standards foreign to their own communities."

EFF participated as co-counsel with the American Civil Liberties Union in 
the case.

http://www.eff.org/Censorship/Censorware/20030623_eff_cipapr.php


Badri