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06/29/2003 BY GINA MACRIS That's the consensus of some 350 librarians who belong to the Rhode Island Library Association, according to Derryl R. Johnson, of Scituate, president of the organization. The Supreme Court upheld the Child Internet Protection Act (CIPA), which is intended to protect children from sexually explicit images on the Internet. Adults who want to view unfiltered Internet content must ask librarians to turn off the software each time they visit the library. Johnson said that the new law simply does not do the job of protecting children, comparing the filtering software to a "fly swatter." "You may kill the fly or not, depending on your aim and the territory you cover," she said in an interview Thursday. Johnson said the central flaw in implementing CIPA is that it aims to exclude images by using software that searches with words. As a result, she said, the word "cheerleader" used in a search might retrieve photographs totally inappropriate for children. On the other hand, the filtering software would block a broad range of medically oriented Web sites, such as those that deal with breast cancer, AIDS, and other sexually transmitted diseases. A North Kingstown physician who operates one of those sites, AfraidToAsk.com, was one of the plaintiffs in the case decided by the Supreme Court on Monday. AfraidToAsk.com includes explicit text and photographs aimed at giving consumers health information, such as how to practice safe sex. Dr. Jonathan Bertman started the Web site in 1996 after he noticed his patients, particularly teenagers and young adults, asking him questions that made them uncomfortable, on topics such as sexually transmitted diseases and impotence. The site includes straightforward answers to commonly asked questions, as well as explicit images that illustrate the topics in a clinical way. After Bertman learned that filtering software at a Pennsylvania library prevented a high school student from accessing AfraidToAsk.com to research a report on sexually transmitted diseases, he became a plaintiff in a lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union to overturn CIPA. A coalition including the ACLU, the American Library Association, various Web sites, and library users prevailed before a special three-judge panel in the U.S. District Court in Philadelphia, which struck down the law. The judicial panel viewed the use of filtering software in libraries as an infringement of free-speech rights in a public forum. On Monday, the Supreme Court upheld the law in a 6-to-3 ruling, with Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist writing in a majority opinion that restricting access to specific Web sites was the same as placing limits on the number of books a library may make available to its patrons. Bertman said last week that he was "very disappointed" by the Supreme Court ruling. "It's just one step closer to a censored society," he said. "It really is a disservice to young adults and many adults in our community who really need uncensored information . . . [about] very personal topics and medical issues that many of us are afraid to discuss," Bertman said. Bertman estimated that traffic on his Web site, which gets about 200,000 visitors a month, will decline about 5 percent. And that 5 percent will include a disproportionately high number of people at the lower end of the socioeconomic scale, who cannot afford to have computer access at home, Bertman said. "That's what's so disturbing," he said. "It increases the dichotomy with the wealthy, who have their own access, and those who don't. "The Supreme Court has said we understand the software is not that specific, but we accept that," said Bertman, who testified in the lower-court case in Philadelphia and attended the oral arguments before the Supreme Court in March. "If I have to find a bright point," he said, it would be that the justices eliminated a provision of the original law that would have required adult users to explain to librarians why they wanted the filter turned off. The Supreme Court said library patrons did not have to state their reasons. In addition, Bertman said, two justices among the six-member majority, Anthony M. Kennedy and Stephen G. Breyer, wrote separate opinions suggesting that CIPA could be subject to a First Amendment challenge if it proves too burdensome to implement. The dissenting justices, Ruth Bader Ginsberg, David H. Souter and John Paul Stevens, said they believed the core issue was freedom of speech, not the inevitable limits on choices librarians make in putting books on their shelves, as Rehnquist had reasoned. Souter said the proper analogy was not the failure to put a book on the shelf, but purchasing the book and then showing it only to those with an "acceptable 'purpose,' " or excising "pages with anything thought to be unsuitable for all adults" before putting an encyclopedia on the shelf. For librarians, the Child Internet Protection Act is a call to ratchet up the level of service that has always been at the heart of the profession, Johnson said. "The quality of service has to increase to compensate" for the Internet filters, she said. "If you want to get at things that jeopardize a child's innocence, train the child and the parent, and show folks how to evaluate materials," Johnson said. Librarians evaluate materials and make recommendations while respecting both the individual needs and the First Amendment rights of their customers, she said. Johnson said the same cannot be said for the filtering software, whose search criteria is considered a trade secret of the companies that manufacture it, Johnson said. "We do not approve," Johnson said. "We share our selection procedures and our selection policies, frequently on our Web sites," she said. No deadline has yet been set for libraries to install the electronic filters. But the library association is recommending that when it comes, libraries post signs advising computer users of the filtering software and the right of adults to ask that it be turned off. She said she wants to encourage the public to ask librarians about the filtering software if no sign is posted near computers, something most people won't be inclined to do naturally. Johnson said she wanted to encourage librarians and their patrons to "work together to overcome this scourge." All the libraries in the state receive federal funds directly or indirectly and can't afford to turn their backs on the money to avoid having to install the software, she said. The Providence Public Library gets about $600,000 from various federal agencies, about 6 percent of its budget, according to spokeswoman Tonia Mason. She said the library will comply with the law. The library has its own "acceptable-use" policy that patrons tacitly accept when they use the library's computers, she said. And the library has an "over-the-shoulder" policy in which librarians monitor Internet use to make sure inappropriate content is not displayed, Mason said. Peter Bennett, the Providence library's technology chief, said the library has already purchased about $20,000 worth of filtering hardware and as the central site for CLAN, the statewide Cooperating Libraries Automated Network. CLAN already pushes out the filtering software to seven public libraries that use it on children's computers, Johnson said. Bennett said it would cost only a few hundred dollars for each additional library in the 48-member consortium to access the filtering server. But Johnson said there are many libraries serving the public in Rhode Island that do not belong to CLAN and will face onerous start-up costs for the electronic systems. Furthermore, the ruling comes at a time when libraries everywhere are being "pinched big time" by flat or shrinking budgets that result from a sputtering economy, she said. Ironically, Johnson said, a tight economy also means more people going to their local library. |
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