ACLU fights Internet filters

A R.I. doctor who runs a medical information Web site is among the plaintiffs in a new lawsuit.

TIMOTHY BARMANN Journal Staff Writer
Providence Journal. Providence, R.I.:
Mar 21, 2001

A Brown University assistant professor is among 24 plaintiffs in a lawsuit filed yesterday in federal court in Philadelphia that seeks to overturn a new law requiring libraries that get federal money to filter Internet access.

Jonathan Bertman, a family doctor and volunteer teacher at Brown's medical school, said the law will prevent minors from viewing a Web site he has authored that provides medical information.

Bertman, of North Kingstown, runs a site called AfraidToAsk.com, which features information, diagrams and explicit photographs about topics related to sexuality and other personal health issues. Bertman said that some of the software products that libraries are required to install to comply with the law have blocked access to his site. The site, he said, is appropriate for mature teenagers and adults.

Bertman said he's not opposed to parents using filtering software. "I just don't want the government telling me or my children that you can't look at this site, period."

The suit, filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, challenges the federal law that mandates that schools and libraries install a "technology protection measure," such as filtering software, to block images that are obscene or "harmful to minors" in order to receive federal financing.

Beginning next month, schools and libraries applying for this money have to certify that they are installing protection measures. The measures have to be in place by April, 2002.

Sources of money covered by the law include the E-Rate program, which helps defray the cost of Internet access and wiring projects. In Rhode Island, that amounted to $6.7 million for schools and libraries in the 1998-1999 school year, the first year of the program, according to Bill Fiske, coordinator of education technology for the state's Department of Education.

Current requests for financing are close to that amount, he said.

On average, that money has cut the cost of providing Internet access and related services by 57 percent, Fiske said.

The law has become controversial, especially among librarians, because filtering software can be faulty, blocking sites that have no objectionable material. And some critics say that the federal government should not be dictating local policies that have long been handled by school districts and library trustees.

"We think Internet filtering should be a local decision," said Kathy Ellen Bullard, who heads neighborhood and family services at the Providence Public Library. "We don't like a federal mandate for what we feel is a local control issue."