IFC Seeks Drafting of Filtering Memo
Staff -- Library Journal, 1/24/2000
IFC Chairman Steve Herb said the committee had asked the lawyers that represented ALA in the Communications Decency Act litigation in 1996 to produce a memo on the legal aspects of filtering in public libraries, to be released in February and posted at the OIF web site. "In addition to advice about policy, we want to give them something they can turn to when examining the legal ramifications. Legal documents like this make library boards very happy," Herb said. The memo, which updates and amalgamates previous ALA policies on filtering, does not endorse filtering but analyzes the legal status of different potential approaches, depending on which and how many terminals would be filtered. Herb said that the Toolkit and memo in essence replace the so-called Filtering Clarification Statement, on which IFC debated last year but never reached consensus.
