McCain Hearing Features Filtering Supporters, Opponents

Staff -- Library Journal, 3/8/1999

A Senate Commerce Committee hearing March 4 on whether to require schools and libraries receiving E-rate telecomm discounts to filter one terminal for "harmful to minors" material featured both supporters and critics of the proposed legislation. Sponsor Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) opened the hearing by citing a recent Los Angeles Times story on a man who used library computers to send child pornography, and declaring that "the government, in creating this policy, assumes the compelling interest in protecting the children who benefit from it". Also, in a blow to the American Library Association, Sen. Conrad Burns (R-MT), who last year proposed an alternative that would merely require libraries to produce acceptable use policies, has signed on as a co-sponsor.

However, Candace Morgan, associate director of the Fort Vancouver Regional Library, WA, declared that "Congress must understand that there is no one-size-fits-all solution that the federal government can impose that is better or more thoughtful than the solutions communities adopt." Though only some 15 percent of public libraries use filters, Morgan -- a stalwart of the American Library Association's Intellectual Freedom Committee -- works at a library that plans to use filters, offering patrons options to use a filter, a filtered search engine, or the open Internet. According to an Associated Press report on the hearing, McCain clashed with Morgan, saying she didn't fully understand the intent of the bill. The hearing also included statements from legal experts, as well as from two filtering companies.