The Disarray of Defeat
There is a small victory for free access in our CIPA setback
John N. Berry III, Editor-in-Chief -- Library Journal, 8/15/2003
ALA staff leaders, particularly Rick Weingarten of the Office of Information Technology Policy and Judith Krug of the Office of Intellectual Freedom, decided that ALA should quickly meet with the filter vendors to tell those censors precisely what would make a filter acceptable to librarians. Some firms were already salivating over the new "revenue streams" from libraries now required to filter Internet access if they want federal E-rate subsidies or a share of certain Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) funds.
The meeting idea brought a great outcry from the ALA Council. From filtering expert Karen Schneider to political activist Mark Rosenzweig, the reactions roared in. Ultimately, Executive Board members Mitch Freedman and Michael Gorman weighed in against the meeting. The protest against ALA making common cause with the censorware "industry" forced the ALA Executive Board into an emergency telephone conference at which it cancelled the meeting with the censors. Instead, a scheduled meeting of ALA "member leaders" on August 23 would decide what ALA should do about CIPA. The board's decision was a wise one.
Libraries must not rush to buy filters. As I write, the regulations under which the law will be implemented have not been issued by the Federal Communications Commission. They should be out by the time you read this. After that, there will be plenty of time to decide what to do.
Before you buy anything, be sure it costs much less than your library's share of the E-rate subsidy and any LSTA funds you might get. If not, reject the money and leave your system filter free.
Don't buy a filtering system from any organization financed by or connected to any ideological or religious group. This could put you in jeopardy of litigation from users who can't access constitutionally protected information.
Don't buy a filtering system from firms unwilling to reveal not only what criteria they use to block access to any site but also which specific sites are blocked. You need to know this to protect users from unnecessarily censored Internet access. Don't abdicate your professional responsibility to software makers.
Don't buy a filtering system unless it can easily be disengaged from any terminal in the library at the request of an adult (17 years of age or older). Make sure your public knows about this right and that the request can be transmitted from the terminal. To force users to come to the desk to get filter-free access is an excessive burden.
Librarians may have to wait for someone to build the right filtering system, or work with other librarians to get that job done. Whatever systems emerge, librarians must not be forced into bad choices by the disarray of defeat. Take advice from anyone who will give it. Most important, wait until the dust settles from the CIPA decision. The Supreme Court found CIPA constitutional, but to do so it rewrote that law. Now adults must be given filter-free access to the Internet if they ask for it. So, yes, in our CIPA defeat there is a small victory.
