CIPA Update, Part IV: Can Implementation Be Challenged?

-- Library Journal, 02/26/2004

While some filter vendors have offered statewide pricing deals for libraries, none has tried to tailor content categories to library needs, said Lori Ayre, editor of the upcoming issue of Library Technology Reports, which is devoted to filters. Indeed, filter categories, which may include pornography or sex, cannot track the Children's Internet Protection Act's (CIPA) categories of obscenity, child pornography, and "harmful to minors."

Writing in the February issue of the online journal First Monday, Paul T. Jaeger and Charles McClure (School of Information Studies, Florida State University, Tallahassee) suggest potential future challenges to CIPA if the law, as applied, limits free speech for adults. It could be argued that filters are not the least restrictive alternative, given that they are not designed to comply with CIPA and the law requires filtering of all computers, not just those used by children. Further research on CIPA's impact is needed before such a challenge, write the authors.

This is the fourth of a five-part daily series this week. See also:

Deadline Approaches, Large PLs in Poorer Areas Squeezed
Tactics Vary, No Statistics Yet
Technical Questions, Help From Some States
Can Implementation Be Challenged?
CIPA Update, Part V: "Son of CIPA Bills" Proposed