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By: Donna Rice Hughes
May 27, 2011
Find article here.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Donna Rice Hughes is president of Enough Is Enough, a nonpartisan organization that seeks to make the Internet safer for children and families.

RESTON, Va. (BP)–An April fistfight between an impatient person and a porn-viewing patron at the Brooklyn Public Library has reignited an old debate regarding whether adults should have free and easy access to hardcore pornography or illegal adult pornography, known under the law as obscenity, at their local public library. A spokesperson for the library has explained that the library is complying with patrons’ First Amendment rights, and thus provides Internet access to pornography to adult patrons.

While libraries do not stock obscene hard core videos, patrons at the New York public library have easy access to this hardcore content through taxpayer-funded Internet access. Why? Because this particular library doesn’t understand the laws pertaining to this issue.

The library spokesperson stated: “We comply with CIPA [Children's Internet Protection Act] and our policy forbids users to access materials that are legally defined as obscene, as child pornography, or, in the case of persons under 17, as harmful to minors. The library is committed to creating a positive experience for everyone, and we expect those who use the library to do so with respect to our policies and to others.”

As indicated by her statement, the Brooklyn library spokesperson has apparently confused both the definition of CIPA and the legal definitions of obscenity and child pornography covered by CIPA. Hence, the library’s feeble attempt to comply with CIPA has left adult and child library patrons unprotected.

At this point, three lessons are in order, which will hopefully benefit this particular library and others operating under the same misguided misunderstanding of these laws.

– First, a history lesson: This is déjà vu for Enough Is Enough (EIE). In the mid-1990s, EIE realized that schools and libraries were not protecting students and library patrons from the deluge of obscenity and child pornography available online. As an early pioneer of Internet safety efforts since 1994, EIE sprang into action. I personally prepared a briefing book, containing news stories and pictures of the types of pornography available in both schools and libraries, for Sen. John McCain, then head of the Senate Commerce Committee, and other senators and asked: Should taxpayers pay for our schools and libraries to be pornography outlets? Congress didn’t think so. CIPA passed with overwhelming bipartisan support in both the House and Senate and was signed into law by President Clinton. The American Library Association (ALA), the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and other groups immediately launched a legal challenge, questioning the constitutionality of CIPA. Fortunately for the sake of children and families, with the leadership of EIE and other groups, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of CIPA. As a result, schools and libraries that implement CIPA as intended by Congress are better able to ensure the Internet is safely accessed.

– Second, a CIPA law lesson: CIPA requires schools and libraries using federal “e-rate” subsidies to dedicate some of those funds to install software that filters out pornography. Specifically, child pornography, obscenity and softcore content, legally defined as “harmful to minors,” must be filtered for those ages 17 or under. For adult library users, both child pornography and online obscenity should be filtered, since neither of these is constitutionally protected under current federal statutes. There exists a common misconception that the only type of illegal pornography for adults is child pornography. Nothing could be further from the truth. In layman’s terms, the First Amendment does not protect obscenity for adults period, whether in the library or anywhere else. Although CIPA was written to be idiot proof, common misunderstandings emerge from confusion over the legal definitions of pornography, specifically obscenity.

– Hence, the third and final lesson: Pornography Law 101: There are three types of pornography legally defined by the Supreme Court, and CIPA refers to all three:

1. Child pornography — Child pornography is material that visually depicts children under the age of 18 engaged in actual or simulated sexual activity, including lewd exhibition of the genitals.

2. Obscenity — Obscenity is graphic material that focuses on sex and/or sexual violence. It includes close-ups of graphic sex acts, lewd exhibition of the genitals and deviant activities such as group sex, bestiality, incest and excretory functions. For clarification, obscenity is not to be confused with softcore pornography, known under the law as harmful to minors/indecent content.

3. Harmful to Minors (HTM) material — Harmful to minors material represents nudity or sex that has prurient appeal for minors, is offensive and unsuitable for minors, and lacks serious value for minors. There are “harmful to minors” laws in every state.

For libraries attempting to correctly implement CIPA, they must not confuse the laws above, which distinctly refer to different types of content. Obscenity is not protected under the First Amendment for children or adults; however, it is available in abundance, both online and offline.

People often ask: If it’s illegal, why is it everywhere? Simply put, obscenity laws have not been aggressively enforced, even though the U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly upheld federal obscenity laws.

Additionally, individuals should not equate the widespread availability of illegal adult material with community acceptance of hardcore content. In October, 2009, a national poll by Harris Interactive found that 76 percent of individuals surveyed “totally disagreed” that viewing hardcore adult pornography on the Internet was morally acceptable. Likewise, 74 percent “totally disagreed” that viewing hardcore adult pornography on the Internet was generally harmless entertainment.

The New York Public Library seems to have been shaped by the misguided (and radical) position of the ACLU, which we successfully battled in the mid-1990s and early 2000s. While they may be claiming to uphold CIPA in principle, they are failing to uphold CIPA in practice. Several patrons have testified that they regularly witness individuals viewing hardcore content. While computer terminals include privacy extensions, many individuals are not using these screens, and even when individuals do use the screens, patrons have complained they can still hear the audio from the hardcore content. It is clear that the New York Public Library is not in full compliance with CIPA and, as a result, is not fulfilling its responsibility to protect children and adult library patrons.

As the overwhelming majority of Americans understand, the problem with pornography, as with many things, is that it affects more than those who just look at it. For some individuals, pornography is progressively addictive in nature. Research shows that pornography affects attitudes, values and behaviors, and pornography has been linked to sex crimes against women and children, innocent victims who did not view pornography. A number of federal legal precedents have also found that pornography was used as a tool in sexual harassment, and the New York Library should do more to implement responsible policies to protect themselves and taxpayers from legal liability.
Donna Rice Hughes is president of Enough Is Enough, a nonpartisan organization that seeks to make the Internet safer for children and families. Its program for helping parents, educators and libraries provide online protection for children online may be accessed at www.internetsafety101.org.

This great and helpful list was compiled by David Burt at www.GetParentalControls.org. Let us know what your library policies are so we can add them to the list. Email grassroots@pornharms.com and contact@getparentalcontrols.org with your updates.

This is a partial list of policies from public libraries that use Internet filtering software.

By Dean Marney
Library Journal
Find the article here.
Nov 1, 2010

At least three nights a week, after working as a library director, I teach power yoga. Sometimes when the class is breathing into an uncomfortable twisting position, I ask them to look behind them and identify an old limiting belief. Then I ask them to turn forward and see if they can find a new belief that is more empowering.

I direct a five-county rural library district. We have 28 mostly very small libraries; only a couple have separate children’s rooms. In 2006, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Washington and four plaintiffs brought a case challenging our filtering policy.

We do not allow the filter to be turned off, as many libraries do, but allow individual websites to be unblocked after review consistent with our collection development policy. (Sometimes there’s a slight delay; rarely does one last more than a day.) As part of the case, we commissioned a study of our filter by Paul Resnick at the University of Michigan School of Information that revealed that fewer than 1/3000th of patron searches resulted in incorrect blocks.

New breath for old beliefs
I hope that the 6–3 ruling by the Washington State Supreme Court in favor of our policy, along with an expected forthcoming ruling in federal court backing it, will raise deeper questions, challenge old beliefs, and breathe new life into discussions about libraries and the Internet.

The outdated tenets about using technology to manage the Internet, promoted by the Freedom To Read Foundation (FTRF) and American Library Association (ALA) Office of Intellectual Freedom, express dogma and fundamentalism and deserve challenge.

For the FTRF, intellectual freedom does not include listening or giving time to viewpoints that don’t affirm its ideas. Before the case against our policy was filed, the FTRF invited the lead ACLU attorney for the case for a briefing. There was no attempt to contact me. FTRF president Kenton Oliver served as a witness. In his deposition, he was asked if he had ever had any contact with me. He had not nor had he ever visited any of our branches.

What I believe
Here are some things I believe and challenge regularly.

I believe the staff and Board of Trustees of our library, in their mission to “promote reading and lifelong learning,” revere the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and Article I, Section 5, of the Washington State Constitution.

I believe that some form of filtering is a best practice in libraries. Everyone at least uses a firewall and a spam filter. Using technology to manage our collections on the Internet is economical and equitable. Filtering offers a technological solution for a technological problem. If your filter is inadequate, find a better one.

I believe that ALA failed in its attempt to invalidate the Children’s Internet Protection Act in the U.S. Supreme Court. The justices ruled that filtering does not violate the First Amendment. The case against us was an attempt to undo that ruling with an applied ­challenge.

We are a test case, and the concept being tested is whether the Internet is an “all or nothing” proposition for libraries.

I believe that “all or nothing” would include everything on the Internet. Librarians daily deny patron access to valuable First Amendment–protected speech because it is subscription- and fee-based. These same librarians may feel morally superior for providing uncontrolled access to the free parts of the Internet that include, among other things, obscenity, pornography, child pornography, material harmful to minors, and illegal ­gambling.

I believe that pornography can be harmful to children whether they access it or are exposed to it by others accessing it. It creates a hostile environment for our staff and other patrons and overshadows many of the benefits of the free Internet access we provide.

I believe that the “tap and tell” tactic some libraries use isn’t fair or equitable. Library personnel and security guards are universally untrained to make snap judgments about Internet content, and there are no standards for enforcement.

Child pornography is not protected speech. I believe that most people are not looking for child pornography, but if you are using a filter as a first-line defense against access to child pornography and turn that filter off, you are providing open access to child pornography without apology. I believe that librarians ignore that Internet gambling is illegal. There are both federal and state statutes against it.

Finally, as we migrate our collections and our entire libraries onto the Internet, we must be responsible to the communities we serve and make our mark as the profession that intelligently manages and makes usable the vast stores of information available online. Content matters.

As part of my yoga practice, I’m breathing into my belief that librarians can exhibit graciousness, civility, and respect for one another. I invite you to take a breath with me. Embrace more questions about our beliefs, including those about the Internet.