Filtering: Just Another Form of Censorship.

In a landmark decision, U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema ruled November 23, 1998, in Mainstream Loudoun v. Board of Trustees of the Loudoun County Library that the use of blocking software to restrict Internet access in public libraries is unconstitutional. Despite the library's claims that its actions were justified in the name of "protecting minors from harmful content," Judge Brinkema ruled that the library could not reduce adult access to standards established for children. (She did not address the constitutional merits of imposing access restrictions for minors.)

"The use of blocking software in libraries offends the guarantee of free speech," she ruled, and "constitutes a prior restraint" on all speech. The Loudoun County X-Stop software blocked access to a wide range of websites, including those of Quakers, the conservative Heritage Foundation, and AIDS education groups, as well as information about safe sex, banned books, and gay and lesbian teens.

Relying on Reno v. American Civil Liberties Union, in which the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the Communications Decency Act, Brinkema rejected arguments that the installation of such filtering devices constitutes "a library acquisition decision, to which the First Amendment does not apply." She pointed out that, since the library had originally provided uncensored Internet access and had then taken specific actions (and incurred additional expenses) to limit it, the situation was analogous to the removal of library materials. The result, she said, was similar to "a collection of encyclopedias from which defendants have laboriously redacted portions deemed unfit for library patrons."

Along with anti-censorship activists everywhere, Ann Symons, president of the American Library Association, hailed the ruling:

   The greatness of our libraries and our profession has always been an
   unmitigated commitment to intellectual freedom: the right of every
   individual to seek and receive information without restriction. Libraries
   have always stood for more access, not less.

Although Brinkema's decision will have a major impact on the development of library policies nationwide, there is a crucial underlying problem that cannot be resolved through the legal process. Filtering software is created and produced by private companies that are quite eager and happy to make all the decisions for us. And by purchasing and installing their products, we are agreeing to let them do just that. It is to these private companies we are surrendering selection and access to the Internet's huge database of electronic information. This means that even the staffs at public libraries have no role in the selection process.

Add to this the arbitrary nature of commercial filtering systems and the wide variations present in the large array of currently available products. Reporter Rebekah Denn checked out two products, Bess and Cyber Patrol, and presents her findings in a January 1998 Seattle Post Intelligencer newspaper series:

   A Bess-filtered terminal refused to search on the plant disease wheat smut.
   A Cyber Patrol query using the same search engine provided dozens of
   horticulture pages--with warning triggers on the links that provided the
   smut without the wheat.

Another example of the inane way Bess operates is that it blocks the middle of the Matsushita company name.

In the December 1998 issue of Alki, the Washington Library Association journal, librarian Tom Reynolds writes about "Filters, Filtering, and Public Access," offering compelling arguments against filtering systems in public libraries:

   For censorware providers, censorship is a business. These software
   providers heavily market their products to libraries, while at the same
   time lobbying Capitol Hill for laws that would require all libraries to buy
   and use filters.... In libraries using filters, on many of the major
   controversial issues of the day, little or no technological information
   will be available to students or the public. No longer institutions that
   promote and expand access to information, these libraries have become
   "safe" places where patrons can come to hide from the world.

As of the end of 1997, Bess was blocking sixteen sites on subjects as diverse as birth control, breast cancer, eating disorders, and gay and lesbian rights. One of the system's filtering categories is discrimination, defined as "denigration of others' race, religion, gender, nationality, and/or sexual orientation."

Bess also blocked the Starr Report, while other less restrictive software, such as Cyber Patrol, did not. When the report was released, libraries with filtering systems rushed to find out from providers whether their software would block the report and to determine where --and how quickly--they could obtain printed copies. Hopefully, this incident made some aware of how little control librarians have over this new technology that now limits and restricts access to the information they provide. (Ironically, if the Supreme Court had not declared the Communications Decency Act unconstitutional, members of the House Judiciary Committee might now be charged with distributing pornography over the Internet.)

Recent proposals to filter and restrict Internet access include the School Internet Filtering Act, specifically targeting libraries. The act would require all public and school libraries receiving federal funds to install filters on all their Internet terminals, thus creating a federal mandate.

In the Alki article, Tom Reynolds presents a compelling example of "the battle against [Internet] censorship" in Ohio's Medina County Library District. In 1998, a group called Citizens for the Protection of Children (CPC) demanded an "adults only" section at the county library for books and other materials deemed "inappropriate for children." Then, with the support of Family Friendly Libraries, CPC further demanded filtering and other policy changes to "protect" children. When the county library board refused to acquiesce, CPC mounted a campaign to defeat a district tax levy. Desperate and vicious, the citizen's group displayed signs calling the library director a "pornographer." Still, the levy passed. Upon reviewing its Internet policy, the board voted to keep Internet access unrestricted for all ages.

I never met a humanist or free-thinker who didn't harbor an intense curiosity and a profound need to have access to information of all kinds. We are ideally suited to defend open access to the vast store of information now available through computer technology.

Talk to your librarian. Find out if your library system has an Internet access policy and ask for a copy. If it doesn't, ask if one is being drafted and attend library board meetings to monitor its progress and to speak out against restrictions. If your library has installed Internet filters, inform your state chapter of the ACLU and offer to be a plaintiff in court challenges.

The Washington Coalition Against Censorship's new original T-shirt design advocates the only solution we can trust to preserve our First Amendment liberties: "Use your brain: the filter you were born with."

Barbara Dority is president of Humanists of Washington, executive director of the Washington Coalition Against Censorship, and cochair of the Northwest Feminist Anti-Censorship Task Force. WCAC T-shirts are $15 and available by calling [phone].