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Judge: Library's Web 'Filter'
Violates First AmendmentA U.S. district court judge in Virginia ruled recently that a public library in Loudoun County cannot use computer software to "filter" out certain Web sites from Internet terminals in the library system without first demonstrating that the state has a "compelling interest" to do so.
In an Apr. 7 order, the judge also noted that public libraries are "places of freewheeling and independent inquiry" and are not governed by the same concerns as public schools, where officials have broad discretion to remove materials deemed "harmful to children." The library board's policy of using computer software to block access to Web sites considered pornographic or potentially "harmful to children" in public libraries, said the judge, violates the First Amendment by imposing a "content-based" restriction on speech of adults. Giving adults the option of filing a written request that a site be unblocked, said the judge, amounts to a "chilling" effect on their First Amendment rights.
The judge, Leonie Brinkema (a Clinton appointee) of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, said the library board, in order to save the policy, must meet the legal system's most difficult requirement: showing that the policy meets a "compelling" need and that that need is accomplished by the most "narrowly drawn" restriction as possible.
In issuing the order, Brinkema denied the library board's request to dismiss the lawsuit brought by a number of civil rights groups. The case is expected to go to trial late this summer, giving the library board an opportunity to show its need for the policy.
"The library need not offer Internet access," wrote Brinkema in her 36-page ruling, "but, having chosen to provide it, must operate the service within the confines of the First Amendment."
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) praised the ruling as "one of the strongest-ever defenses of online free speech." The ACLU joined as a plaintiff in the lawsuit originally brought by a local citizen's group called Mainstream Loudoun. The ACLU is representing parties with materials posted on the Internet that may be blocked by the library's filter. Among the eight specific parties which the ACLU is representing are operators of Web pages providing information about Gay youth, Transgender people, and safer sex.
The ACLU, as well as several Gay civil rights groups, monitors the use of Internet filtering software in public libraries and schools around the country. Many Gay youth organizations believe the Internet is a prime resource for youth struggling with their sexual orientation and that many of the popular filtering software packages censure Web pages with Gay and safer sex content.
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