A group of Loudoun County, Virginia, residents filed suit in federal court December 22 to overturn the Internet-filtering policy instituted in October by the county library board. The policy mandates that filters on all terminals block patrons of any age from displaying "library pornography" (see American Libraries, Dec. 1997, p. 15).
Named plaintiffs in the lawsuit are the organization Mainstream Loudoun, 10 individual residents of Loudoun County, and a Loudoun high school librarian.
Larry Ottinger, senior staff attorney for People for the American Way, which is representing the plaintiffs, called the case "tremendously important," adding that it "illustrates the problems of having government actors and a narrow group of people, rather than individual users and parents, decide what information they do and do not want to see."
Posted December 29, 1997.