Virginia State Rep. Richard Black, the former trustee who wrote the overturned Loudoun County (Va.) Library policy that mandated library patrons to receive their on-site Internet access through a filter, has announced that he will back two bills that would mandate filters in school and public libraries statewide.
"We are taking this battle to the state level," he told the Washington Post December 10.
Black may have a fight on his hands in advancing the pro-filter agenda: A week earlier, the Virginia Governor's Commission on Information Technology issued a report that underscored "the fundamental and transcendent importance of protecting free speech" and discouraged the deployment of filters as anything more than a "one-click-away" option that Internet service providers could enable customers to turn on and off at will.
Posted December 14, 1998/