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Three More States Consider Filter Mandates

Lawmakers in California and Kansas joined legislators in Indiana and Virginia by introducing legislation that links state funding of libraries to protection of minors from finding sexually explicit materials on the Internet.

On February 10, 13 Kansas Senate cosponsors proposed that the state withhold funds from "any public library or school district, state educational institution, municipal university, technical college, vocational education school or community college" that hasn't installed—or vowed to install—filters on its Internet access computers. The bill also mandates that libraries formulate "strict policies to deny usage to individuals found repeatedly using computers to access obscene, pornographic or illegal matter."

Three days later, California Assembly Rep. George Runner introduced the more innocuous AB 1793, which would require public libraries supported by state dollars to establish Internet acceptable use policies for minors and post them next to every on-site workstation.

Posted February 23, 1998.

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