Filtering Facts President David Burt is threatening legal action against three public libraries for refusing to comply with freedom-of-information requests for reports of patrons who have accessed pornography on library terminals.
According to an April 6 American Family Association press release, AFA staff attorney Michael J. DePrimo wrote at Burt's behest to the public libraries of St. Louis, Missouri; Denver; and Indianapolis-Marion County, Indiana, on March 23 asking them to comply. They, along with 12 others, had refused for reasons of patron confidentiality, or because they claimed to have no pertinent public records..
Burt, who is information technology librarian for the Lake Oswego (Ore.) Public Library, contacted 613 public libraries between November 1998 and January 1999. In his March 2 report Dangerous Access, which summarizes the answers he did receive, Burt stated that librarians “don't want to embarrass their libraries and are afraid to ‘break ranks’” with ALA.
“The patron-privacy concerns are a bunch of baloney,” DePrimo agreed. “Government hypocrisy is nothing new.”
Posted April 12, 1999.