Michigan Town Reinstalls Filter
and Lifts $100 Unfiltered-Access Fee
Citing ambiguity in a new Michigan law requiring libraries that filter “matter that is harmful to minors” to also provide at least one unblocked machine for adults and chaperoned children, Georgetown Township Supervisor Henry Hilbrand announced August 4 that his town’s library was reinstating its policy of blocking all its public-access workstations. The suburban Grand Rapids library, which had filtered all eight of its machines since February, turned off the blocking software on one computer on August 2 to comply with the new law, which went into effect August 1. The library has also discontinued the $100-per-hour fee for unfiltered Internet access it established when it unplugged the one filter.
Asserting that township officials are committed to complying with the law while “protecting the moral values of our community,” Hilbrand said in an August 4 statement, “It is the township’s belief that the Michigan legislature intends that the township may restrict Internet access to obscene/sexually explicit matters on all of its library computers.”
Posted August 9, 1999.
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