In an about-face, the Palmer (Mass.) High School library installed donated software October 5 on six computers that monitor what a user is doing, but then removed it three days later, saying students need unfettered access to information.
School officials told the Associated Press October 20 that the turnaround conforms to the American Library Association’s Library Bill of Rights.
School Superintendent Richard J. McClements had the ClassSee software removed at the behest of the school’s technology director, but he said he plans to voice his view that it is a legitimate tool at future technology staff meetings.
But William Newman, the western Massachusetts director of the state’s Civil Liberties Union, questioned the software on First Amendment and privacy grounds, saying it is bound to limit what students choose to do on library computers. “It’s Big Brother sitting in the computer chair next to you, from the kid’s point of view,” he said. “What libraries promise is the right to . . . freedom of inquiry.”
Posted October 25, 1999.