Michigan Senate Majority Leader and former FBI agent Mike Rogers (R-Brighton) introduced an amendment to the library privacy law January 25 that would require minors to either use filtered machines or be supervised by a parent, guardian, or library staff member when using an unfiltered computer. The bill has been referred to the House Judiciary Committee.
“We’re not talking about keeping the racy novel out of children’s hands,” Rogers explained in a January 13 statement announcing the bill, but “hard-core pornography from around the world.”
“If a child is going to look at pornography, he’s going to do it in his father’s den or his friend’s basement,” Eric Suess, who chairs Michigan Library Association’s Intellectual Freedom Committee, told the January 14 Ann Arbor News.
If passed, the law would amend a statute that went into effect last August that requires libraries offering filtered machines to also offer at least one unblocked computer for adults and chaperoned patrons under 18.
Posted February 14, 2000.