Los Angeles County Libraries Ordered to
Filter Children’s Computers
The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors has ordered all County of Los Angeles Public Library branches with more than one public Internet workstation to install filtering software on children’s machines systemwide. Supervisors acted December 21 to comply with a new state law requiring library boards to approve Internet policies for minors by January 1; they had never formally approved CoLAPL’s longstanding filter-free policy that required parental consent to surf.
By the time the library presented its existing policy, “supervisors had heard from members of the community who would like additional safeguards,” library Public Information Officer Nancy Mahr told American Libraries. “We felt we should probably tighten things up before a problem occurs,” Cam Currier, a spokesperson for county supervisor Michael Antonovich, said in the January 5 Los Angeles Times.
Peter Whittingham, another Antonovich spokesperson, claimed in the Times that “In one case, a minor had built a pipe bomb from a Web site at a public library.” But officials are unsure whether the library was a CoLAPL facility, Mahr said.
Posted January 10, 2000.
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