Plaintiffs Respond to Livermore Brief
in Filtering Suit
Kathleen R., the plaintiff in a lawsuit to mandate filtering software for the Livermore (Calif.) Public Library’s children’s-area workstations, filed a reply brief January 10 that answers the defense’s October 18 filing to a California appeals court.
The plaintiff’s brief asks the court to refute the city’s claim that Section 230 of the federal Communications Decency Act protects libraries from lawsuits concerning their “willful choice to provide minors with obscene pornography.” California Superior Court Judge George Hernandez dismissed the original suit October 21, 1998, without any explanation except for citing the CDA provision that online content providers aren’t liable for disseminating information that originates elsewhere.
The brief revives another argument made in the original suit, namely that Livermore Public Library’s filter-free policy constitutes a “waste of public funds” and renders the library a dangerous place if it “knowingly allows children to view obscene material to their extreme psychological detriment.”
Posted January 24, 2000.
|
