The board of the Sno-Isle Regional Library System, headquartered in Marysville, Washington, gave in to public pressure and voted July 23 to require patrons under 18 to use only filtered Internet workstations. However, parents or guardians can sidestep the requirement by giving written permission for their children to surf unfiltered. Before the vote, the library filtered children’s-area machines but allowed minors to use any public-access computer.
“You’ve never really defined pornographic,” filter foe Jim Cummins of Arlington told trustees. Recalling the May 30 picketing of a Sno-Isle library board meeting by anti-pornography activists, Cummins added, “Don’t you jam your religion down my throat.” But Sylvia Stevenson of Stanwood handed trustees her family’s library cards, telling them “you can have these” until they “take control and act responsibly” regarding restricted Internet access, the July 24 Everett Herald reported.
Located in the Puget Sound area, Sno-Isle and two other systems—the Kitsap and Timberland regional systems—are being pressured to filter every machine by SAFEPAC, the Secure Access For Everyone Political Action Committee. The group offers mobilization tips on its Web site, which identifies the SAFEPAC mission as getting filters on all library public-access machines, “disassociat[ing] our tax dollars from the American Library Association,” and launching a Snohomish County referendum to have Sno-Isle library trustees elected instead of appointed.
Posted July 30, 2001.