CyberPatrol Opposes Mandates
As Massachusetts Debates Internet Bill
As state legislators debated a bill that would require acceptable-use policies in Massachusetts public libraries, the Westborough, Massachusetts–based Internet filtering software company SurfControl issued a statement June 4 suggesting that mandated filtering laws were unnecessary.
“Most schools and many libraries have already installed filters to help implement their policies for the acceptable use of computers,” SurfControl Vice President Susan Getgood said. “Decisions about whether to install filtering technology should be made locally, not handed down from state or federal governments.” Getgood emphasized that her company, which manufactures CyberPatrol software, believes filters work. “We just don’t think the government needs to get involved mandating any technology, even our own.”
House Bill 3428, introduced January 3 by Republican House leader Francis Marini, does not mandate filtering software. However, it is unusual in that it suggests that library policies may prohibit users from accessing, in addition to the usual sex and nudity, “information encouraging or advocating satanic cults, intolerance, militant or extremist behavior, violence or profanity and the sale, consumption or production of illicit drugs, alcohol or tobacco products.”
“I fully understand the argument that at a public library there should be unfettered access to everything,” Republican Party Chairman Brian Cresta, who supports the bill, told the Associated Press June 2. “But there are some people who use the Internet for wrong purposes . . . some of them illegal.”
Posted June 11, 2001.
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