Justice Department Defends Children’s
Internet Protection Act
The U.S. Justice Department filed a brief June 8 in U.S. District Court in Philadelphia defending the constitutionality of the Children’s Internet Protection Act. The document is a response to lawsuits brought by the American Civil Liberties Union and the American Library Association in March. The actions were joined into one lawsuit on May 15, the same day that plaintiff and defense attorneys negotiated a delay in CIPA’s enforcement until July 2002.
“There is nothing unique about the Internet as a source of information or about the libraries’ role as ‘access points to the Internet,’” the Justice Department argued, since “it is the exclusive authority of the library to make affirmative decisions regarding what books, magazines, or other material is placed on library shelves.”
Ironically, a month earlier the General Accounting Office issued a report asserting that hundreds of millions in e-rate subsidies have never been dispersed since the program began in 1996, in part because many libraries find the complex regulations too onerous. The e-rate “is really a good program, but it needs to be more flexible,” Rep. John Baldacci (D-Maine) said in the June 13 Bangor Daily News.
Posted June 18, 2001.
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