Picketers Assail Unfiltered Access
at Washington Library
As many as 50 adults and children converged at noon on May 29 at the Marysville branch of the Sno-Isle Regional Library System in northwest Washington state, waving placards such as “Porn + Kids = Free Speech.” The anti-pornography protest preceded a library board meeting about Internet filtering for the 20-branch system that serves some 500,000 residents of Snohomish and Island counties.
“What the library allows is degrading families,” Stephanie Costantino said in the May 30 Everett Herald. “We’re trying to get through that they represent us and not [the American Library Association].” Costantino began speaking out after a February 6 incident in which her son and nephew saw a teen viewing an online image of two naked women at the Stanwood branch. Shortly afterward Arlington councilman Dan Anderson formed Secure Access for Everyone (SAFE), a political action committee to lobby for blocking software systemwide.
Currently the Sno-Isle libraries filter children’s machines and have installed recessed monitors to shield views of unfiltered workstations. Nonetheless, trustees are holding four public hearings in early June before deciding whether to filter every computer.
Posted June 4, 2001.
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