ACLU Warns Against Nebraska
Librarian’s Filter Plan
The American Civil Liberties Union of Nebraska has expressed concern over the plans of North Platte (Nebr.) Public Library Director Cecilia Lawrence to install filtering software on all Internet workstations as of November 25. “No matter how small the town or county, no matter how liberal or conservative they may be, the personal beliefs of the people in that location do not trump the Bill of Rights,” declared Tim Butz, executive director of the ACLU of Nebraska.
Lawrence wrote October 13 in her weekly North Platte Telegraph column that her decision was the result of three incidents involving inappropriate Internet use by library patrons; two involved the online harassment of children and the third entailed a patron viewing child pornography at the library. Acknowledging that “the technology to filter may never be perfect,” Lawrence asserted, “in this case, something may be better than nothing in addressing growing community concerns over the library’s Internet access.”
The filters will be programmed to block sexually explicit sites as well as chat rooms and gambling and gaming URLs. Additionally, children’s-area computers will filter out e-mail servers and sites that offer to host free home pages.
Posted October 21, 2002.
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