L.A. County Approves $300,000 for Internet Filters

http://www.ala.org/ala/alonline/currentnews/newsarchive/2006abc/january2006ab/lacounty.cfm

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Posted January 13, 2006.

L.A. County Approves $300,000 for Internet Filters

By a 3–0 vote January 10, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors approved spending $344,000 to install filtering software and privacy screens on all county library computers. The decision followed a study by county library officials on how to deal with sexually explicit internet material after a library computer user complained about seeing pornography on a nearby screen, the Los Angeles Daily News reported January 10.

Library spokeswoman Nancy Mahr said that the filters on adult computers would be very basic, blocking only “explicity visual sexual sites. . . . If a site has been blocked and a person needs to get it, we will lift the block on that computer for that person,” she explained.

The board of supervisors approved the plan in October, but had not yet approved funding, according to the January 11 Torrance Daily Breeze.

“This is really to protect the children, and to back up whatever actions we’ve taken with money to make sure it happens,” said Supervisor Don Knabe. “We think it’s about as good a fix as you can get based on First Amendment issues.”

Posted January 13, 2006.