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Florida Filter-Mandate Bill Gets Third StrikeA filter-mandate bill opposed by Florida librarians and library supporters has died in the Florida legislature. Had the bill become law, it would have fined public libraries lacking operational filters and allowed citizens to sue libraries that weren’t complying. The bill’s defeat marks the third year in a row that filter-mandate legislation has been introduced in Florida, only to fail passage in the Senate. Nonetheless, bill sponsor Sen. Stephen Wise (R-Jacksonville) vowed “We will be back next year” in an April 29 interview on WFSU-FM’s Perspectives radio program.Wise said he would continue his efforts “because some counties in the south [of Florida], as usual, don’t want to comply” with the federal Children’s Internet Protection Act—despite the fact that CIPA does not require libraries to filter unless they accept federal funding for telecommunications costs. However, the bill Wise backed would have required public libraries to install blocking software regardless of how their Internet connections are financed. Ironically, on April 22 a 24-year-old man pleaded guilty to downloading and e-mailing child pornography at a library that uses Websense filtering software. The Tampa Tribune reported May 3 that the deployment of a filter at the Port Charlotte branch of the Charlotte-Glades Library System did nothing to curtail Richard Edward Brillhart’s alleged activity since filters do not block e-mail content. “Filters give you a false sense of security,” Susan Dillinger, chair of the Florida Library Association’s Legislative Committee, told the Tribune. Director of the New Port Richey Public Library, Dillinger noted that her unfiltered library’s opt-in system for minors results in parents telling her when “they don’t want their kids to have access to the Internet” but that “I have yet to have one parent tell me they want filters.” Apparently, town officials are like-minded: The city council okayed a resolution March 16 opposing filtering laws as unfunded mandates and vowing to “diligently work to overturn any law that usurps or undermines local control of library policy and procedure.” Posted May 7, 2004. |
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