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The Real CIPA Issues—and a Friendly Challenge
By Walt Crawford
American Libraries Columnist
Senior analyst, Research Libraries Group
Column for October 2002
The Children’s Internet Protection Act may have been suspended, but it’s on its way to the Supreme Court. The case isn’t over yet, and Congress is likely to pass a similar act if this one is trashed. You should brush up on the real issues in the suit, to counter the “librarians as pornographers” nonsense, by reading the brief for yourself. Meanwhile, here are a few of the points made by the American Library Association and the Multnomah County attorneys.
Some problems with CIPA
Commercial filtering software inevitably blocks a large amount of speech that is constitutionally protected for children and even more that’s protected for adults. Discretionary filter-disabling transforms librarians into case-by-case censors without standards, while chilling the information-seeking activities of patrons. There are other options to manage the challenge of people viewing sexually explicit material on the Internet in libraries—just as there are for similarly explicit material in print, which many libraries own.
CIPA induces libraries to violate the First Amendment, making it an unconstitutional exercise of congressional spending power. Filtering software does not mirror collection-development policies, since libraries have no say in what’s blocked. Filtering is like buying a magazine or encyclopedia and tearing out pages, except that someone else tears out pages and won’t tell you which ones or why.
Even the government’s witnesses admit that filters block many sites with valuable information—with 15% (or more) of sites being wrongly blocked. Incorrect blocking disproportionately disables sites dealing with difficult issues, where patrons would be reluctant to request removal of the filter. Overall CIPA adherence could result in wrongfully blocking millions of legitimate information attempts each year. The law is too broad, constitutes prior restraint, and can’t be satisfied by any known or likely software.
There’s a long-established judicial answer for people who are made uncomfortable by viewing legal but offensive sites: Avert your eyes.
The federal court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, in a long opinion issued May 31, found many of these points convincing. It did not decide some of the arguments (for example, prior restraint and vagueness) because the overall issues were so clear—not because those arguments were wrong. It’s a compelling decision based on compelling evidence and argument. I offer some extracts in the August 2002 Cites & Insights, but you should read the decision itself.
Shunned and attacked: A challenge
Isn’t it terrible that pro-filtering librarians are so unwelcome at ALA conferences? Isn’t it awful that ALA sets out to ruin any library that considers using filters?
I’ve read several examples of both assertions, including one during CIPA testimony. Librarian X is treated badly at ALA because she dares to disagree with the “official line.” Library Y is bearing up under constant harassment from ALA because it chooses to filter PCs in the children’s area.
I don’t believe it. I’ve attended conference programs where librarians explained why they filter—and those librarians hold offices within library associations and seem as welcome at conferences as anyone else. I don’t believe ALA harasses public libraries, period.
Here’s the challenge. If you have been treated badly by an official unit of ALA (or made to feel officially or unofficially unwelcome during a state or national conference) because you disagree with ALA’s stance on filtering, let me know at wcc@notes.rlg.org. I want names, places, times, incidents, and at least one other person who can verify the situation. Being asked to sit down because you’re disrupting a program doesn’t count. Being booed off a stage when you were a scheduled speaker, or being removed from a program or denied an appointed position entirely because of your stance, does. The same holds true for firsthand evidence of a library that was attacked by ALA because it filtered. First, explain to me how ALA can actually attack a library; then, explain what actually happened.
If I receive verifiable instances by the time Midwinter rolls around, I’ll devote a future column to those instances. Otherwise—well, I can’t tell you to “put up or shut up” any more than ALA can tell you how to run your library, so let’s say that I’ll mention the lack of instances as well. Make it plain text, since I don’t open attachments from people I don’t know. I won’t hold my breath. | 
