Library Sued for Internet Policy

For the 60% of U.S. households without computers, local libraries offer one of the few ways of getting on the Internet. Whether library patrons deserve unrestricted access to the entire Net is the central issue of a lawsuit filed in Virginia last week.

Mainstream Loudoun, a community organization in Loudoun County, Va., filed the suit in U.S. District Court in Alexandria attacking the constitutionality of a new county library policy that renders certain areas of the Internet off-limits.

Since last month, the conservative county’s library system has been using blocking software that filters out pornography and other material deemed objectionable, as well as many other sites.

Further, the policy requires that Internet terminals be placed in full view of the watchful library staff. If patrons persist in trying to get around the software, the policy prescribes that the “police may be called to remove them.”

Ann Symons, president-elect of the American Library Assn., said the policy is the most restrictive she’s seen, and part of a thorny debate taking place in libraries across the country.

“We just don’t believe filtering software is the answer for libraries,” said Symons, who works in Juneau, Alaska. “We’re absolutely against the viewing of material that is illegal--child pornography and obscenity. But you cannot deny adults access to constitutionally protected material.”

John Nicholas, chairman of the Loudoun County library board, said the trustees won’t back down and are prepared to fight the case “all the way up to the Supreme Court.”

He argued that libraries are not obligated to offer access to the entire Internet any more than they are obligated to stock every book and magazine in existence. If some legitimate sites are also blocked in the process, he said, that is a relatively painless side effect of a policy that has broad support in his staunchly Republican community.

“We don’t say you can’t publish this stuff or access it somewhere else,” Nicholas said. “But we can sure as hell keep it out of our libraries.”

He acknowledged that the filtering software, a product called X-stop from Anaheim-based Log-On Data, inexplicably blocks some legitimate sites, such as the home page for the Quaker religion and the AIDS quilt site. But patrons can have those blocks removed by submitting a form to the library staff.

Mainstream Loudoun members complain that the policy is unnecessarily restrictive because it treats adults and children alike. One member also said the very public placement of the terminals makes it embarrassing for her to do research on breast cancer.

“We don’t want some software engineer in California deciding what we may or may not see on the Net,” said Elaine Williamson, who has spearheaded the efforts of Mainstream Loudoun. “Our issue is that filtering software blocks protected speech.”

The plaintiffs in the case include the Mainstream Loudoun organization and 10 residents of the county, including Henry Taylor, a Pulitzer Prize-winning poet.

Williamson and others said they take inspiration from a federal court decision earlier this year that overturned the Communications Decency Act, a government attempt to regulate Internet content. Symons said libraries, because they are government institutions, are held to the highest level of scrutiny under the 1st Amendment.