[forktail]

This is a tough one for me as Sys Admin.

First I know filtering barely works. Second I don't really want pr0n in my public library (if I want pr0n I will keep it at home, encrypted!)

I dislike technological solutions for human managable situations. If some kid is grepping pr0n at the Library someone should walk up behind tham and tell them to stop.

[FreePaul]

I don't know how one could filter all of the porn out of internet access. Almost every time I do a search on the internet I get some porn sight(s) referenced under innocuous names. In order to restrict use the first question is "What is porn?" I don't think that the public library should be the place to access what most agree is porn. If you have to go to the library to use a computer it should be for a more noble purpose.

[Under the Radar]

What has always struck me as interesting, as a librarian, is the fact that libraries and librarians are refusing to work with the software companies to improve the filters. Yes, filters are fallible, but let's compare them to search engines, for a moment. Search engines have improved exponentially in the last few years, to the point where "Googling" is now a verb. Filters work on the same principles, and can be improved along the same lines, if groups like the ALA and their ilk were willing to work with the filter designers, instead of fighting them tooth and nail.

[An.American.Expatriate]

Actually, this should be clear.

CONGRESS does not have the right to pass such a law because such passage violates the First Amendment.

The PEOPLE have the right to require that thier Public Library conform to local standards! How? The PEOPLE own the library! Re-take local control of your institutions!

[Question_Assumptions]

I think people need to understand what "porn" on the Internet can really mean. Not soft and artistic Playboy shots but also images of every deviancy you can think of, legal and illegal. Show some of the "soccer moms" pictures of women being beaten black and blue or having sex with a dog and I'm sure you'd see people take this a lot more seriously.

[Aquinasfan]

The Supreme Court was taking another look Wednesday at the fundamental problem of how government can protect the public from the seamy side of the Internet without muzzling free speech.

The First Amendment protects speech, not images that are inherently evil. The primary responsibility of the government is to promote the common good. Inhibiting the distribution of pornographic material promotes the common good. QED.

[TFMcGuire]

The first ammendment was never intended by our founding fathers to protect the publication of pornography.

Judicial activism gave us this baby.

Hopefully SCOTUS will permit the filter legislation to stand.

[MissBaby]

What idiot wants to allow people in a library to go to porn sites. What do they do, set up a special room, a dark room, where they can watch and no one else has to watch them.

I think there are rooms in San Francisco where they can do this. Tell them to bring a bunch of quarters and stop wasting the courts time.

[Dr. Scarpetta]

Computers should be rated "R" in public libraries and off-limits to those under 17.

My friend works in a public library, and she says most people are not using computers for research. They're doing e-mail and surfing the web. What a waste of our money.

[The FRugitive]

How about not using public money for libraries?

Problem solved.

Next!

[MarkL]

The problem is the legal liability this opens the libraries to. I have no doubt that employees who find this sort of thing offensive would sue, based on a "hostile work environment." Secondly, public displays of porn could be prosecuted as indecent behavior.

It's been my experience that you're right, most filtering software has problems, but some of the new software, like the new surf control, running on a seperate firewall, like Bordermanager, works quite well, even disallowing the use of remote proxy or redirection pages.

Mark

[Redcloak]

I wonder how many stories about the capture of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed would have been nixed by the filters because they contained jokes about his resemblance to Ron Jeremy.

But I digress...

So what's the solution? Close the government-funded libraries. If one is particularly upset about such a move, they can open their own private library and charge a membership fee to users. They can even allow porn, or refuse it, as they see fit. We wouldn't even be having this discussion had we kept government in a sufficiently small box. But, we let it get loose and now we're having the Supreme Court consider whether or not we want guys in raincoats using publicly funded facilities to download pictures of 40 year old women pretending to be lesbian schoolgirls.