EFF: Supreme Court Supports Library Internet Blocking Law,
Damages Free Speech
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Peter Suber
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Jun 23, 2003 09:03 PDT
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Electronic Frontier Foundation Media Release
For Immediate Release: Monday, June 23, 2003
Contact:
Kevin Bankston
Attorney, Equal Justice Works / Bruce J. Ennis Fellow
Electronic Frontier Foundation
bank-@eff.org
+1 415 436-9333 x126
Will Doherty
Media Relations Director
Electronic Frontier Foundation
wi-@eff.org
+1 415 436-9333 x111 (office), +1 415 425-3936 (cell)
Supreme Court Supports Library Internet Blocking Law
Damages Free Speech of Library Patrons and Web Publishers
San Francisco - The Supreme Court ruled today that a federal
statute requiring Internet blocking, also known as filtering,
in libraries receiving certain federal funds or discounts is
constitutional. Reversing a lower court decision by the
Eastern District of Pennsylvania, the court noted that the
use of Internet blocking to comply with the Children's
Internet Protection Act (CIPA) in libraries is
constitutional because the need for libraries to prevent
minors from accessing obscene materials outweighs the free
speech rights of library patrons and website publishers.
The CIPA law requires all schools and libraries that receive
federal funds or discounts to install and use a technology
for blocking Internet speech that is obscene, child
pornography, or in the case of minors, "harmful to minors."
However, based on extensive evidence, the lower court in this
case found that many studies report that Internet blocking
software is incapable of blocking only the materials required
by CIPA, a conclusion supported by many independent studies.
The CIPA law is also problematic because speech that is
harmful to minorsis still legal for adults, and not all
library patrons are minors.
"The Supreme Court today dealt a tremendous blow to the free
speech rights of child and adult library patrons and
Internet publishers by supporting Congress' mandate that
libraries must install faulty Internet blocking software to
obtain federal funding or discounts," said Electronic
Frontier Foundation (EFF) Attorney Kevin Bankston, an Equal
Justice Works / Bruce J. Ennis Fellow.
"The tragedy is that millions of library patrons now join
the millions of students, many of them no longer minors, who
face the Internet blocking barrier to obtaining a proper
education at schools nationwide," said EFF Media Relations
Director Will Doherty. "The Children's Internet Protection
Act holds library patrons and students hostage to faulty
blocking software created with arbitrary standards foreign
to their own communities."
EFF participated as co-counsel with the American Civil
Liberties Union in the case.
For this release:
http://www.eff.org/Censorship/Censorware/20030623_eff_cipapr.php
ALA v. USA case archive:
http://www.eff.org/Cases/ALA_v_US/
EFF and Online Policy Group study on the effects of Internet
blocking in schools:
http://www.eff.org/Censorship/Censorware/net_block_report/
About EFF:
The Electronic Frontier Foundation is the leading civil
liberties organization working to protect rights in the
digital world. Founded in 1990, EFF actively encourages and
challenges industry and government to support free
expression and privacy online. EFF is a member-supported
organization and maintains one of the most linked-to
websites in the world at
http://www.eff.org/
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