Jefferson Parish Slaps Filters
on Most Machines
Reacting to the July arrest of a man for allegedly masturbating at an Internet terminal at Jefferson Parish (La.) Library’s Harahan branch, the parish council imposed a stringent library Internet policy on the library September 20. The new policy expands filtering from children’s-area machines to every computer but one in each branch. It also dictates that no one under 18 may use an unfiltered workstation and that adults cannot call up a site that contains material deemed harmful to minors.
Not content with this action alone, council members are slated to vote October 4 on a proposed ordinance that would make it illegal for adults to access sexually explicit material at a public-library terminal. “This will give our policy some teeth and give the police the tools they need to take care of any perpetrators,” Councilman John Lavarine Jr. said in the September 21 New Orleans Times-Picayune.
Ironically, officials have had trouble enforcing the new library policy: The parish is considering a suit against N2H2, maker of the Bess blocking software selected to block the children’s-area machines some time ago, because the company has yet to deliver the product. Deputy Parish Attorney Louis Gruntz told the paper that N2H2 is worried about lawsuits that may result from its involvement in parish policy.
Posted September 25, 2000.
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