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Rochester Blocks Funding Threat with Filter-Policy ReviewThe board of the Monroe County (N.Y.) Library System agreed February 28 to conduct a 60-day review of its central library’s longstanding policy of honoring requests by adults to unblock explicit websites and, in the meantime, to refuse all such requests. The action came in response to a threat from County Executive Maggie Brooks to withhold $6.6 million in funding if the library continued to disable filters temporarily at an adult’s request.MCLS established the unblocking policy after the Supreme Court upheld in 2003 the Children’s Internet Protection Act. The ruling states that libraries receiving federal telecommunication discounts through the e-rate must filter websites providing content considered harmful to minors, but it allows librarians to honor the requests of adults asking to unblock a particular site. However, Brooks asserted in the March 1 Rochester Democrat and Chronicle that her legal team disagrees with the prevailing interpretation of the ruling. “If compromise is finding a way to keep pornography somewhere in the library, I’m opposed to it because I don’t think that’s a compromise,” she said, adding, “My goal is to keep pornography out of the library.” “We must remember that we are all in this together,” said MCLS board President George Wolf at the February 28 meeting in a statement subsequently posted on the library’s website. Reiterating the library’s policy of unblocking sites only at workstations in low-traffic areas to prevent children’s “inadvertent viewing,” Wolf went on to say, “The imperatives surrounding child protection and the rights of adults to access legally protected materials must be reconciled.” “We’re disappointed that the library has chosen to extend the moratorium on removing filters, and we’re dismayed that they’re being put in a position of choosing between being funded and being in compliance with the Supreme Court on First Amendment,” Barbara de Leeuw, executive director of the ACLU’s Genesee Valley chapter, told the Democrat and Chronicle. Posted March 2, 2007. |
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