Court Hears Library Porn Suits
PHILADELPHIA — A team of librarians challenging the constitutionality of a federal law requiring them to filter online pornography testified Monday that the government is trying to turn them into “thought police.”
The trial consolidates two lawsuits filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania that claim that the Children’s Internet Protection Act violates the 1st Amendment by requiring software that also can block legitimate information.
As the trial began Monday, the government contended that filtering software has improved since the law was enacted. The government also said printed pornographic materials are not in many library collections, so there is no reason online obscenity should be available.
In court, librarians said parents and children should be the ones who determine what content they find unacceptable. “There are some 5-year-olds whose parents do not want them to know where babies come from and there are some that do,” testified Ginnie Cooper, director of the Multnomah County library in Portland, Ore. “We don’t try to presume the values of parents.”
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Times staff writer P.J. Huffstutter contributed to this report and the Associated Press was used in compiling it.
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