Library's Internet Filter Challenged

The lawsuit was brought in December by a local citizen's group, Mainstream Loudoun, and joined Feb. 24 by the American Civil Liberties Union. The ACLU joined the suit on behalf of all parties with materials posted on the Internet that might be blocked by the filtering software. The ACLU's brief lists eight specific plaintiff-intervenors as representative of these parties. Among them is an 18-year-old New York City resident who maintains a Web site offering information about books for Gay youth, a man providing safer sex information, and a transgender organization with a Web site describing the services its group offers.

Ann Beeson, an attorney for the ACLU, and Loren Javier, an Internet specialist for the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), said the Loudoun lawsuit represents the first litigation to go to trial challenging a public library's use of Internet filter software.

The day before hearing arguments in this case, Judge Leonie Brinkema (a Clinton appointee) struck down a Virginia law that barred state employees from using their computers at work to access "sexually explicit" material. The ACLU was a plaintiff in that case as well.

The Board of Trustees of the Loudoun County Library voted 5-3 (with one absentee) on Feb. 24 to stand by its policy, enacted in November of last year. The policy requires that the Library Edition of X-Stop "site-blocking" software be installed on all Internet terminals in all six county libraries. (GLAAD lists X-Stop as one of the software packages proven to block Gay-related material and the anti-Gay organization American Family Association endorses X-Stop as the most effective filtering software.) It also requires that anyone wishing to use the Internet must be at least 18 years of age or have permission from an adult guardian. And it requires computer users to sign a statement indicating they agree to comply with the Internet use policy and requires libraries to locate all Internet terminals so that the computer screen is in "full view" of a library attendant.

The policy's stated purpose is to "prevent sexual harassment," in compliance with Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, which outlaws discrimination based on sex. The policy states, "Pornographic Internet displays may intimidate patrons or staff, denying them equal access to public facilities. Such displays would transform the library environment from one of reading and scholarship to one which invites unwelcome sexual advances and sexual harassment."

While the X-Stop software can function by blocking the computer user's ability to "search" for any word deemed inappropriate, Loudoun County's library system has adapted its X-Stop program to make it less restrictive. The adaptation used by Loudoun allows users to type in any word they want and the computer responds by bringing up the traditional list of Web sites that contain that word. Then the X-Stop program used by Loudoun blocks access to only those Web sites which the library has identified as pornographic or including material "harmful to children," as defined by Virginia law.

The ACLU brief claims that the Loudoun filtering system blocks the Web sites of its plaintiff-intervenors, either in the past or currently, violating their right to free speech was violated. But in a visit to the Eastern Loudoun Regional Library last week, a Blade reporter was able to gain access to all eight sites mentioned in the ACLU's brief, as well as The Washington Blade's Web site and more than two dozen others including the words "Gay," "transgender," "HIV/AIDS," and "safer sex."

Loudoun County Library Services Director Doug Henderson, who opposes the library's use of filter software, explained that library administrators have set up a system to make sure that the software does not block material that is constitutionally protected - that is, material which is not pornographic or "harmful to children." Before installing X-Stop, said Henderson, administrators tested several software systems by entering 100 different search terms known to locate Web sites that are likely to trigger a block but that should not be blocked. He said they found X-Stop blocked 57 sites that consisted of "definitely protected speech." Henderson said he could not provide the Blade with a list of the 57 sites, but said library administrators removed the blocks on those sites as well as the eight sites listed in the ACLU's motion to intervene in the suit. The latter eight sites were unblocked, he said, because library administrators felt they also represented protected speech. Henderson said he could not say how many of the 57 sites contained Gay-related material but recalled that a site containing information about anti-Gay violence in Washington, D.C., was among them as were several sites containing information about safer sex.

The December lawsuit filed by the citizen's group also lists a site containing information about the NAMES Project Memorial AIDS Quilt as among those blocked. Henderson said that X-Stop blocked fewer sites with constitutionally protected speech than most of the software systems the administrators tested.

In addition to that original test by library administrators to make sure all protected speech is made available, the policy provides that any library patron who finds a blocked site and believes it should be available can make a formal request that site be unblocked. Henderson said the library has received between 10 and 15 such requests thus far and that, in each case, administrators have unblocked the site. He said none of those sites were Gay-related and that they most often contained information on "underground music."

But the ACLU's Beeson said this system is not good enough.

"The First Amendment doesn't require you to ask for protected speech," she said. And, because the patron cannot make the request without revealing his or her name, she said, "there is a deterrent effect [for the library patron] if you have to ask for it."

Moreover, she argued, most "speakers" with information on the Internet do not have access to this recourse if their pages are being blocked. And, even for those who do, Beeson questioned whether the library will always be willing to unblock a Web site that, constitutionally, should be protected from censorship. She also contended that some of the Web sites of the eight plaintiffs listed in the ACLU suit are still blocked in library branches other than the one that the Blade reporter tried.

Beeson said the ACLU, which monitors the use of Internet filter systems in public libraries across the country, is not opposed to a library providing its patrons the option of using a filter.

"What we're saying is the government can't mandate you use it," she said. "They could simply have [a filter] as an option at the library." Beeson argued that the mandatory use of a filter is "like removing books from the shelves."

But the library Board of Trustees argued in one of its briefs to the court that using a filter is no different than refusing to stock pornographic books. The Board compared the Internet to a virtual inter-library loan system in which materials are exchanged without a librarian as the intermediary. By installing a filter, the motion argues, the board has merely put a virtual librarian in place to govern the exchange of materials and, as with the exchange of books, that librarian cannot allow the exchange of pornography or other materials deemed "harmful to children" by Virginia law.

"It's an inappropriate use of taxpayer money to stock the library with pornography," explained the board's vice-chair, Spencer Ault, picking up the analogy of the Internet as a virtual interlibrary loan system. Ault both voted for the policy originally and voted to continue the policy on Feb. 24.

Ault said the board has faith in the library administrators' ability to make sure no protected speech gets blocked. He argued that they have done so thus far.

"A teenager that has questions about sexuality has a lot of resources. ... I believe the material is still there," he said. "It's not a question of the First Amendment, it's a question of how tax money should be spent."