Library sued over filtering
A Washington-based civil rights group sues the Loudoun County Public Library, claiming its Net filtering policy is unconstitutional.
The Washington-based People for the American Way, which helped defeat the Communications Decency Act, is representing 11 plaintiffs who say Loudoun County Public Library's requirement is unconstitutional.
The policy prohibits accessing child pornography and obscenity but further bans access to any "material deemed harmful to juveniles" regardless of the patron's age. The rules recite a portion of the civil rights act that prohibits sex discrimination and warns patrons that access to prohibited materials "could create an unlawful, sexually hostile environment, and might incite dangerous criminal misconduct."
According to the suit, the library uses a software product called X-Stop to block access to sites that may offer objectionable material. While LOG-ON Data, the company that makes the software, won't disclose which sites it blocks, the plaintiffs allege the software has blocked access to sites as innocuous as those owned by the Heritage Foundation and Carnegie Mellon University.
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