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Editorial: Porn filtering should be a local decision The Oregonian June 25 The Children's Internet Protection Act, upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court this week, lacks clarity and will not always protect children from online smut. It offers a blunt solution to a complex problem better handled at the local level. But the court was right to uphold it. Libraries must comply, by putting filters on their computers to block pornography, or lose federal money, which would cost some small libraries their Internet access. The Multnomah County Library is considering whether to reject the $105,000 in federal money it receives - a fraction of its $43 million annual budget - so that it can ignore the new law, which it opposed, as did the American Library Association. If the ALA's activists had understood in the beginning that society has equal interests in protecting children and in free expression for adults, it's possible that Congress wouldn't have interfered. But the librarians' unbalanced view of censorship practically invited congressional conservatives to get involved. The act says adult users can ask librarians to remove the filters "upon a bona fide research or other lawful purpose." In their dissent, Justices David H. Souter, John Paul Stevens and Ruth Bader Ginsburg argued that the provision censored adults by restricting who could ask to turn off filters. But the majority found that as long as adults can get full, unfiltered Internet access "without significant delay," the law was constitutional. Librarians are uncertain how they must respond to adults who ask them to unblock the Internet, says Cindy Gibbon, senior library manager for Multnomah County, but that shouldn't be too hard. Of course, filtering software is not foolproof. It can block appropriate sites from children and fail to screen pornographic ones. Type the words "amateur photos" into an Internet search engine and up come thousands of Web sites focused on photography and thousands more pushing smut. Filters give parents "a false sense of security without really solving the problem that motivates (the law's) enactment," Justice Stevens wrote. Pornography occupies at least 100,000 U.S. Web sites in a $1 billion-a-year industry, the National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences said in a report last year. Pornography is so pervasive, the council said, that no single strategy will protect children. Libraries should work with parents and local communities to develop Internet policies as the Multnomah County Library has done through its citizens advisory board. The county library makes filters optional, but it fits computer terminals in the children's areas with a special interface that guides them to appropriate sites. In addition, it expects parental supervision. The library should be more aggressive. In addition to its other measures, it should install filters on terminals that children use routinely. Ideally, we would rather see the library and its patrons make that decision than the meddling hands of a distant Congress. But the court was right to identify a common sense line between protecting children and censoring adult reading. If the American library establishment had been as discerning, maybe this case wouldn't have been necessary at all. LINKS: DAILY TIDINGS: Main | News | Sports | Obituaries | Opinion | Columnists | AP News | Subscribe | Archives | Weather | Classifieds | Contact Us | Privacy REVELS: Main | Calendar | Dining | Movies | T.V. OTHER: Road Cams Copyright 2003 Ashland Daily Tidings 541.482.3456. 1661 Siskiyou Blvd., Ashland, OR 97520. Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. - Advertisers -