Blocking amounts to 'removing books'

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has intervened in the battle to stop the use of Internet blocking software in a Virginia library service which it says amounts to 'removing books from the shelves'.

The ACLU has asked a federal court in Virginia to rule that installing filters which may block legitimate information, is contrary to the constitution.

The ACLU made the move on behalf of eight plaintiffs whose sites have been blocked by Loudoun County Libraries' Internet filters, which purport to block material that is 'pornographic' or 'harmful to minors'.

'This case presents important questions about whether the government can prevent Internet speakers from communicating constitutionally-protected information online to people whose only access to the Internet may be their local library,' said Ann Beeson, ACLU National Staff Attorney.

Plaintiffs include the Safer Sex Page created by John Troyer, the American Association of University Women , and Rob Morse, an award-winning columnist for the San Francisco Examiner.

The ACLU pointed out that the web sites which promote views opposing those of the plaintiffs have not been blocked in the libraries.

'Defendants do not block sites opposing homosexuality and transgender behaviour, opposing employment of women outside the home, favouring Internet censorship, and promoting abstinence rather than safer sex practices. says the ACLU.

In related news, Arizona's Republican Senator, John McCain has introduced 'The Internet School Filtering Act' which would stop any school from obtaining federal funds for online projects if it did not use blocking or filtering software.

The ACLU has warned that the Act would mean that teachers would not be able to set Internet research on subjects such as abortion rights cases, for example.

Tempers have become frayed. The makers of the filtering software Cybersitter have allegedly ignored the most basic protocol of online netiquette by 'mail-bombing' a woman who criticised the product with over 450 unwanted junk mail items.

The women had e-mailed the company's CEO Brian Milburn to complain that the product stopped parents from being able to choose what their children could access, as the list of blocked sites is hidden away in an encrypted form.

Cybersitter was last year accused of intrusive behaviour by an anti-censorship group, Peacefire, which discovered that the trial version of the software was scanning the cache on every computer's hard drive to find out if Peacefire's site had been visited, and aborting the program if it had.

In spite of last year's Supreme Court ruling, which struck down a federal Internet censorship law and gave the Internet the same high level of protection as books, 13 states have passed online censorship laws since 1995.

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