[3/20/01 - EPIC Alert 8.05] A major legal challenge to a new federal law that forces libraries to censor constitutionally protected speech on the Internet was filed today in U.S. District Court in Philadelphia. The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) joined the American Civil Liberties Union in filing the case on behalf of public libraries, library patrons and website authors nationwide. The Children's Internet Protection Act (CIPA) requires libraries that participate in certain federal programs to install "technology protection measures" on all of their Internet access terminals, regardless of whether federal programs paid for the terminals or Internet connections. There are more than 16,000 public libraries nationwide, and 95 percent of them currently provide Internet access for their patrons.
Congress approved the censorship law last year even after its own 18-member panel established to study ways to protect children online rejected the idea because of the risk that "protected, harmless, or innocent speech would be accidentally or inappropriately blocked." Nonetheless, libraries must now install "blocking technology measures" to prevent access to material that is "obscene, child pornography," or "harmful to minors," or forfeit much-needed federal funds. As today's lawsuit points out, even the makers of the blocking programs touted by the law's proponents do not claim to block only the categories of material that CIPA designates. Additionally, as documented by EPIC's "Faulty Filters" report and other studies, the programs routinely and inexplicably block sites that clearly do not fall under the categories proscribed by the law. The installation of such programs in public libraries therefore has significant free speech implications.
The lawsuit also challenges CIPA on privacy grounds. The law provides that library patrons engaged in "bona fide research" may request that they be given access to material blocked by a filtering system. But such a procedure, according to the complaint, forces libraries to violate "patrons' privacy and anonymity rights contrary to the longstanding practices and policies of the library community."
The American Library Association today also filed a challenge to CIPA before the same Philadelphia court. The cases will likely be consolidated and heard concurrently. Under CIPA's judicial review provisions, a three-judge panel appointed by the Third Circuit Court of Appeals will hear the case; any appeal of the panel's decision will go directly to the U.S. Supreme Court, which is required to hear challenges to the law. EPIC is serving as co-counsel in the case.
The complaint in Multnomah County Public Library, et al. V. United States, et al., is available at:
http://www.epic.org/free_speech/CIPA/complaint.pdf
The text of the Children's Internet Protection Act is available at:
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[posted 4/1/01]
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