Library Porn

Another decision:

A divided Supreme Court ruled Monday that Congress can force the nation's public libraries to equip computers with anti-pornography filters.

The blocking technology, intended to keep smut from children, does not violate the First Amendment even though it shuts off some legitimate, informational Web sites, the court held.

The 6-3 ruling reinstates a law that told libraries to install filters or surrender federal money. Four justices said the law was constitutional, and two others said it was allowable as long as libraries disable the filters for patrons who ask. The court described pornography in libraries as a serious problem.

"To the extent that libraries wish to offer unfiltered access, they are free to do so without federal assistance," the main ruling said.

Comments

[Madog]

Maybe I'll go into a library now and ask the librarian to help me get to the internet porn just to see what happens.

[David 2]

Unfortunately, I knew this decision was going to happen. The justices have said previously that Congress CAN attatch strings to how tax money is spent, so just like they don't want to give tax money for a woman to smear herself with chocolate syrup, they also don't want tax dollars to go to libraries where you can see a woman smear herself with chocolate syrup online.

After all, the libraries and schools can always say "no thanks" to the tech pork. They just don't want to.

[harm d.]

the critical issue is federal funding & what's being done with it. i don't really care about pornography per se, but i do have an issue w/ having computers bought w/ my tax moolah monopolized by hormonal sixteen-year olds & the like.

[Johnny Two-Cents]

I don't like this decision, but it will probably prove to be of little consequence. Most public libraries take very little federal money, and if the letters page of Modern Librarian magazine are any measure, then many libraries will forego federal funding to keep their internet connections under their own discretionary control.

[Warren]

FUCK!

[Rick Barton]

Yet another clear case: Federal funding leads to federal control. And, yet another reason to "just say no" to the Feds.

[Rick Barton]

...And we can hope they don't use that club on libraries that decline to participate in the Patriot Acts' intrusions.

[Pornographic Memory]

I think porno is objective. For some people pictures of boobies get them off, for others its essays on post-industrial agriculture market fluctuation...

[Plutarck]

But let me guess - erotica isn't covered? Don't know, just wondering, because that would be precisely what I would expect - you can read it and picture it in your head (for now), but you just can't be permitted to actually see it.

The stupid thing is it seems like the imagination, bereft of actual information, comes up with far more freakishly erotic and wacked out scenarios, who's interest lasts for far longer and inspires a far stronger desire to discover - or experience - such things than that produced by just watching the real stuff (even the really wacked out stuff).

But, luckily, so long as you aren't poor, for now you can look at any damn thing you want to. At least this doesn't seem to have any effect on the freedom of those who are otherwise not internet impoverished - which is actually a sort of win now adays.

[omnibus bill]

You know, a week ago here, Plutarck, we had a discussion about how far the First Amendment went toward protecting porn. You took the position that obscenity law - community standards applied to limit the display of materials lacking expressive value - was an invalid restraint on First Amendment freedom.

Okay, fine, that's a valid libertarian sort of point. A radical one, denying the democratic right of localities to control what type of community they want to live in, but still within the range of libertarian opinion.

Now you are bitching because the Court held that the government isn't compelled to provide porn.

That's not libertarian at all, but completely libertine.