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| 4/24/06 | Is Library a Place for Porn? First Amendment, 'Common Sense' Vie for Child Protection | "Adults can view pornography on computers at the library. That's not news,
but it could be history if one Pima County supervisor has his
way. As Pima County prepares to take over operation of the
Tucson-Pima Public Library system from the city in July, Republican
Supervisor Ray Carroll wants filters installed on all its computers, even those used only by adults. 'My impression is that we
don't have smut rags on the magazine rack,' he said. 'Why do we
have people allowed to have access to these images on the Internet?'
[L]ibrary Deputy Director Patrick Corella ... said he personally was opposed to mandatory filtering of adults' computers, though it ultimately is a legal and political decision the supervisors will have to make. 'Pornography is a protected issue for adults, unless it's child pornography, which is illegal anyway,' he said. 'There is such a thing as privacy.' The library carries Playboy, but not more explicit adult magazines like Hustler. .... Democratic Supervisor Sharon Bronson said she was surprised to learn the computers don't have filters. 'I don't know what the First Amendment issues are, but the primary thing is to protect our children from inappropriate material,' she said. The other supervisors weren't so sure about filters, though. 'We have to move it to another room,' Republican Supervisor Ann Day said. 'We can't have kids viewing pornography. First Amendment, yes, but we need some common sense.' Carroll said putting unfiltered computers in a separate room doesn't solve the problem. 'I don't think we need an adult section to the public library,' he said. Other supervisors said they are concerned but want to balance the rights of adults to view legal material. 'I don't know what the solution is,' said Supervisor Ramón Valadez, a Democrat. 'Should kids be able to view pornography? No. Adults are another matter. So how do we prevent that while honoring the First Amendment?'" [P2S: Yes, legal pornography is protected generally, but US v. ALA says Internet filters can be used legally to keep it out of public libraries by helping to enforce existing book collection practices. So who's right, the US Supreme Court or library Deputy Director Patrick Corella who has been trained by the ALA how to fool the public to ensure a continuous flow of pornography into public libraries? This article is also interesting because Republicans and Democrats are together both for and against the filtering, further evidencing this is not a political issue but one where the filtering opponents need to read US v. ALA and stop believing the ALA propaganda.] |
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| 4/24/06 | Viewing Porn on Library Computers Scrutinized | "If a Pima County supervisor gets his way, adults will no longer be able to look at pornography on library computers. .... Republican Supervisor Ray Carroll says he wants filters installed on all of the computers at all of the libraries. He says he's worried about the kind of people who would look at porn in a public library and about children who can walk by and see what's on the screen. The children's computers already have filters." [P2S: Further proof people are starting to figure out filtering children's computers is not enough; all need to be filtered. Notice further he not only wants to protect children from viewing porn, but also stop criminals from endangering the children in the first place.] | ||||||
| 4/21/06 | Stalking Internet Predators in East Providence | "The Internet is the new wild west. .... 'It has happened here,' Sgt. John Sequeira, who gave the main presentation at the meeting, said. 'It continues to happen here.' [A man] currently serving 137 months in a federal prison ... would spend lots of time at the Weaver Library, which at the time did not have the Internet filters it does today, and he aroused the suspicions of one librarian. The librarian found an image in a wastebasket that contained child pornography, and contacted the police. Police believe he was printing off child pornography, keeping some and discarding other images. An investigation was launched. He was arrested at the Seekonk Library by the FBI after having an explicit conversation with an undercover agent, whom he believed to be a 12-year-old Seekonk girl." [P2S: For those who think their own communities are immune, this story is for you. The entire article is worth reading. Above we see a librarian defying the ALA by seeking out then reporting criminal activity. And did you notice the crime occurred -before- Internet filters were installed? What a coincidence!] | ||||||
| 4/21/06 | Convicted Sex Offender Busted In Perris Library | "A convicted sex offender was arrested for suspicion of violating probation after being seen using a computer to download pornography at a library, authorities said Friday. .... [He] was convicted of attempted child molestation and using e-mail to seduce a minor in 2002 in Los Angeles County. He was arrested at a pizza parlor, where he arranged to meet the child." [P2S: Another day, another arrest, another ALA travesty.] | ||||||
| 4/20/06 | Man Who Left Resume in Garbage with Child Porn Sentenced | "A man who left his resume along with some child pornography in a bathroom wastebasket at the Cleveland Public Library has been sentenced to 30 years in prison. .... The twice-convicted child molester ... 33-year-old used computer equipment at the library downtown to download then print out graphic porn from the Internet. [T]he homeless man [had] two prior convictions and a psychological profile that predicted he was likely to victimize more children. [He] was on parole from a three-year sentence for molesting a nine-year-old female relative in 2001." [P2S: The ALA is proud to encourage affiliated libraries not to comply with CIPA and obtain funding elsewhere. See what the ALA has wrought -- 30 years in prison! A perfect sentence for those in the ALA who enable this in the first place.] | ||||||
| 4/20/06 | Child Molester Gets 30 Years for Porn Left at Library | "[A man], 33, made himself easy for police to track down when he used computer equipment at the Cleveland Public Library downtown to download a thick pile of graphic porn from the Internet and printed it out. The parolee pawed through the contraband, then stuffed it in a lavatory wastebasket -- inadvertently including among the discards a copy of the résumé he had just prepared on the same equipment. Common Pleas Judge Ann Mannen looked at the homeless man's two prior convictions and a psychological profile that predicted he was likely to victimize more children and handed down her harsh sentence. .... [The man] was on parole from a three-year sentence for molesting a 9-year-old female relative in 2001, and had served one year for a 1992 conviction for groping a 12-year-old neighbor girl. .... 'I think he's a tremendous danger to the public,' she added. 'The public is safer if he is in a prison facility.'" [P2S: Perhaps, but in reality the public is safer if the ALA doesn't encourage this guy to view porn in the public library in the first place. Here's a repeat offender essentially invited in by the ALA's refusal to stray from its agenda, even after having lost big in US v. ALA.] | ||||||
| 4/19/06 | Man Accessed Child Porn on Library Computer, Police Say | "An Oshawa man is facing a criminal charge after a witness reported seeing him view child pornography in a public library. [A] man using a computer at the Brooklin Public Library was looking at an image of a child engaged in a sexual act with an adult." [P2S: O Canada, we stand on guard for thee. But not for the children, else this library would have had effective Internet filtering software on all computers. See also, Library 'Net' Users Subject to Strict Policy; Oshawa Man Charged with Viewing Child Porn, 21 Apr 2006.] | ||||||
| 4/???/06 | Need To Add More Here | "More coming soonish." [P2S: Folks, sorry for the gap here. But when you don't have the ALA's massive resources and tax revenues to push porn, it is hard to keep up with all the crimes possibly occasioned by the ALA. But we will make an effort to backfill this area.] | ||||||
| 4/1/06 | School Mum About Penalty For Coach Who Viewed Porn | "Oak Lawn High School leaders refuse to say what disciplinary action they've taken against a varsity football coach who allegedly used his school computer to view and e-mail pornography to other staffers. .... Sources familiar with the situation said head coach [so and so] was being investigated for violating the district's Internet usage policy. A member of the senior class told the principal and assistant principal about a month ago that he had learned [so and so] e-mailed pornographic images of men and women from his school computer to other coaches and staff members during the school year, the source said. 'They weren't innocent swimsuit shots,' another source said." [P2S: Another effective "Internet usage policy," right? And a student, not the staff, busted the coach. ] | ||||||
| 4/1/06 | Mark A. Caserta: Parents Must Protect Kids from Pedophiles on Internet | "Most contact with children occurs in chat rooms where pedophiles pose as other children experiencing similar issues with adolescent life while gaining the trust of the victim. Since most schools don't allow the use of chat rooms, children usually experience these Internet chat sites while at home or in the library where they are the most vulnerable." | ||||||
| 3/31/06 | Fullerton Librarians Express Internet Concerns; Children With Full Access Are Accessing Inappropriate Sites, They Say | "City librarians have raised concerns about children who misuse library cards to access MySpace.com and accessing inappropriate sites in the children's section of the downtown branch. .... Parents must sign a permission slip for eighth-graders and younger to get a library card, which provides them with access to Internet-enabled computers. 'They have three options,' [Library Director Al] Milo said. A blocked card completely bars access to the Internet; a filtered card allows access to the Internet, but locks out MySpace, pornography and games; and a non-filtered card allows access to anything, including MySpace.com. 'The choice is up to the parents, and most choose filtered,' Milo added. Problems arise when friends share unfiltered cards or there is no parental supervision, said Children's Services Manager Jeanette Pham. 'We want to create a wholesome place,' she said. 'Many times there are little ones playing our Barney games, and they can look over and see inappropriate images.'" [P2S: Here's the problem with the sharing of library cards again that led to other libraries using fingerprint systems. But look how these librarians do what's right for the community, not for the ALA. Can you imagine what Judith Krug will say when she hears a librarian wanted a library to be "a wholesome place" and most parents "choose filtered" Internet access? Get the digitalis!] | ||||||
| 3/31/06 | Filter the Filth | "A library has been heavily criticised after two youngsters accessed pornographic sites on the internet. Helen Turner was horrified to learn that her 10-year-old grandson had looked on while his 12-year-old friend accessed porn sites from the newly rebuilt Raynes Park Library. Her grandson was left distressed by the experience. Mrs Turner said: 'He is scared he's done something wrong. He's disturbed and cannot emotionally cope with what he's seen.' .... Mrs Turner said: 'It's an outrage. We have filtered the internet at home with no problem at all. I don't know why you can access these sites from the library. Surely that's not what a library is for.' She said she thought the onus should not be on children to censor themselves. Ingrid Lackajis, head of library and heritage services, said: 'Merton deeply regrets the internet service at Raynes Park Library was abused by two of its younger members. .... 'Our view is that the two individuals knew exactly what they were entering into.'" [P2S: Whoops, there it is: "She said she thought the onus should not be on children to censor themselves." Can you imagine the gall of this parent to go against libarians who advise parents to teach children to censor themselves???? Look - the librarian has "deep regrets but says it's the boy's fault!!!!] | ||||||
| 3/31/06 | Libraries Lose Web Pornography Fight | "INTERNET pornography is rife in public libraries across Australia, with most powerless to stop it. A survey by the Australian Family Association has found 76 per cent of public libraries are having problems with members accessing pornographic websites, mostly 'low-grade' material. Of the 60 libraries surveyed, 98 per cent had 'no effective' filtering, and 77 per cent had no filtering. Family Association vice-president Mary-Louise Fowler yesterday said libraries were meant to be places of safety and learning, not red-light zones full of adult sleaze. 'It seems many libraries have simply given up the fight, and by their acquiescence they are allowing their venues to become porn galleries for children,' she said. .... Internet access at Brisbane City Council's 33 libraries was recently reviewed after a 12-year-old boy allegedly viewed offensive material, sparking a police investigation. The boy was allegedly shown a graphic on-screen image by a man in his mid-40s at the Indooroopilly library. " | ||||||
| 3/30/06 | Explosive Growth of the Internet Proves Boon and Hazard For Librarians | "After the lecture, Connie McCarthy, dean of
university libraries at the [College of William & Mary], explained
that Chmara was brought to the campus, in part, because staff at Swem
were attempting to deal with the issues that were addressed. 'We clearly have had people looking at child pornography in the library,'
she said. In some instances, patrons have complained to staff
members about being bothered by what others are viewing." 'I don't think we acted on that,' she said. 'A lot of our staff, who are interested in protecting freedom of speech, would be reluctant to walk up to a person and say, 'What you're looking at is offensive to this other patron.' More likely we would suggest to the offended patron to use another terminal.'
Using information conveyed through the lecture, staff at Swem will
attempt to develop policies to help both staff and patrons understand
the library's position regarding use of its facilities. Concerning
the potential use of Internet filters at Swem, McCarthy ruled them out
because, she explained, people with diseases who look up materials
dealing with anatomy could be denied access to valuable information.
'What I heard [Chmara] say is that basically we will always be at
risk,' McCarthy said. 'You don't come away with any solid
conclusions. The Internet really is a bold new frontier, and none
of us want to be the first to be sued.'[P2S:
This article is about one of the ALA's main liars, sorry, make that
lawyers, and the desired effect it has on a librarian. Ah, the
freedoms of college. Child pornography. "I don't think we
acted on that." Based on this article, we are pretty confident
the ALA Library Bills of Rights has been amended: The New ALA Library Bill of Rights:
Article I: College campuses shall provide child pornography to the public at no cost. Article II: Anyone who complains about Article I will be labelled a censor, a homophobe, or a Christian nut trying to force his morality on others. Article III: If someone complains about pornography on computers in America's second oldest college, tell them to beat it, move, get out. Article IV: Who cares what King William III or Queen Mary II think about child pornography run rampant at their namesake college and the librarians admitting that they do absolutely nothing about this criminal activity -- get with it, man. Article V: If any libraries look wobbly, send in Chmara and other attorneys to lie, sorry, speak to them about why filters should not be used. Article IV: To help people to understand why child pornography should remain unfiltered, "develop policies" for "both staff and patrons" to fool them all into going along with defying existing law and community standards. ARTICLE VII: Scare people into thinking they will be sued if they do filter rather than if they violate laws and community standards and do not filter and a child is raped or molested as a result. After all, child pornography is just a moral point of view. Get your laws off my child porn!] ARTICLE VIII: Keep telling the 'breast cancer can't get past filters' lie over and over again. People are really stupid and they actually believe it! Hehe! Besides, if Judith Krug finds out we didn't use one of these patented, tried and true excuses the ALA suggests we use, we might be in for a lot of trouble!] |
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| 3/30/06 | Student Caught in Act of Self-Love? | "Tuesday afternoon at 2 p.m. a female student approached a reference librarian in the DiMenna-Nyselius Library and informed her that a male student was inappropriately looking at pornography and touching himself. The librarian called Public Safety. Officers responded and found a male student with a hand down his sweatpants in the 24-hour computer lab adjacent to the café by the library entrance. The student was documented and referred to judicial for sanctioning. " [P2S: The article includes a cartoon of a guy in his underwear reading a book and about to, well, let's just say the caption says, "You'll love coming here..."] | ||||||
| 3/28/06 | Pedophile Who Molested Girl Admits He's Still a Major Risk | "Convicted pedophile ... admits he's a high-risk offender who poses a threat to public safety. He also concedes that he meets the technical criteria to be designated a dangerous offender and separated from society. .... He often violated hospital rules by ... accessing pornographic sites while on supervised visits to the library." [P2S: Supervised!] |
| 3/25/06 | Compromise for Decency | "While the right to view pornography on the public library's Internet system is guaranteed under the First Amendment, one might hope common sense would prevent a porn viewer from viewing sexy websites on a open, quite public, library terminal. .... [T]he library has put in place an Internet filtration system that blocks all adult and sexually explicit content, but the system can be deactivated at the request of any adult user." [P2S: Another editor propagandizing -- right to view porn on computers in publi libraries? Hasn't this guy read US v. ALA? Apparently not. And he uses the "breast cancer" bogeyman again -- so apparently he's not even informed about much improved filters. But he does eventually get to the right conclusion, "a decent compromise."] |
| 3/20/06 | Cross-Dressing Septuagenarian In Lewd Bust; Cops: Pervy Pensioner Caught Pleasuring Himself in Ohio Library | "The 72-year-old West Virginia man is due today in an Ohio court to face a misdemeanor public indecency charge. .... According to cops, a surveillance camera captured [him] pleasuring himself while seated at a table in the [Bellaire] library's mezzanine." [P2S: We are now investigating whether Internet computers were involved.] |
| 3/19/06 | Schools Need Better Web Site-Filtering Practices | "[School web site-filtering practices have] many flaws.... The best way to fix the mess ... is to completely replace it. Start by giving each student a personal logon and password. Then use new software that would start out with a basic list of allowed sites.... It also would have a blacklist of proven bad sites. If a student were to try to access a site unknown to the software, a screen would be produced that would inform the student that the visit would be recorded and the site would be reviewed by the school district's network administrator. The student could then continue to the site as if there was no filtering software. If the site was discovered to be inappropriate by the district, it would be permanently blocked. If it was determined to be an appropriate, relevant or useful site, then it would be allowed permanently. Lists of good and bad sites could be built up quickly, and students who abused the system could be punished. If school districts finally implement a better filtering solution, students will be able to use online resources more effectively." [P2S: The author is 16 years old! However, his use of the word "censorware" shows how effective the ALA's propaganda campaign has been. Calling CIPA-compliant filtering "censorware" when US v. ALA says the filters do not censor is propaganda. Those who favor the ALA in allowing children unfettered access to the Internet despite the law made up that term for propaganda purposes. N2H2, Bess, Secure Computing Corp.] |
| 3/18/06 | Public Enemy #1, The ACLU ! | "The American Civil
Liberties Union is at war with the United States of America.
.... If you are ... a local deviant attempting to view internet
pornography at a public library, ... you can count on the support of
the ACLU. They got your back !" According to David Horowitz (a former leader of the New Left movement), their agenda
is to dismantle the Constitution in a revolutionary future, but also to
use it in the present as a radical weapon to weaken the American state. .... In recent years there has been an uproar concerning the availablity of hard-core pornography on the internet at the public libraries. In an attempt to limit children's exposure (pardon the pun) to public library porno, citizen's groups and congress have pushed to install porn-blocking software in many public libraries around the country. In 2003 the ACLU filed suit against the installation of porn blocking software on behalf of a group of librarians (no kidding) and a Rhode Island based health information website which was blocked. The ACLU claimed that the installation of porn blocking software denied citizens (children included) access to some 'men's health websites' and raised 'serious 1st Amendment issues.' How dare those citizens block acces [sic] to Robert Maplethorpe's 'bullwhip diaries!' The Supreme Court ruled against the ACLU and found that the blocking software should stay in place on the condition that the filters are deactivated for any adult user who asks. Are the Rhode Island peep show owners going to picket outside of the libraries protesting the loss of business? Do Rhode Islanders now have to pass a law that states that all adult porn viewers at public libraries must keep BOTH hands above the keyboards at all times? The ACLU would probably fight that one based on freedom of 'expression.' Thanks to the ACLU, children are no longer safe in some libraries. By supporting children's '1st Amendment rights' to view internet porn, the ACLU has progressed from being merely anti-American, to viciously anti-social. .... By fighting hard to allow children access to Internet pornography ... the ACLU descends into the murky abyss of inhumanity. This is the most explicit example of the degree to which the ACLU is at war with our country. [P2S: And the ALA as well. The ACLU and the ALA walk in lockstep on this issue of pushing porn on children.] |
| 3/17/06 | Group Charges Libraries Filtered Out Web Site | "The Council of Conservative Citizens, a nationwide group that has been portrayed as racist, is suing four libraries in the St. Louis area for allegedly blocking patrons from viewing its Web site. Gordon Baum, a lawyer from St. Charles who is the group's chief executive, ... filed a suit in U.S. District Court on Monday claiming the Maplewood City Library, University City Public Library, Valley Park Community Library and Festus Public Library had violated his constitutional right to free speech by blocking access to the Web site. At least two of the libraries say they now permit patrons to view the site. .... Federal law requires libraries that use federal money to have an Internet filter that can block out pornography, but it does not require a filter to block hate speech, [Maplewood City Library Director Terrence] Donnelly said. The University City Library stopped blocking the group's Web site after it received a letter from Baum in November, said the library's director, Linda Ballard. 'We have turned off the hate speech filters for the adult machines, but they're still in place for the children's machines,' she said." [P2S: Morenet; Bess. Let's see if the ALA cares.] |
| 3/17/06 | Library to Filter Online Porn; Ramsey County Acts After Weighing Access Vs. Problems | "Reversing a
long-standing policy, the Ramsey County Library Board this week voted
unanimously to install anti-porn software on its library computers. ....
Current policy prohibits the library's computer users from accessing pornography.... But some people break the rules. Librarians ... report that patrons do frequent pornographic Web sites, sometimes printing the images. Staff are then put in the uncomfortable position of confronting the users. 'One of our key concerns as a library board was to not inflict our staff with having to find these images on computers and to be subjected to unwanted information,' said board president David Norrgard. Three years ago, a dozen librarians from the Minneapolis Public Library filed suit in federal court alleging that they were subject to a hostile work environment from patrons surfing online sex-related sites, printing out material and even masturbating in the library. The library paid the plaintiffs $435,000 to settle the case and has since installed filters on its computers. Another motivation for the change in Ramsey County is the potential effect on children. 'The whole goal of the library is to be a community gathering place, and we don't want to have any patron feel like it's not an environment they would want to bring their family to,' [library director Susan] Nemitz said. .... The board's decision was also influenced by improvement in the filtering software, making it far superior to what was around in the past, Nemitz said. Earlier software sometimes filtered out material that was appropriate, such as information on breast cancer. .... The cost for the filtering software is about $12,000 for three years, plus $4,000 for a server, Nemitz said." [P2S: Finally! the secret of opening the eyes of the public is to hit' em in the pocketbook! The library director here is about to come under the thumb of the ALA for 1) admitting publicly that filters work--even allowing for breast cancer research, 2) implying that libraries should be family friendly, 3) arguing that CIPA money should not be turned down, and 4) admitting that filtering costs are not great. Someone please ask for a resolution commending her for being one of the few librarians nationwide exposing the ALA's misinformation; the ALA should not be the entity controlling local libraries. We wonder if she is aware that she has strayed from the ALA propaganda. Well, all's well that ends well. BRAVO! And notice the article admits people break the policy rules, exactly as we have been showing in article after article, proving again the ALA policies are useless. AND LOOK AT THAT UNANIMOUS VOTE BY THE LIBRARY BOARD TO INSTALL FILTERS! WHAT AN INSPIRATION!!!!] |
| 3/15/06 | Sex Offender Arrested Again | "He is a registered child sex offender from Wichita Falls, and now he is back in custody for another aggravated sexual assault of a 3-year-old, plus six charges of possession of child pornography. You will never believe where this man claims he came across this sexually explicit material. According to an affadavit, [the perp] downloaded and printed the pictures of children engaging in sex acts from computers at the Wichita Falls Public Library. .... Using computers there to find illegal material such as child pornography is against library policy, especially in the hands of a convicted child sex offender." [P2S: And again, library policy is ignored by criminals. No wonder the ALA says to use policies but not filters -- policies don't work and filters do, and anything that stops children from access to porn or criminals from access to children is anathema to the ALA.] |
| 3/12/06 | Can't Look Away; Therapist Speaks on the Damage a Pornography Addiction Can Cause | "On average, the UVSC library staff catches at least one person a week viewing pornographic materials on the library computers, and the number of instances of people being caught rises as finals approach. Twenty-five percent of total search engine requests are porn-related. The top ... search[] being[] sex.... All UVSC computer labs follow state law, which says: 'Public Displays: Utah law (76-10-1228) prohibits public display (at any establishment frequented by minors, or where the minors are invited as a part of the general public, i.e. UVSC), any motion picture, or any still picture that consists of nude or partially denuded figures posed or presented in a manner to provoke or arouse lust or passion.' It is illegal to view pornography on UVSC campus. All UVSC public computers are marked with a warning stating: 'This computer may be monitored for inappropriate use,' and computer lab employees have access to monitor what is being viewed on each computer in the facility. But how often do staff members check it? One Library employee said they don't check what the students are doing very often. Usually they wait for someone to approach them with a complaint about another person using the computer to look at porn before they will actually check student computer activity." [P2S: See how useless warning statements are?] |
| 3/12/06 | Schools, Libraries Filtering Kids' Web Access | "Resourceful children gain Internet access away from home, often at a library or at school itself.... But at schools and/or libraries, limits on access by using software filters has been the rule and not the exception for quite awhile now. And arguments about filtering began even before it became popular. .... Enter the Children's Internet Protection Act (CIPA), a federal law enacted by Congress in December 2000 to address concerns about access to offensive content over the Internet on school and library computers. .... In response, the American Library Association initiated a legal battle to have this requirement struck down. In the summer of 2003, the US Supreme Court ruled that the filtering for funding requirement was constitutional and would stand." |
| 3/9/06 | Enforce Pornography Restrictions in the MSE; Intelligently Designed | "There is nothing that my fellow Hopkins students and I love more than the MSE library. So when my friends and I were studying on C-Level and noticed a dirty old man looking at pornography on a public computer terminal, we were horrified. .... But I had no idea how widespread this public pornography habit truly is. I would say to a friend, 'Hey dude, there is some nasty bum looking at porn in the library.' Expecting maybe a gasp of shock or a dropped jaw, I myself was shocked to find that the responses from my friends were so nonchalant and varied: 'Oh, yeah, I've seen him before. You mean that shady white guy who wears the wife-beater and faded jeans?' 'Oh, yeah, I've seen him before. You mean that guy with the red, tucked-in, Hopkins Recreation shirt and Pittsburgh Steelers cap?' I would respond, 'No, I mean that overweight bald man with a tattered yellow jacket.' I wondered how it was possible that so many men could find it necessary to utilize a library computer for something so blatantly inappropriate. .... I think many students will find it uncomfortable to study in a library with men who find little social disincentive or embarrassment in blatantly viewing pornographic material. Should our female students have to carry mace and be on the lookout for perverts as they roam the stacks? .... We must take more careful measures to ensure that the library is being used for its purpose in research and study and not for the sexual fancies of these public perverts. For instance, we should also place a block on all pornographic websites in the library, if not that, remove anyone who chooses to look at it." [P2S: Another university library computer porn viewer. And the hits just keep coming, thanks to the ALA. Look at how this young student gets it right and implicitly puts the ALA to shame. Shame on the ALA! See how porn viewing in the library has become commonplace and the librarians have done nothing about it. And you can bet nothing will be done either, thanks to the ALA's grip on libraries nationwide.] |
| 3/9/06 | Lustful: Self Love; The Curious Incident of the Hayden Library Masturbator |  "'An
18-year-old male was arrested Sunday, January 29, at the Hayden Library
and charged with indecent exposure and public sexual indecency.
The suspect allegedly pulled his underwear to his mid-thighs to
masturbate while watching pornography on his laptop.' ....
The officer asked the student if he had been watching pornography and
masturbating. The student looked down and admitted, 'yeah.'
.... Unlike many public libraries which
use Internet filters, students using computers at ASU are free to
access pornography whenever they like. It is not even against
University regulations. According to Vicki Coleman, associate
dean of Library Services, many students may have legitimate academic
reasons for viewing pornography and therefore in the interests of 'free
intellectual exploration,' library staff do not monitor what students
are looking at. .... After two incidents of non-student patrons viewing sexual images of children
at ASU libraries in February 2005, Coleman says the library was forced
to install filtering software on machines that do not require a student
login. .... But it's not just non-students that take
advantage of unfiltered access. Late-night staff at the Computing
Commons report three incidents from last semester alone where complaints were filed against students viewing sexually inappropriate material.
.... According to Coleman, it is only when viewing pornography
'interferes with the rights of other library patrons' that University
staff will take action. 'Such interference may occur when
explicit materials are plainly visible, or in direct public view, and
the patron may be asked to move to a less public location,' she
says. .... Christian, an ASU student who asked that SPM not
use his last name, says he has also masturbated in public. 'I've done it in libraries,
offices, department stores,' he says. 'It's something about doing
the most private thing in the most public institution. The
element of risk turns me on.' .... Despite the general
disgust, Christian says he thinks the incident is not that
unusual. There are a lot of people who like to masturbate in
public...." [P2S: It's time for ASU
alumni to stop funding ASU: "many students may have legitimate
academic reasons for viewing pornography and therefore in the interests
of 'free intellectual exploration,' library staff do not monitor what
students are looking at." You can't use filters then disable them
as needed? This library administrator, Vicki Coleman, needs a
wake call, or do we all want to wait until a student is raped.] |
| 3/9/06 | The Lonely Guy; Meet David Owen, a Convicted Sex Offender Who Freely Roams the Halls of the Kansas State Capitol | "In August 1998, an exterminator spraying Owen's apartment in Wichita found pornographic pictures of children under Owen's bed and called police. Owen confessed to downloading images at the Wichita State University library and taking them home. Among the photos that authorities found were a couple of photos of 10-year-olds engaged in sexual intercourse." [P2S: Normally we don't mention offender's names, other than the ALA, but in this case it seems he wants to be known because he is helping stop other offenders.] |
| 3/8/06 | Library Lechers Livin' Large; A Bizarre Scene | "Was I seeing things or did I really read the
following paragraph in an article in the Washington Post entitled
'Policing Porn Is Not Part of Job Description': 'At most public libraries in the Washington area, an adult can view pornography on a library computer more or less unfettered. Montgomery [County] asks customers to be considerate of others when viewing Web sites. If others are put off, librarians will provide the viewer of the offending material with a 'privacy screen.''
Nope, I wasn't seeing things. Holy cow! Talk about some accommodating librarians. I already knew -- er, that is, I've read -- that the American Library Association's recommended policies on dealing with the viewing of pornography were lax, but this is ridiculous. Privacy screens? Well then, how about a box of Kleenex for that messy, porn-consuming library patron after he gets the 'information' he was seeking? And how about a cigarette for afterwards? .... All that stuff about libidinous library lotharios and the lenient librarians who enable them was merely incidental to the real outrage. .... Notice how from the perspective of the writer of the article, what made the scene 'bizarre' was the Homeland Security agents' behavior, not that of anyone who might have been using the facilities of a public library as his own personal government-funded peep show. .... What that means is, if you happen to be some stodgy, uptight killjoy who gets offended by the sight of a little skin and maybe some heavy breathing from the Internet station next to yours, you're the one with the problem. But just because you feel icky sitting next to some guy while he indulges his carnal desires via computer isn't a good enough reason to deprive him of his intellectual freedom. And anyway, how big of a problem is this, really? Leslie Burger, president-elect of the ALA, said, in what was obviously meant to be a reassuring way, that 'libraries are not the hotbed of looking at porn sites.' In other words, no big deal, rarely happens, don't sweat it. Really? They seem to be hotbed enough that somebody decided the best way to deal with it is to pass out privacy screens to lecherous patrons. What's next, privacy rooms with soundproof walls and locks on the doors for those lusty citizens who just can't find any other place to exercise their constitutional rights? Last paragraph in the Post article: 'Still, Montgomery [County] plans to train its Homeland Security officers 'so they fully understand library policy and its consistency with residents' First Amendment rights under the Constitution,' Romer said in his statement.' Great. The terrorists may not have won, but the porn fetishists certainly have." [P2S: Well, well. Someone else not afraid to speak the truth saying exactly what we already said: 1) the ALA "enables" these criminals, 2) the media provide cover for the ALA by spinning the truth until it's no longer recognizable, 3) the ALA knowingly lies to the public using the same old propaganda, and 4) the good guys need to go to reeducation camp: repeat after me in Newspeak-- pornography in public libraries is good, the ALA is good, children viewing porn is good, criminals freedom's trump children's freedoms.] |
| 2/27/06 | Porn Addict Violates Two Young Boys | "This pervert was not only caught with child pornography, but was convicted of sexual abuse against two young boys -- one was 13 years-old, and the other victim was 11 years-old. The fact of this tragic crime, like my previous post, is the obvious connection between pornography (especially child pornography) and sexual abuse. .... It is interesting to note that in handing down the sentence, the judge ordered the pervert to hand over both computers. Similarly, my previous post about the Farmer City pervert who attacked two young girls was ordered to avoid use of the Internet as a term of probation. The judges in these cases seem to recognize the fact that the Internet plays a significant role in the motivation of these sex crimes against children. Again I ask -- when will our elected officials in Springfield see this obvious connection and enact a law requiring Internet filtering in our public schools and libraries? Why wouldn't they want to protect our children and communities from sex predators? What special interest group could possibly persuade them not to act in the best interest of our children, families and communities?" [P2S: The ALA and the ACLU, that's who. To learn about what state and local officials can do, see this Table of Existing or Pending State CIPA Laws.] |
| 2/23/06 | Garbage Goofs, Groaning and Ganja Gaffes | "An employee of the Mansfield Library reported that a man was looking at child pornography on a library computer. Officers responded, but were unable to verify the allegation, DeWitt said. The computer was confiscated, and the case has been turned over to the Missoula Police Department, he said." |
| 2/22/06 | Police Make Public Library Porn Arrest |  "Upper Arlington Police nabbed a man they say downloaded child pornography at a public library. A 10TV camera caught the arrest on tape, with officers ordering the suspect to shut off his car get on the ground. 'We've got a warrant for your arrest! Put your hands behind your back!'
an officer commanded. .... 'We're concerned that somebody
would do that at a public place like that with other people around,'
said Sgt. Greg Patrick. .... Since [then], the library is
looking at new options to keep this from happening again, like ...
adding other types of filters for computers. Currently, the
library system has a word filter. But it does not work in all
cases." [P2S: Hopefully, people will
wake up and in the future the arrest warrant will be for people at the
ALA. The fish stinks from the head.] |
| 2/21/06 | After 4-3 Vote, WA PL Board To Filter All Net Access | "The board of the Fort Vancouver Regional Library District, WA, has voted 4-3 to filter all library computer access for pornography, joining the Phoenix PL and perhaps others in apparent violation of the Supreme Court's interpretation of Children's Internet Protection Act (CIPA), which would require libraries to disable the filters for adults on request. (No challenge has yet been filed, however.) .... The library said that, of about 450 messages from citizens, about two-thirds favored more stringent filtering...." [P2S: Can you sense the palpable exasperation in this ALA story? It practically screams, "Help!!! ACLU!!! Help!!!" Hey, let's make it a national trend and watch the ALA's blood pressure rise!] |
| 2/20/06 | The American Library Association (ALA) Successfully Pushes Smut On Your Children - Why Do They Do It? - How Do They Do It? | "The illusion of the local community being in control of their own schools and libraries is just a good facade for the ALA to present to the public. .... The un-American ALA has taken the American constitutional right of freedom of speech and has perverted it into their right to push graphic and explicit smut on children. ALA and ALA affiliate brown boot bullies are constantly working to implement their weird social marxist agenda. .... In schools and libraries you are seeing and will continue to see increasing use of graphic and explicit books. .... The ALA believes 'anything-goes-at-any-age' and that there is no difference between children and adults. ALA and ALA affiliates ... push smut in both public and school libraries. .... Homosexual poet Allen Ginsberg said, 'We'll get you through your children.' The ALA is doing it ... through a network of like minded affiliates, distortion and propaganda, threats of legal action, intimidation and bullying of parents and citizens who don't agree with them, constant intervention in local issues, and indoctrination, intimidation and control of English teachers, school administrators and librarians. .... They have worked for years to get the power to enforce their ideology on children, parents, local communities and the public. They now have this power almost everywhere and are working hard to increase it further and to marginalize any librarians or English teachers who don't subscribe to their twisted views. To see how the ALA and ALA Affiliate Bullies push smut on your children click here. .... Unless more parents, taxpayers and local communities wake up and fight back, the ALA will soon have absolute power in deciding what is appropriate in English class and the libraries for all America's children. .... To PABBIS it appears that the ALA is successfully running a huge racketeering or terrorist operation for the political indoctrination and moral corruption of children. .... ALA leadership is a small group of very (usually aging) leftist, social marxist, pro-sexualization, pro-homosexualization, pro-atheist, pro-'multi-culturalism', pro-'world government', pro-world tax, anti (especially Christian) religion, pro-porn, America bashing, America blaming people." [P2S: MUST READING! Look at this graphic! Wow!] |
| 2/17/06 | Library Problems Heard at Student Council Meeting | "The highlight of Thursday's Student Council meeting was guest speaker Bobbilyn Negron of the 'Take Back Your Library' student campaign. .... Student Council started a library task force during the fall semester, and [the] four main points were the ... viewing pornography on the library's computers." [P2S: Hey, ALA! Students don't want porn on their schools computers! Sadly, they are forced to lobby for the obvious, caused in part by the ALA's defiance of the law.] |
| 2/17/06 | Security Added at Broome Library; Officer to Help Enforce Rule Against Computer Porn | "Broome County's only county-owned building without security will get a uniformed officer starting next month. .... 'You don't want to be the library where an incident happened,' [Carl A. Fenescey, Broome security director] said Wednesday. 'That won't go away for a generation.' The 90-day pilot security program will start Wednesday when the library plans to implement a new patron code of conduct policy. Library officials wanted to beef up a previous policy to prohibit patrons from using library computers to access pornography on the Internet or by any other means. .... 'We felt it was probably necessary to have security personnel there to enforce that policy,' said Thomas Gray, president of the library's board of trustees. .... Security cameras may also be installed at the library." [P2S: Anything but filters again. And a new useless acceptable use policy will be just as useless as the previous one -- no criminal cares about acceptable use policies. Isn't "beefing up a previous policy" an admission that the policy was a failure? Some communities never learn and always let the ALA types run roughshod over them.] |
| 2/15/06 | In Our View: The Real Library Issue | "Now that the Fort Vancouver Regional Library board has decided to filter Internet pornography from all computer terminals, it's time for both sides of this contentious issue to rally.... .... The Columbian for several years editorially opposed fully filtering FVRL libraries, but on Dec. 11 we took a new stance, starting with this recommendation to the library board: 'Treat your electronic offerings the same way you treat your print offerings. When books and magazines are 'selected' for libraries, no one screams, 'Censorship!' It's part of what librarians do ... Why not do the same thing for Internet access?' .... We hope that the distracting quarrel about a disgusting issue (pornography) is over. If the pro-filter crowd makes this a wedge issue and tries to further hamstring the libraries with additional exclusions of books or other resources, then they will expose the fact that it really wasn't about libraries after all. It was only about imposing more narrowly defined personal values on a public institution. And if long-time, civil-libertarian library lovers withdraw their support as a result of this decision, then they will effectively douse their own passionately expressed love of books and learning." [P2S: What an excellent, clear thinking editorial board. Bravo!] |
| 2/15/06 | ACLU Decries Approval of Library Filters; New Policy - The District's Board Must First Define What It Considers Pornography | "Fort Vancouver Regional Library District board members may have violated their code of ethics when they voted this week to put filters on all library computers, the Clark County American Civil Liberties Union chapter president said Tuesday. Craig Dewey said mandated filtering for adults was a conflict of interest with a code that, as listed on the district's Web site, says board members will 'resist all efforts by groups or individuals to censor library materials.' A second code says the board will 'work to ensure that the public has equal access to information, both as a constitutional right and as the best way to sustain a democratic way of life.' The library board voted Monday to tighten its Internet filtering practices.... But Dewey criticized the board's 4-3 vote. 'We prefer to see the library not playing a parental role or decide for parents what their children see and don't see,' he said. Any legal action the organization could take would be done through the Seattle ACLU office, he said. .... Margaret Tweet, a Camas resident who for years has advocated for greater filtering to combat access to pornography in libraries, said the board's decision was 'terrific.' 'We're not the only ones doing this,' Tweet said. 'We're taking the steps that other libraries with problems have taken successfully in the past.' .... 'People will feel better that the board is more responsive to community standards.'" [P2S: The ACLU rides to the rescue of the ALA. It's the ALA's policy forced on the local library that the ACLU claims is being violated. Essentially, the ACLU is saying an ethics policy that excludes community standards to allow children to be sexualized is being violated. Typical for the ACLU, a communist organization from its birth, it claims to be protecting "a democratic way of life," which is to them and the ALA one where age is not a legal reason to keep children from seeing porn even though the US Supreme Court says it is. See the ACLU's comment that libraries may not play a parental role in protecting children from porn? Remember folks, we're taking about the ACLU , an organization founded to bring about the end of the United States as we know it--where better and easier than to attack and demoralize its children. Then, everyone start shaking now, the ACLU does the usual threatening to sue act. The ACLU has been largely successful in the past, especially with leftist judges, but the times they are a changin'. The ACLU is losing case after case lately as their true nature has become exposed for all to see. With regard to the ACLU riding to the rescue of the ALA, tell the ACLU to take a hike. Scram!] |
| 2/14/06 | Vancouver Library Board Votes to Add Mandatory Internet Filters; Pornography - Once Software Is In Place, Adults Won't Be Able To Shut Off Screening Functions | "Mandatory filters will be installed on all computers in the Fort Vancouver Regional Library District, the library board decided Monday. The 4-3 vote will eliminate the ability of users to turn off filters on some computers and view material that some find objectionable but that is legal. .... 'It's critical that the library be family-friendly, and I believe we're heading away from that,' [board member Jack ] Burkman said. .... Peterson said she was the swing vote. She supported the change, she said, only because she does not think pornography is a 'valuable information source' that cannot be obtained elsewhere. Issues of 'family values,' morality and 'economic blackmail' were not persuasive, she said. .... 'If you want voters' money, you have to do what voters want,' Ken Topper of Yacolt said. .... Smith, a Hood River librarian, said she doesn't think pornography viewing is a problem in the libraries. Library officials have received few complaints, she said, and the idea that libraries are unsafe is a 'misperception.'" |
| 2/14/06 | Library to Filter All Web Access | "In the wake of persistent criticism that the library distributes pornography, the Fort Vancouver Library board decided Monday to change its Internet policy and impose the most restrictive rules of any local library. The library board voted 4-3 on Monday to filter all Internet access, to make viewing pornography against the library's policy, and to have library staff monitor Internet use. .... Board member Jack Burkman said he came to his decision in part after hearing from folks who felt uncomfortable in the library. 'I believe it's critical the library be friendly to families,' he said. .... That word [pornography] came up frequently during the two hours of public comment and debate. About 50 people attended the meeting. It inspired Marlene Adams to see what all the fuss was about. She told the board that she 'Googled a vulgar term for female anatomy.' She clicked on the first site. 'It was a depiction of oral sex close-up,' Adams said. 'Well, if this isn't obscenity, I don't know what is.' Jerry King, library board chairman and former Vancouver city attorney, explained that garden-variety pornography doesn't qualify as obscenity, because it is widely available. .... King steadfastly defended Internet access to legal material. 'There are valid reasons to watch porn in a library,' he said, to gasps and a shout, 'It's a matter of right and wrong!' from the audience." [P2S: A LIBRARY BOARD VOTES 4-3 TO INSTALL INTERNET FILTERS! BUT THE BOARD CHAIRMAN SAYS, "THERE ARE VALID REASONS TO WATCH PORN IN A LIBRARY"!! LET'S WATCH AS THE ALA EXERTS ALL ITS FORCES AND PROPAGANDA AND THOSE OF THE ACLU TO BRING OUT THE TROOPS TO ATTACK THE BOARD TO GET IT TO REVERSE ITS DECISION, JUST AS THE ALA DID IN OVERLAND PARK, KANSAS WHEN IT TOO DECIDED 4-3 TO OUST ALA INFLUENCE.] |
| 2/9/06 | Team 7 Investigators Find Crimes, Threats At Central Library | "Seattle's new $169 million downtown library has attracted ... dozens of men watching porn movies at public computer terminals. 'I worry that pedophiles are hanging there, just waiting. There are a lot of teenagers there by themselves. I worry about that.' Records show 491 'code of conduct violations' serious enough to get a patron kicked out. .... Seattle Library administrative services director Marilynne Gardner says [f]ewer than 500 incidents of disciplinary misconduct proves to her this place is safe and secure. .... Patrons have repeatedly been expelled for sexually inappropriate behavior. In just one afternoon near the fifth floor computer terminals, we observed several men acting out things you wouldn't want your children to see. Gardner defends the library security saying, 'In any public place, even at the grocery store, we encourage parents to stay with their children, especially young children.' .... 'I stay away from the teen section. A bunch of the homeless guys sit there and sleep and watch people. ... I don't want to keep telling people to stay away from me,' Young said. .... Library staff say they haven't had many complaints from the public, but almost everyone we spoke with outside the building, like Melissa Letz, had concerns. .... There are certain incidents that go on inside that you might consider a crime, but KIRO Team 7 Investigators checked and Seattle police aren't called very often to make that official determination." [P2S: More librarian propaganda outrages -- when the media expose the things they saw that children should not see, the librarians response is to say well the children should have their parents present. Just lovely. And look, the library says they don't get many complaints while the media turns that idea on its head. Are your librarians misleading your community in a similar fashion? Just look at the total denials here by the librarians, the total lies. THE MEDIA EVEN EXPOSES UNREPORTED CRIMINAL ACTIVITY! THE FREEDOM OF PORNOGRAPHY PEOPLE AREN'T HIDING SOMETHING, ARE THEY? And these are the people we are supposed to trust to make decisions on whether to use Internet filtering? Hello? Is anybody home? See also Incidents At Seattle's Central Library, Incident Reports - City Library Branches, Incident Reports - King County Library Branches, Sample Incident Report. "If you want to see full incident reports (not computer summaries) the documents are considered a public record under the Washington Open Records/Public Disclosure Act. You may request documents by writing to: Seattle Public Library Administration, 1000 Fourth Ave., Floor 11, Seattle, WA 98104" THIS ARTICLE PROVES LIBRARIANS LIE AND CANNOT BE TRUSTED TO PROTECT PATRONS. CITES AND STATES MUST TAKE ACTION TO PROTECT THE CITIZENS FROM THE CRIMINALS AND THE LIBRARIANS WHO PROTECT AND ENABLE THE CRIMINALS.] |
| 2/9/06 | Man Caught in Library with Printouts of Child Porn | "A 23-year-old man has been caught in a Slavic Village library with computer printouts of child pornography. .... He spent three years behind bars for sexually assaulting a 9-year-old girl. Labeled a sexual predator, he was ordered to stay away from kids. .... It turns out [he] would use the public library on Fleet Avenue for his twisted sexual pleasure -- surfing the net for child pornography. [He] was able to download the kiddie porn right under the noses of the guards at the library. But then made another big mistake. 'He goes to use the men's restroom at the library and leaves his porn and resume on the lavatory there ... he admitted that he was looking at the child porn ....'" [P2S: Guess those "Acceptable Use Policies" really scared off this guy, huh? And how about those guards, huh? No, filters aren't necessary where a library has acceptable use policies and even guards in place. Well don't look at us funny -- this is what librarians argue in story after story!] |
| 2/9/06 | Lawmaker Wants Libraries to Filter Porn From Kids | "An area lawmaker took a shot Wednesday at the Topeka and Shawnee County Public Library and its policies regarding the use of computers by children. Rep. Becky Hutchins, R-Holton, said the library was too liberal in letting kids surf the Internet. Those children run the risk of getting into pornographic Web sites, she said. 'They leave it to the discretion of minors,' Hutchins told members of the House. Hutchins successfully added a provision to a library bill Wednesday that would require public libraries to use Internet filters on computers that are accessed by minors. .... Meanwhile, Shawnee County's top library official dismissed the need for the measure. 'We're trying to fix a problem that ain't broke,' said Gina Millsap, director of the Topeka and Shawnee County Public Library. .... Rep. Eber Phelps, D-Hays, said he recently took a tour of the Topeka and Shawnee County Public Library and was shown its surveillance room, which monitors computers. 'It was somewhere on the level of what we would see at Lansing state prison,' Phelps said. He called Hutchins' amendment 'a reaction to a rumor' that the library was being lax in keeping inappropriate material off of publicly owned computers. 'Put some trust in these people who are running our libraries,' Phelps said." [P2S: Hey, legislators, get some guts like these! But, as a librarian tells the same misinformation the ALA provides, another legislator says we should trust the people who think it's age discrimination to keep a child from porn. Scary!] |
| 2/8/06 | Students Viewing Porn on Computer at Local School | "Internet pornography made its way into the classroom at Fairview Elementary School in Lansing this week. .... Parent: 'I was appalled.' Pornographic images for mature eyes only were available for her fourth grader to see when another student brought them up online. Parent: 'Pictures of naked ladies and pictures of several sexual acts going on.' A spokeswoman from the Lansing school district ... told 6 News that the episode was unintentional. Further, she says Lansing schools have filters in place on the student's computers, designed to prevent them from viewing violent and pornographic materials. Parent: 'It's one thing to have a filter, it's another thing to make sure the filter is working properly.' .... Parent: 'It's hindsight, it's after the fact, my child has these visions in her mind of the things she saw on a pornographic website that her classmates were able to pull up in the classroom.'" [P2S: This again affirms filters are not effective if they are not effectively deployed and maintained. Oh, the ALA says if they are used, they should be set to the weakest setting. Gee I wonder if that happened here? PARENT: CONTACT US TO DISCUSS POSSIBLE LAW SUIT AGAINST THE SCHOOL AND OTHERS TO TRY TO PREVENT SIMILAR HARM TO MORE CHILDREN!] |
| 2/7/06 | Cracking Down on Pornography in the Library | "Last week [three Iowa Senators] introduced legislation, Senate File 2108, that looks to prevent libraries from receiving state funding if they failed to provide filtering software that blocks access to pornographic Web sites. .... The legislation was written with the Children's Internet Protection Act (CIPA) in mind. The CIPA is federal legislation that says in order for libraries to receive federal dollars, they must have filters to block explicit content. The act has been called by some people unjust censorship - a violation of the rights afforded by the First Amendment, say critics. But in a 2003 Supreme Court decision, United States v. American Library Association, Inc., the court ruled that Congress should be allowed to 'protect children from pornography' on public computers. The library, it was decided, is not a public forum, safeguarded by free speech liberties, but instead a place of learning resting on pillars of research, reading, and recreation. 'Libraries have a responsibility to the taxpayers who fund them,' [State Senator] Behn said. 'They are not exempt from helping protect our children from inappropriate material.'" [P2S: Fantastic! This is a rare fair and balanced article where the media did not merely act as a loudspeaker for ALA propaganda! Bravo!] |
| 2/6/06 | The Cuddle Puddle of Stuyvesant High School |  "Alair
is headed for the section of the second-floor hallway where her friends
gather every day during their free tenth period for the 'cuddle
puddle,' as she calls it. There are girls petting girls and girls petting guys and guys petting guys. .... That said, the Stuyvesant cuddle puddle is emblematic of the changing landscape of high-school sexuality across the country.
This past September, when the National Center for Health Statistics
released its first survey in which teens were questioned about their
sexual behavior, 11 percent of American girls polled in the 15-to-19
demographic claimed to have had same-sex encounters-the same percentage
of all women ages 15 to 44 who reported same-sex experiences, even
though the teenagers have much shorter sexual histories. It
doesn't take a Stuyvesant education to see what this means: More girls are experimenting with each other, and they're starting younger." [P2S:
This article has nothing to do with filters. But in our opinion
it exposes the effects of the ALA's successful efforts to push
inappropriate sexualized material on children. As the head of the
youth section of the ALA said, it's good for children read about teenage oral sex orgies so they can experience it from a safe distance.
Well it appears the children are actually learning in school, exactly
what the ALA wants them to know. Read it and weep for our
children, our country. See also, "The Heteroflexible, Pansensual, Bi-Curious Teenager--The Fast Lane in the American High School," by R. Albert Mohler, Jr., 15 Feb 2006.] |
| 2/2/06 | Police Beat: Indecent Exposure in Library | "[Arizona State University] police reported the following incidents Wednesday: An 18-year-old male ASU student was arrested Sunday night at Hayden Library and charged with indecent exposure and public sexual indecency. The suspect allegedly pulled his pants and underwear to his mid-thighs to masturbate while watching pornography on his laptop. When asked why he had gone to the library to view pornography and masturbate, the suspect allegedly told police, 'To be honest, the Internet connection at my dorm isn't good enough.'" [P2S: Here we see the criminal is honest even where the librarians are not. This library is the site of numerous incidents but the librarians say it's too few to do anything about it. Right.] |
| 2/1/06 | Bill Requiring Library Internet Filters Raises Concerns | "The director of libraries in Waterloo and Cedar Falls stands firmly opposed to legislative efforts requiring Internet filters in return for state funding. Carol French Johnson, who jointly oversees the two public libraries, said Internet filters designed to block access to pornography at library terminals will cause more problems than they resolve, noting the libraries have already taken steps to prevent users from browsing graphic content in the building. 'From our perspective, we don't have a problem,' Johnson said. 'This needs to be a local issue.' 'What is on your screen is very visible to our staff and everybody who walks through,' she said. 'If we have any problems with you, you're out. It has been very effective.' Johnson also notes the current filtering technology is ancient. 'They are still blocking by words; they cannot block pictures,' she said. 'Essex, England, is blocked because 'sex' is in there and breast cancer is blocked because 'breast' is in there. I don't believe that anybody could support blocking breast cancer information to someone who has breast cancer.' But the bigger problem for Waterloo and Cedar Falls revolves around their shared bibliographic data base, which is on a server at the University of Northern Iowa campus. 'If we have titles that get blocked because of filters, we don't have access to our own data base,' Johnson said. 'I don't know what we would do. In essence, we would have to find our own automated system, which would cost the taxpayers and awful lot of money.' Finally, Johnson disagrees with the idea that Internet access draws child molesters to the library. 'The problems with pedophiles in the library is not new and it's not because of pornography on the Internet,' she said. 'I used to monitor pedophiles in the libraries in Miami in 1969 (before Internet was available). It's always been a problem and parents need to be aware of that ... and not drop of[f] their young kids unattended.'" [P2S: THIS ARTICLE REVEALS PURE PROPAGANDA AND OUTRIGHT LIES BY LIBRARIANS DESPERATELY TRYING TO STOP A STATE-WIDE FILTERING LAW. SINCE WE HAVE POINTED THIS OUT SO MANY TIMES, SEE IF YOU CAN FIGURE IT OUT FOR YOURSELVES. HINT, EVERY SINGLE THING SHE SAID IS PROPAGANDA, AN OUTRIGHT LIE, OR IGNORES US v. ALA. Here's just an outrageous juxtaposition: "From our perspective, we don't have a problem," Johnson said. "This needs to be a local issue." This is exactly why a state-wide solution is needed. After saying there's no problem, she says just leave it up to us local librarians who say it's no problem and we'll make the right decision. Finally, notice that outrageous statement that Internet access has nothing to do with molestations. That's like saying playing russian roulette has nothing to do with suicide.] |
| 1/30/06 | Senators Want Porn Filters on Library Computers | "Three Republican Senators are pressing for restrictions on 'adult, pornographic' materials in Iowa's public libraries. .... Senator Jeff Angelo, a Republican from Creston, says some Iowa libraries get no federal money and therefore aren't required by law to install the filters. He's co-sponsoring a bill to require Iowa's public libraries to install those porn filters on library computers. 'It cannot be denied that there are men in this state who are going into our public libraries on a weekly or sometimes daily basis and accessing pornography (on the Internet),' Angelo says. .... Angelo cites a recent case in the Des Moines Public Library where a man who was accessing porn on the library's computer was arrested and charged with trying to molest a three-year-old child who was in the library at the same time. Angelo says a librarian also told him she had taken a group of children to a library computer which had a screen-saver on it because it hadn't been in use recently. When the librarian touched the mouse, a pornographic image popped up because the man who'd been using the computer had been reading porn. .... 'This is a public safety issue,' [Senator Jerry Behn of Boone] says. .... 'Libraries live by different rules than all the different businesses -- the movie theaters and video rental stores -- do,' [Senator Brad] Zahn [sic] says. .... 'People expect more out of our libraries. It's our safe haven,' Zahn says." [P2S: Please contact Senators Jeff Angelo, Jerry Behn, and Brad Zaun to tell them you support their efforts in this regard and that you are not fooled by ALA propaganda. Update: here is an example of an editorial completely mesmerized by ALA propaganda -- "Tuesday's Our Views; Don't Call the Library 'Mom'," 7 Feb 2006. In contrast, here is a story where the reporter is not fooled by the ALA, apparently after investigating the truth instead of rebroadcasting the propaganda, and presents a fair and balanced story: "Cracking Down on Pornography in the Library," 7 Feb 2006.] |
| 1/30/06 | Iowa Library Association Critical of Bill Calling for Porn Filters on Computers | "The president of the Iowa Library Association is critical of a bill three Republican state senators are pushing that would restrict access to pornographic materials in Iowa libraries. Iowa Library Association president Susan Craig of Iowa City says forcing libraries to install internet filters on computers that screen out pornographic websites is too 'onerous.' .... 'The parent should be monitoring and making decisions about what they allow or don't allow their children to do,' Craig says." [P2S: Iowa citizens: your librarians think protecting your children is too "onerous." If your child is raped, be happy you will not have unduly drained the tax base of the community. Besides, as you can see, the ILA president, slavishly following the ALA, says librarians are not to make decisions about pornography for children. P2S SUGGESTS ADDING TO THE BILL LANGUAGE THAT WOULD EXPOSE THE LIBRARIANS, THE LIBRARY, ITS BOARD OF TRUSTEES, THE ILA AND SUSAN CRAIG, AND THE ALA AND JUDITH KRUG TO LIABILITY FOR ANY DAMAGE RESULTING TO CHILDREN AS A RESULT OF THE FAILURE TO FILTER AND TO DO SO EFFECTIVELY IN CIPA-LIKE FASHION. THIS IS AN ILLUSTRATION OF WHY "SMUT!" IS THE ALA ANTHEM.] |
| 1/29/06 | GOP Pushes For Library Internet Filters | [This article is similar to the above two, but adds notable excuses.] "Susan Craig of Iowa City, president of the Iowa Library Association, said her group would oppose [because] a policy decision ... should be made locally by library boards. Senate Democratic Leader Mike Gronstal of Council Bluffs said the proposal is worthy of legislative consideration but he cautioned that the issue of Internet filters is complicated and that savvy computer users often find ways to bypass such barriers." [P2S: Here we see more excuses. First, ALA policy is forced into hundreds of libraries by the ALA, but the ALA and its ilk argues that removing the influence of the ALA must be done on a library by library basis -- so in Iowa they argue the libraries are too poor to install filters, but are rich enough to independently push off the yoke of the ALA. As to the Senate Democratic Leader Mike Gronstal's statements, notice they sound nice but are really an excuse to allow children continued access to porn and criminals continued access to children. The truth is the decision to use filters is NOT "complicated" because US v. ALA has already asked and answered all legal questions involved. Further, if the claim that "savvy computer users [would] bypass" the filters were true, then CIPA and US v. ALA were a total waste of time and should not now be enforced because they are useless against "savvy computer users." Now does anyone not looking for an excuse really believe that? The people of Iowa are not that stupid.] |
| 1/29/06 | BCC Scrutinizes Internet-Use Policy in Child-Porn Case; Student Remains Jailed on 16 Counts | "A Broome Community College student remained in Broome County Jail without bail Saturday, a day after he was accused of using a campus computer to download child pornography. [He] was charged Friday by Broome County sheriff's deputies with 16 counts of possessing a sexual performance by a child, a felony, after he was accused of downloading more than 200 images — 160 of them pornographic — in a library computer lab. .... BCC Public Affairs Officer Richard David said ... 'This is a clear violation of the college's Internet acceptable-use policy agreement....' 'There is really no explanation that can justify this,' he said. .... [T]he student had visited a variety of pornographic Web sites with images of children around 10 years old." [P2S: "There is really no explanation that can justify this." Yes there is. It's called your refusal to install Internet filters to block this in the first place. It's called using ALA-recommended, obviously useless "Internet acceptable-use policy agreements" to politely ask criminals not to be criminals.] |
| 1/13/06 | Your Local SOB Sex Traffic | Several library crimes listed -- but read the article since we are a small group against the behemoth ALA and we need some sleep. And the author is famous for her work exposing the pedophile Kinsey who has changed the sexual mores of the world for the worse while his crimes against children were hidden. |
| 1/12/06 | Opinion - Library Needs Change in Net Policy | Fantastic article. It's rare when the media exposes the ALA as the danger it is, but this is one of those editorials -- but read the article since we are a small group against the behemoth ALA and we need some sleep. |
| 1/11/06 | Library Balances Intellectual Freedoms in Online Access | Another child victimized in a public library by a convicted sex offender using the computers, and more ALA propaganda -- but read the article since we are a small group against the behemoth ALA and we need some sleep. |
| 1/10/06 | Library Doling Out ALA Propaganda | "[T]he [ALA] endangers American communities in a way that makes it look like unsafe libraries is what the people really want for themselves. .... The librarians here have successfully fooled the public into believing ALA propaganda and keeping their own children exposed to criminal activity while making it look like this is what the community wants instead of the ACLUified ALA." [P2S: An excellent exposé by P2S of ALA propaganda and its effect on the public. Amazingly, another letter printed that very day also suffers from ALA propaganda disease. That letter appears here as well. See the extensive comments we have made in that letter to prove this beyond the shadow of a doubt.] |
| 1/10/06 | Mayor: County Expenses are Taxing City; PTO Dynamo Named Citizen of the Year | "The meeting ended with some sharp discussion of whether internet filters ought to be placed on all of the public library's computers. Councilors Jay Bowers and Ken Merrifield said that after an earlier meeting with the library's board of trustees, they had the impression that there was a 'gentleman's agreement' that if the city paid for filters, they would be placed on all the computers. Library director Rob Sargent said filters were installed on all the computers in October, but if a library user who is over 18 requests that the filter be disabled, that request is honored. 'I don't want city taxes being used to pay for porn,' said Councilor Glen Feener. Andreozzi said that filters sometimes block content. For example, she said, a filter might block the word 'breast,' even if used in the phrase 'chicken breast recipe' or in a search about health. Some of the other councilors were unconvinced, and sought to have another meeting with the library board of trustees. 'Let's have a come to Jesus talk,' Feener said." [P2S: Again librarians spreading the same misinformation. But the "gentlemen's agreement" looks interesting. Click the nearby link to read more about it.] |
| 1/10/06 | Money to Block Access to Porno Web Sites at Libraries | "Supervisors have voted to spend [$340,000] for computer software and other equipment to block access to pornographic Web sites at Los Angeles County libraries. The Board of Supervisors voted in October to install limited filters on adult computers and more restrictive filters on children's computers to prevent library visitors from viewing sexually explicit sites. Funding was approved today on a unanimous vote." [P2S: Unanimous vote, folks! You CAN do this in your own towns! ALL computers will be filtered, not the useless solution of just the children's computers. Bravo! See also "County to Vote on Blocking Library Porn," Jan 10, 2006.] |
| 1/9/06 | Fort Vancouver Filters Internet More Than Most | "Completely
unfettered Internet access is recommended by the American Library
Association, said [Deborah Caldwell-Stone, deputy director of the OIF
with the ALA]. Filters, she said, are 'not a great tool
for a public library in particular to use.' In the mid-1990s,
'filtering was very, very, very crude instruments,' she said.
'You couldn't get to sites that talked about chicken breasts, for
example, because of the word 'breasts.'' While filters are better
today, 'even very sophisticated filters fail. They block access
to perfectly innocent information and they still allow access to
sexually-explicit materials,' she said. Internet policies differ
because there are different feelings about what information is appropriate, she said. No one wants to expose children to pornography, but should an unsupervised teenager access a Web site with information about sex? Caldwell-Stone
argues it's up to the parents to set those standards for their own
children. 'Is it the librarian's job in place of the parent to
decide whether that child has a need for that information?' she said." [P2S:  Here we have a perfect Laura Ingraham
"But Monkey" (someone who says something good, then says "but," and
follows with a contradiction of the good statement he just made.)
Caldwell-Stone of the ALA says, "No one wants to expose children to
pornography, BUT should an unsupervised teenager access a Web site with
information about sex?" Sure sounds nice until you think about
it. She means librarians who follow ALA policy are hands-off and
will do NOTHING to stop your children from being exposed to
pornography. She then confirms this is ALA policy:
"Completely unfettered Internet access is recommended by the [ALA]" she
is reported o have said.
She then throws the curve ball intentionally designed to confuse people: "Is it the librarian's job in place of the parent to decide whether that child has a need for that information?" First, this a manifestation of the myth (a big enough lie told often enough will become true even if it is false), made up by ACLUified librarians in the ALA, that librarians have no responsibility for supervising children. Now everywhere else public servants have a certain duty regarding the welfare of children. The ALA would have us believe only librarians have no such duties regarding children. THIS ARTICLE GOES A LONG WAY TOWARD USING ALA QUOTES TO EXPOSE THE ALA'S EXTREME, RADICAL AGENDA TO ENSURE CHILDREN MAINTAIN ACCESS TO PORNOGRAPHY. IS THIS WHAT YOU WANT TO GUIDE YOUR OWN LOCAL LIBRARIANS WHO FOLLOW ALA POLICY? Second, CHILDREN NEVER HAVE A "NEED" FOR PORNOGRAPHY! The ALA obviously believes children have a "need" for pornography, and only a parent of only his own child can prevent a child from seeing pornography. This from Caldwell-Stone who has repeatedly attempted to censor true information about the ALA itself that she did not want anyone to know. When she says people have "different feelings about what information is appropriate," she is saying some people may think children should have access to pornography. Do you think that? Do you know who does? Her boss, Judith Krug, the de facto leader of the ALA for decades! "Parents who would tell their children not to read Playboy 'don't really care about their kids growing up and learning to think and explore.'" 9/18/95 Citizen, quoting Judith Krug, ALA Director of OIF. THE ALA IS A RADICAL, EXTREMIST ORGANIZATION PUSHING PORNOGRAPHY ON CHILDREN IN PUBLIC LIBRARIES AND SCHOOLS NATIONWIDE.] |
| 1/5/06 | Adult May Have Accessed Child Pornography At Groton Library; Concerns Raised About Facility's Computer Policy | "Town Councilor James L. Streeter called on the town to implement stronger safeguards and increased Internet controls that would prevent pornography from being viewed on the publicly accessed computers at the Groton Public Library, especially in the presence of children. Streeter told the council Tuesday that he learned the town was investigating an incident in which 'an adult male was found to have accessed, watched and downloaded child pornography from one of the public computers at the Groton Public Library.' 'I want to look out for the morals of our children. Public tax dollars are paying for' these computers, Streeter said Wednesday. 'I'm not trying to restrict anybody. If they want to view pornography that's up to them, but if they use the public's computers there have to be restrictions.' Police Chief Kelly M. Fogg confirmed ... the computer involved wasn't located in the children's section of the library. .... Library Director Alan Benkert declined comment ..., but the librarian said he wanted to reassure the public that the library does utilize filtering software and 'comply with the Children's Internet Protection Act and any other law' governing online access. .... But in compliance with a U.S. Supreme Court ruling, the library does afford patrons age 17 and older the ability to ask library staff to temporarily turn off the filtering software 'for bona fide research or other lawful purposes,' Benkert said. .... Streeter said the library's policy and monitoring were still not enough to protect the children. He said he has seen a mixed crowd of young and adult patrons using the computers in the adult section. He is concerned about the child sitting next to an adult who had the filters disabled. 'I think it's inappropriate in our library to have the possibility of pornography being viewed by an adult with a child sitting next to him. It's a crime,' he said. 'I can readily concur with the free-speech issue. There are ways to control it. One way could be to have adults in a separate room, where the kids would not have any contact or have a chance to walk by.'" [P2S: Mr. Streeter, Mr. Streeter. You are in the right church but the wrong pew. For example you say adults could view porn in a separate room. Well that's nice; then they can walk back into the next room and grab a kid into the bathroom like happens nationwide. By saying you concur do you mean you concur with the librarians who, guided by the ALA, mislead you about the law? The free-speech issue about which you are rightly concerned has been asked and answered by the US Supreme Court in US v. ALA, a case the ALA lost. Yet the ALA advises libraries how to make end runs around the law or completely ignore that it even exists. Likely as a result, children continue to be raped and molested in public libraries. The use of filters, effective ones, effectively applied and maintained, does not violate anyone's free speech rights, according to the US Supreme Court. It seems you have been mislead into believing libraries that filter present some issues not already asked and answered in a case the ALA itself lost and lost big. It seems you have also been misled into thinking pornography in the public library is part of some other right the ACLUified ALA made up and lost before the US Supreme Court. Please, Mr. Streeter, you and other government leaders like you. Please get an education, get a backbone, and do the right thing to protect your children from the ALA's perverse pervasive predilection for pushing porn principally on children nationwide in public schools and public libraries. A library's claim that it complies with CIPA, as your library has done, is often made with full knowledge that it is either not complying or it is pushing the envelope of legality. Do you want envelope pushing where your children are involved? Do not take the word of librarians alone. Get educated and find out what's the truth in your library. Read US v. ALA, then read your library's Internet Policy and it should be clear to you that your library is NOT in compliance with CIPA -- are they claiming they are? That's what the library director said in the news story. There may be theft of federal funds then. Shockingly, your library's policy even admits "Library patrons may be observed viewing explicit sexual images on an Internet computer." Does that sound CIPA compliant to you? Your library may be exposing your town to litigation and its children to danger. If ever people get past the miasma of law and Court-defiant misinformation from the ALA and your local library and looks at the cold, hard facts in the light of US v. ALA, CIPA, and other trustworthy sources, they may see better how to protect children in public libraries. Given the pervasiveness and effectiveness of the ALA's efforts to ensure children maintain continued access to pornography despite the law, I really can't blame you for being so misled. See also "Filter Flap Confounds CIPA-Compliant Connecticut Library," ALA, 1/6/06.] |
| 1/4/06 | Brookfield Library Computers to Get Privacy Screens - Response to Complaint About Child's Exposure | "Computer screens in the adult services area
of the Brookfield Public Library will be outfitted with privacy screens
as a way to prevent other patrons from being exposed to material they
deem offensive. ....
[A] Brookfield resident complained that her 12-year-old son had been exposed to pornography while he was using the copy machine, which is located directly adjacent to the adult services computers.
The woman's son related to her that on Dec. 1, while
he was standing at the copy machine, a man using one of the computers
was viewing pornography openly. This is not the first complaint
library officials have received about pornography being viewed on
computers in the adult services area, which are not subject to
any sort of preventive filters. The library faced a similar
complaint in 2003.
Computers in the youth services department have protective filters to prevent children being exposed to pornography accidentally.
'I was completely surprised, shocked,' said the woman, who requested anonymity to protect the identity of her son. 'It's
disgusting that happens in the library. I had assumed this was
not happening here. My question is, do people have the right to
openly view pornography here? Do our children not have the right
to not be exposed to this in our library?'
In addition to purchasing privacy screens, the library board's Policy Committee will begin formulating a new computer use policy in an attempt to prevent patrons from surfing the Web for porn.
The board has consistently been reluctant to simply place filters on the adult services computers. Library
board President Margaret Blasage cited the American Library
Association's position on such filters. According to Blasage, the
ALA's position is that filtering constitutionally protected speech
could lead to lawsuits.
'We need to deal with other issues, not filtering,' Blasage
said. 'Filtering is as wrong as it is right.'
....
'We're all faced with the important question of safeguarding
First Amendment rights of patrons versus protecting our children,' said
board member Judith Sweet. 'The privacy filters will, to the best
of our ability, meet those requirements as well as can be
expected.' ....
The woman who complained about the Dec. 1 incident involving her
son said that she
was satisfied that library board members acted to purchase the privacy
screens. 'I feel it's safer,' she said. 'It's a good
solution.'" [P2S: This is a
FANTASTIC article PERFECTLY illustrating everything Plan2Succeed has
been saying. We see in this article: 1) filtering on children's computers does not protect children from adults using unfiltered computers, and the exposures occur over and over again - which will be the one that results in a child being raped or molested?, 2) the library is intentionally misleading the public that the only real solution available, filters, violates peoples rights, 3) the library is citing the ALA as the reason why they are recommending anything but filters, proving again ALA policy drives local policy resulting in the incident in this particular library and libraries nationwide, 4) the library is using an acceptable use policy to give the appearance that something is being done, 5) the librarians are talking the good talk but refusing to walk the walk, again fooling the public into thinking the librarians are concerned for the community's children instead of the ALA's policies, and 6) the public is actually being misled to the point where the mother of the affected child is satisfied with useless solutions -- the librarians here have successfully fooled the public into believing ALA propaganda and keeping their own children exposed to criminal activity while making it look like this is what the community wants instead of the ACLUified ALA.] |
| 1/1/06 | Man Caught Downloading Pornography From Library; Every Library System Has a Strategy to Keep People From Looking at Pornography on the Internet, But There is No Fool Proof Way to Prevent It | "Library workers say [a man] accessed porn despite technology designed to block it. Greensboro's public library tries to train patrons how to filter explicit material out of their searches themselves. It also requires users to agree to a computer usage agreement. Greensboro's public library does not use filters because they can keep researchers of anatomy for instance, from getting information. One librarian says it's not a huge problem. He says he catches someone about once a month." [P2S: What a way to start out the new year, thanks to the ALA. We see illustrated here 1) MISINFORMATION by librarians (by claiming filters block anatomy researchers), 2) MISDIRECTION by librarians (by implying that acceptable use policies are adequate protection), and 3) a general DISREGARD FOR THE TRUTH (by stating the viewing of inappropriate materials that filters might otherwise have blocked is "not a huge problem").] |
| 12/30/05 | Police: Man Used Public Library To View Porn | "Police in Winston-Salem said a man has been charged with exploitation of a minor after using a public libary [sic] computer to look at pornographic Web sites. [The man], 24, was charged with 27 counts of third-degree sexual exploitation of a minor, investigators said Friday. [The man], a registered sex offender in North Carolina, was placed in Forsyth County Detention Center under a $175,000 bond. According to authorities, security personnel at the Forsyth County Library on West Fifth Street reported that [the man] was observed viewing 'obscene material' on a library computer. Detectives said [the man] had been visiting pornographic Web sites and downloading images." [P2S: This third-degree sexual exploitation appears to be the ALA's Christmas gift to a minor in a public library since this library, following ALA advice, allows patrons to turn off filtering automatically instead of a librarian turning off filtering as required by CIPA -- and CIPA does not require filters to be disabled to view pornography. Meanwhile the library claims it is CIPA complaint to 1) keep getting federal funding to which it is not entitled because it is not, despite claims, compliant with CIPA, and 2) have a convenient cover for when a child is injured by an adult using non-CIPA compliant computers. Readers, if your library has a system like this one, your children are in danger, as in this case, and the ALA may be partially responsible, as a lawsuit may prove. P2S encourages the family involved to bring suit against the library, its Board of Trustees, and the ALA itself. Please contact us for suggestions.] |
| 12/28/05 | First-Person: The Culture of Pornography |  "Parents
will be especially interested by Paul's finding that libraries,
including both public libraries and school libraries, have become a
major conduit for getting pornography to teenage boys.
Stephen Jones, a 14-year-old boy from Washington State, complained to
his hometown newspaper: 'I love to read. I love the
Internet service the library provides; but we have a problem. Pornography
is available through the library Internet. The library has
filters, but as it stands now anyone over the age of twelve can have
the filters taken off.'We can be sure that many parents are unaware of these policies. David Burt, a public librarian concerned about the trend, cited a librarian in Washington who told him: 'On Monday of last week a group of about eight to ten teenage boys came to the library and asked if they could get pornography on the Internet. I replied that they could. ... Later that afternoon one of the younger boys (elementary age) said that the big boys had shown some dirty pictures on the computer. ... When I applied to work at the library, running a porn shop was not in the job description. ... We are supplying pornography to minors without their parents' permission or knowledge.'" [P2S: Buy: Pornified: How the Culture of Pornography Is Changing Our Lives, Our Relationships and Our Families ] |
| 12/21/05 | Police Blotter | "A patron at Mountain View Library, 585 Franklin St., saw a man fondling himself about 4:45 p.m. Monday while viewing a computer porn site." |
| 12/21/05 | Judges Rule Jail Term is Excessive | "A Wirral man ... was arrested in June 2004 ... after child porn had been printed in a library and left behind. A scrap of paper with the name of two girls on it was also discovered. One of the girls was 14 and the Crown alleged she 'was being groomed' to 'engage in sexual activity' over the telephone." |
| 12/21/05 | Our View: Alertness on Sex Offenders | "A girl made an innocent trip to the public library, where she noticed a man taking photos of her with his cell phone. .... [T]he teen told the librarian [who] was aware of sex offender notifications and recognized the man ... from photos she'd seen, [so] she contacted police. .... [P]olice ... found child pornography on his [home] computer. .... He is well-known to police in Plymouth, Pembroke and Halifax and has a history of child pornography offenses. He [may have been] contacting boys and girls on the Internet, using different identities, pretending to be a teen. The librarian said [the known sex offender] had been in the library frequently, and police say library computers are often used by sex offenders seeking pornography or contact with youngsters. .... [P]ublic awareness is the biggest asset in stopping sex offenders from snooping and preying on people. What happened in Plymouth is a good lesson for parents, children and librarians everywhere." [P2S: "What happened in Plymouth is a good lesson for parents, children and librarians everywhere." You can say that again! We happen to know this library is fully filtered but porn consistently gets through despite the library's best efforts. This would be a perfect argument for why cities need to override libraries where the libraries fail to act or do so insufficiently, and why a library's autonomy is not appropriate under certain circumstances.] |
| 12/16/05 | Library Staffer Identifies Patron As Sex Offender | "An employee of the Plymouth (Mass.) Public Library identified a patron as a high-risk sex offender after a girl complained that the man took her picture with a cell phone at the library December 12. .... [He] had been using the library's computers often over the past few weeks. .... PPL Director Dinah O'Brien told the Patriot Ledger that the library's 15 unfiltered computers are not monitored, but they are all in a high-traffic area where inappropriate use would be observed." [P2S: Right, observed, but librarians are trained by the ALA to "avert your eyes, sweety." See also Child Porn Trips Up Sex Offender: Cops Search Home, Arrest Him, After Girl Complains He Took Her Photo at Plymouth Library, 14 Dec 2005: "He compiled a list of more than 200 contacts at Silver Lake High School, according to police."] |
| 12/14/05 | Library Looks to Crack Down on Porn; Broome Legislature Suggests Guidelines for Internet Use | "When Pat Dutra first became a librarian, problems with viewing indecent material primarily stemmed from patrons' innocent curiosity. .... Now the Broome County Public Library faces a more serious problem: patrons using the library's computers to view pornography. Library Director Donna Riegel said the problem isn't new, but the library was unsure of its legal options in addressing it. 'We need something to give us some power,' Riegel said. The Broome County Legislature will vote on a resolution Thursday that recommends the library's board of trustees establish rules and regulations on Internet use, particularly for viewing pornography. .... The resolution, however, is only a recommendation; the library's board of trustees ultimately sets the library's policies. .... Chief Assistant Broome County Attorney Robert Behnke said the library's authority to restrict computer usage comes from the 2003 U.S. Supreme Court case United States vs. American Library Association, which held that libraries can use filters to restrict patrons' access to Internet pornography. Supreme Court justices likened that power to the authority libraries have to choose what materials they put on the shelves, Behnke said. .... Several computers in the library's J. Donald Ahern Business Resource Center were disconnected from the Internet because of pornography being viewed on them, Riegel said." [P2S: Yes! This community should pass an ordinance requiring CIPA-like filters! See the State & City CIPA Laws page at SafeLibraries.org for details!] |
| 12/11/05 | In Our View - Filter Libraries | "Here's a win-win solution for beleaguered
Fort Vancouver Regional Library officials in their continuing battle to
get a much-needed bond issue passed: Treat your electronic
offerings the same way you treat your print offerings.
When books and magazines are 'selected' for libraries, no one screams, 'Censorship!' It's part of what librarians do. Since not every book and magazine in the world can be placed in a library, these documents must be selected and, yes, taste judgments often are made. Why not do the same thing for Internet access? If that sounds like the dreaded 'filters' word gasp! for Internet access at FVRL System libraries, well, your hearing is correct. And we think 100 percent Internet filtering should be agreed upon ... at a public hearing ... at the Vancouver Community Library.... Why? It's simple. Filtering all Internet access at FVRL libraries could be the breakthrough tactic that would secure voter approval for a bond issue that came agonizingly close to success last month. .... We're not sure how much of that failure was due to the concern or anger that many people have expressed over adults' unfiltered Internet access to pornography at the downtown library. But we were given a mild, unscientific clue last week by FVRL Executive Director Bruce Ziegman. In a meeting with The Columbian's editorial board, Ziegman said a survey was conducted of 200 people who ad voted 'no' on the Nov. 8 bond issue, and 42 percent said they opposed the measure for money reasons. Another 28 percent said they opposed it because of the access-to-pornography issue. 'We only needed to 'flip' 204 votes to win,' Ziegman lamented. We believe that filtering all Internet access, just as the print collection is selected, could convince enough 'no' voters to change their minds and push the approval level to over 60 percent. .... What about free speech? The Columbian is its biggest champion, but even here, every evening we select what goes into the next day's paper. And yes, taste often is a factor in those decisions. What about pornography opponents who might use this 'victory' as a springboard to push for further restrictions? The FVRL board should tell them 'no' in the future. The figurative line on Internet access was moved, but it won't be moved again." [P2S: Hallelujah! An editorial supporting 100% filtering! SEE HOW THE INTERNET PORN ISSUE CAUSED BY A LIBRARY THAT REFUSES TO FOLLOW COMMUNITY STANDARDS RESULTED IN TAXPAYERS VOTING DOWN MONEY FOR THE LIBRARY!! This shows citizens are starting to wake up to the ALA's tactics, and other communities should consider similar actions to protect their communities. See also, "Porn Issue Behind Library Bond Opposition in Southwest WA," Dec 22, 2005; "Library Board to Discuss Internet Policy," Jan 9, 2006; "Library Tackles Issue of Web Use," Jan 10, 2006; Fort Vancouver Libraries Keep Web Filters for Kids; Policy - Board Members Haven't Decided How or Whether Restrictions Should Apply for Adults, 10 Jan 2006. ("[Library] board member Elena Smith, a Hood River librarian, objected to cutting off all access to pornography, which, unlike obscenity, is constitutionally protected." Typical!)] |
| 12/8/05 | 'Animal' Teens Attack Woman, 84; Victim Suffers Broken Jaw, Arm in Purse-Snatching Outside West-End Library |  "An elderly woman suffered a broken arm and jaw after she was thrown to the ground in a daytime mugging by three teen thugs
yesterday. .... 'They're just animals,' said one outraged
cop. 'Put a big zoo around the city.' .... 'People go
to church for a funeral and there's gunshots, they go to the library and they're mugged,' Nunziata said. 'Where can you be safe?' 'It's disgusting,'
she said. 'It just makes me sick.' .... Police said
the elderly victim had just left the Mount Dennis library branch at
about the same time the three teens had also
left after surfing porn sites on the library computers. Police
said staff had been keeping on eye on them because of what they were
looking at, and the trio left. .... She described the trio as being around 14 and 15 years old. " [P2S:
Usually it's porn-viewing adults assaulting children. Here it's
porn-viewing children assaulting adults. THE PICTURE IS OF AN
ACTUAL UNFILTERED PORN CRIME VICTIM! CLICK ON IT TO SEE THE
BIGGER, FRONT PAGE VERSION! Aren't unfiltered computers
lovely? Now we know what the ALA means by diversity -- equal
opportunity victims of ALA policy.] |
| 12/8/05 | Keeping Kids from Nasties on the Net; More Needs to be Done to Protect Minors from Internet Pornography, Writes Guy Barnett | "LAST month, 62 members of the federal Coalition signed a letter to the Prime Minister calling for a ban on access to pornographic, violent and other inappropriate material via the internet. The signatories believed the internet should be regulated in a similar way to other media. If adults wished to 'opt in' to access the material then of course that would be their right, and they would have to apply for their right of access. It is too easy for children to access all manner of material on the internet, and I believe the system should default automatically in favour of protecting our children before we start considering the rights of adults. General access to this material at public facilities is an area of particular concern. According to the Australian Library and Information Association survey of its 91 members in late 2003, the majority of libraries in Australia did not apply filters. There is no legal obligation on public libraries to use filtering to prevent children accessing pornography. .... I do believe our Government should regulate the internet at home and in public places to ensure the best interests of children are protected. A survey by the Australia Institute called 'regulating youth access to pornography' dated 2003 found that 84 per cent of boys and 60 per cent of girls had been accidentally exposed to pornographic material on the internet, while two in five boys had deliberately used the net to see sexually explicit material. The survey found that 93 per cent of parents were in favour of filtering out pornography available on the home computer, let alone those in public buildings. The survey also drew a link between prolonged exposure to this material and tolerance of sexual aggression. Is this why some men see women as a fashion to be used one day and discarded the next? Women deserve respect and our children protection from obvious indecency. Any civil rights claim to automatic access is overridden by these principles." [P2S: Guy Barnett is a Liberal senator for Tasmania, Australia. While the ALA frowns on filtering even despite the ALA's loss in US v. ALA, notice the "survey [that] found that 93 per cent of parents were in favour of filtering out pornography available on the home computer, let alone those in public buildings." Too bad the USA does not have such men willing to say and do right by their families: "Women deserve respect and our children protection from obvious indecency."] |
| 11/21/05 | Library Incident Fuels Push for Internet Filters | [P2S: During our temporary absence we have scored another major success, revealing that a library bathroom molestation of a toddler, first reported as an isolated crime, was likely the direct result of, you guessed it, a registered sex offender using unfiltered computers in a library that refuses to filter "legal pornography," There are several articles about this. See the bottom of our publications page for another three articles, and they are more detailed. Here's another such incident, another little girl.] |
| Past Month | Safe Libraries |  [P2S: Dear Readers: Plan2Succeed has been on hiatus while assisting with the efforts of SafeLibraries.org. There they have exposed the ALA's censorship hypocrisy by top management, revealed typical excuses used to allow children access to porn, disclosed how the
ALA targets America's children by refusing to protect children from and
enabling the distribution of pornography at public and public school
libraries, illustrates local libraries using double speak to apply ALA but not community standards, etc. Please give them a read.] |
| 10/11/05 | Child Predator Reports Scare Parents; Take a Deep Breath, Keep a Watchful Eye, Officials Say | "Justin Newman [has ...] seen news accounts of grown men arrested on charges that they preyed on children in municipal libraries. .... 'You don't want to be too fearful,' said Des Moines Police Sgt. Barry Arnold. 'But, doggone it, it's pretty bad when it happens in your own backyard.' .... Last week, Des Moines police charged registered sex offender [JE] Jr. with sexually assaulting a 20-month-old girl in a restroom at the downtown public library. .... Then Monday, on the same day Des Moines city leaders voted to expand a 2,000-foot boundary law and eliminate the few remaining places where child molesters can live legally, another man was arrested for allegedly assaulting a pre-teen girl at an Ames library [- the man], a library regular, inappropriately touched the girl after he asked whether she would like to see a picture in a book. .... 'People think, "It's Iowa. It doesn't happen here,"' Lien said as he watched his 2-year-old grandson play on a slide. 'I don't think that makes any difference.'" |
| 10/11/05 | Porn Filtering Back on Agenda | "INTERNET content regulation has dropped off the radar for the moment in a world now more concerned with terrorist attacks than pop-up pornography. But bubbling away in the background there is a growing push across party political lines and the conservative/radical divide for tougher regulation. It came to the surface over the course of the federal election and tougher filtering, including proxy filtering by ISPs, remains on the agenda for some Liberal and Labor politicians, Christian lobby groups and the Family First Party. Ironically, it was the left-leaning Australia Institute that sparked the most recent content debate, releasing research showing 93 per cent of parents wanted mandatory filtering. Study author Michael Flood, [said,] ... 'There is consistent and reliable evidence that exposure to pornography, especially violent pornography, is related to male sexual aggression against women[.]' 'Exposure to sexually violent material increases male viewers' acceptance of rape myths, desensitises them to sexual violence and erodes their empathy for victims of violence. 'Adults also show an increase in aggressive behaviour.' .... Fatherhood Foundation convenor Warwick Marsh [said,] ... 'The truth is it would be impossible to guarantee 100 per cent filtering due to the interconnected nature of the internet[.]' 'But any filtering is better than nothing. We are trying to reduce the pornographication of our society.' .... Last month Labor backbencher Anthony Byrne, [said] ... 'We, in this place, set the community standards and I say that libraries have to install internet pornography filters as a matter of priority, and if they cannot do it by choice, then it should be mandated[.]' 'I will continue this campaign until ... any child who walks into a library will be protected by an internet pornography filter in the library.' .... There is little doubt the public wants something done about internet sleaze. .... Eighty per cent of women and 59 per cent of men wanted tougher controls on porn. A Newspoll done for the Australia Institute earlier this year found 93 per cent of parents wanted mandatory filtering." [P2S: What a radical idea: "We, in this place, set the community standards and I say that libraries have to install internet pornography filters as a matter of priority, and if they cannot do it by choice, then it should be mandated." SurfControl] |
| 10/10/05 | Students Have Place to 'Hang' at Library |  "The
main Flagstaff City-Coconino County Public Library and the East
Flagstaff Community Library each have separate, exclusive sections
devoted solely to the 12- to 18-year-old age group. ....
The computers have internet capability, and teens are able to check
e-mail and chat online, though filters prevent them from accessing pornographic and gambling sites. .... 'We're
serving a valuable purpose,' [manager Bill Landau] states, 'if only to
provide them a safe environment -- a place where good things happen.'" [P2S:
A "' safe environment" for children? BRAVO! But the ALA
will crack down when it reads this article. As Judith Krug, top dog at the ALA says, "I get very concerned when we start hearing people who want to convert this country into a safe place for children...."] |
| 10/9/05 | Bullhead City Library Now Offers Wi-Fi Service | "The Bullhead City library ... offers free Wi-Fi service in the library and in the area surrounding the library. .... The Wi-Fi ... until recently was completely unfiltered, allowing people to view anything on the Internet, but the library is currently in the process of adding Internet filters so minor can't access mature web sites, Hart said. The Internet filtering system will only block pornography web sites, so users will still be able to view other types of web pages, Hart said. 'With all the new technology, we've had to put up some barriers to protect our younger patrons and meet federal regulations,' said Phillip Hollister, library services manager." [P2S: BRAVO! The library employees should be awarded by their city! We bet the ALA will find out about this and immediately apply pressure to prevent filtering. The ALA can't stand when a library manager agrees with the US Supreme Court and says children are entitled to special protection using filters; ALA agenda is the exact opposite.] |
| 10/9/05 | When Parents Talk About Sex, Kids Listen; Sexual Behavior Has Become More Casual With Teens, But Clear Messages Can Have a Big Effect | "[A]uthor Sabrina Weill [The Real Truth About Teens & Sex (Perigee, 2005, $23.95)], ... says teenagers' sexual behavior has gotten increasingly public -- and casual. .... As a teen magazine columnist and editor -- she was founding editor of CosmoGirl and is a former editor of Seventeen -- Weill has spent years talking and corresponding with teenagers about sex. .... 'I think parents don't want to seem uncool,' Weill says. 'When I tell parents that middle-school kids are looking at porn in their school library, they're floored. I think that, for a lot of parents, it doesn't occur to them to say to their 12-year-old that this is what pornography is. There's really a generation gap and a communication gap.'" [P2S: "Middle-school kids are looking at porn in their school library?" No way! ALA librarians would not allow children to look at porn, would they? See also, "Parents Can Influence Choices About Sex," 25 Oct 2005.] |
| 9/29/05 | Man Pleads Guilty to Meth Charge | "[Porn patron] received an 18-month prison sentence from Delaware Circuit Court 2 Judge Richard Dailey for possessing child pornography, a class D felony. Police arrested [him] in March at a Muncie's Carnegie Library, where they found him with a computer disc containing stories of adults engaging in sex with children. [He] also admitted to police that he had used a Ball State University computer to download child pornography." |
| 9/28/05 | The Issue is Spending Tax Money on Playboy | "The Eileen Byrne Radio Show on WLS 890 AM invited me on for an interview regarding this matter. The producer went on to an ABC-owned filtered computer and typed in 'breast cancer' and no porn sites came up. Eileen remarked that filters seem to work. My point was before the producer did this was that all library computers should have permanent filters blocking hardcore porn from all patrons, children and adults. Not to prevent people from doing legitimate research. Patrons can research breast cancer on library computers and consult their physicians. .... Still not convinced that the Oak Lawn Public Library is not a safe place for children? Are they intentionally keeping all options open to indoctrinate children sexually? Call them and ... ask, 'Why don't you have permanent filters on all computers?' Kids can gain access to porn sites by turning off the filters, and so can adults. Permanent filters work, and for as little as $6 a month, the library can be a safer place for all." [P2S: For an independent survey showing public library patrons do not want porn, see SafeLibraries.org.] |
| 9/28/05 | It Scares Me | "I want my kids not to have access to some things, and our libraries are currently wide-open. I work with a group that is trying to get some sort of filters on library computers. There was a rape in Philly a year ago, one here in VA earlier this year, done by self-confessed library porn junkies on children (aged 7 and 11 in the library bathrooms). Sure the parents should have been there, especially the 7 year old, but think about it, why should the kids have to pay for their parent's mistakes by getting brutally raped. By the way, the Philly little girl was left to die, bloody and naked in a stall. I am not about censorship, but protection of 'safe' environments. I haven't read anywhere that we are guaranteed the right to FREE internet porn (or even FREE internet for that matter). What you look at in your home is fine, but there are other people in a library and your rights don't supersede mine! I can't yell FIRE in a library. I can't yell out hate-speech, and I am not even supposed to yell at all in a library, but it's ok to see someone fondling themselves through their pants while they look at porn in a library??? Help me understand this please! Seems like if an idea is pushed by the right it must be denounced by the left. Why can't we look at this with open minds instead of sticking our fingers in our ears, and yelling free speech, free speech, free speech to drown out the logic?" [P2S: ANOTHER CHILD RAPED IN A PUBLIC LIBRARY?] |
| 9/26/05 | Talking To Teens About Sex | "Sabrina Weill, the former editor-in-chief of Seventeen magazine, ... said, 'Middle schoolers tell me that they see pornography in their school library computers....'" |
| 9/24/05 | Father Wants to Make Sure Porn Can't Be Seen at Library; Panel Creating Proposal on Teens' Computer Use | "The Racine Public Library is hosting a public forum to discuss its Internet Acceptable Use Policy, a discussion that comes on the heels of a citizen's complaint about teens using public computers to access adult Web sites. .... Java Orr of Racine became concerned when he was at the library several months ago with his 6-year-old daughter and he saw a male teenager downloading and viewing pornographic material on a computer in the adult services area. Orr said when he brought his complaint to library officials, he was told nothing could be done to prevent the youth from viewing the material. Orr took his fight to keep children from viewing pornographic material at the Racine Public Library to the public. He spent hours in front of the library petitioning residents to sign his Child Friendly Library Act, which he intends to get the Legislature to pass a bill on. So far he has more than 500 signatures on the petitions. His goal is 1,000. 'The bill would prevent children, including young adults, from gaining access to obscene or pornographic material,' Orr said. .... 'I'm hoping to hear what the public wants,' [Racine Public Library Director Jessica] MacPhail said." [P2S: Hey, MacPhail, you know what the public wants? The public wants children NOT to have access to porn, and they want NOT to use tax money to buy porn, according to a survey of Oak Lawn Public Library patrons. The ALA wants the exact opposite. Let's see whom you serve, the public, or the ALA.] |
| 9/24/05 | Sex Offender's Probation Challenged | "A 55-year-old San Antonio man described by federal probation officers as a high-risk sex offender ... with a history of violations while under federal supervision ... latest run-in with police came June 29, when teenagers at a St. Mary's University library saw him looking at child pornography on the library's computers, according to court records. Investigators seized a disk and alleged it had at least 15 images of child pornography that [he] had downloaded." |
| 9/23/05 | COMMENTARY: JANE GREIG - Internet Porn at the Public Library? They Have Rules About That | "Q: Are there any restrictions on what
can be viewed via the computers in Austin public libraries? I was
in a branch and happened to notice a man viewing very explicit pornography when using one of the library's public computers. I find it difficult to believe that what the man was doing was acceptable to the library, especially given that quite a few children were there. The pornography was amply visible to anyone walking near the man.
Certainly magazines containing similar content would not be found in
the library. Why, then, was access to such pornography even
permitted? —James L. Ryan
A: 'Each library location has one unfiltered Internet workstation, placed in a recessed desk so the content is not viewable from a person walking by,' says Patricia Fraga, spokeswoman for the Austin Public Library. Users must present a valid ID proving age (18). The other stations with Internet access are filtered, which should block all pornographic sites and references. Sounds as if this desk needs to be moved. Let the librarian know if an inappropriate site is visible on one of these filtered stations or if the unfiltered station should be repositioned." [P2S: No, Jane Greig, bad advice. Sounds as if ALL computers should be filtered. Moving the deck chairs on the Titanic didn't work either.] |
| 9/22/05 | Library Life |  "Don
Spritzer, a reference librarian who's worked 29 years at the Missoula
Public Library, takes a long view of the controversy, pointing out that
new media have faced attempts at censorship ever since the days of cave
painting. 'It's always the same battle, only on a different
battlefield,' he says, and debates about Internet filtering have heated
up at the Missoula Public Library several times in the last decade,
most recently in May when a library board meeting was held to address requests from some citizens for automatic filters on the library's Internet stations to prevent the viewing of pornography.
For libraries, the issue is simple. 'Public libraries do not
filter computers because of the First Amendment,' says Honore Bray, the
new director of the public library who started Sept. 6. Bray, who
directed the historic Hearst Free Library in Anaconda for the last
decade, says filters also present practical problems because they block
'non-obscene' material. For instance, she says, a student doing a
report on breast cancer would run into trouble researching on a
filtered computer because the word 'breast' is a no-no. The
computers in the children's department do have optional filtering for
parents who choose to use it, Morton says. And in the case that patrons are made uncomfortable by what shows up on a neighboring screen at the adult computer stations,
a comment to a library staff member will usually rectify the
situation. .... 'Librarians from the ALA on down take
freedom of speech and the First Amendment very seriously,' Bray
says. 'If you don't believe in that then you shouldn't work in a
library.'" [P2S: Another lie-brarian
knowingly and intentionally misleading her community and placing its
children at risk. She completely ignores US v. ALA.
The US Supreme Court says "[P]ublic libraries' use of Internet
filtering software does not violate their patrons' First Amendment
rights...." Lie-brarian Bray says, "Public libraries do not
filter computers because of the First Amendment." Either Bray is
lying or she is misinformed about US v. ALA; either way she should not
be used for guidance on protecting children from pornography or its
effect on adults who then attack the children. Bray also claims,
falsely, that breast cancer research would be blocked. Breast cancer is NOT blocked by Internet filters.
The point is moot anyway because, as the US Supreme Court said in that
case Bray ignores, "Concerns over filtering software's tendency to
erroneously 'overblock' access to constitutionally protected speech
that falls outside the categories software users intend to block are
dispelled by the ease with which patrons may have the filtering
software disabled." Lastly, Bray talks about "patrons ... made
uncomfortable by what shows up on a neighboring screen at the adult
computer stations," completely ignoring the US Supreme Court a third
time: "[A] library provides [Internet] access for the same
reasons it offers other library resources: to facilitate
research, learning, and recreational pursuits by furnishing materials
of requisite and appropriate quality." Librarians from the ALA on
down do NOT take freedom of speech and the First Amendment very
seriously, as Bray states; what they take seriously is misleading the
public about the law so that children may continue to mainline
pornography and criminals may continue to mainline children. How
else can one explain so many librarians arguing the exact same
arguments asked, answered, and proven wrong in US v. ALA, a case
against their own organization. MISSOULA, MONTANA, YOUR CHILDREN
ARE DEER IN THE HEADLIGHTS OF YOUR PUBLIC LIBRARY POLICIES THAT ARE IN
DEFIANCE OF THE LAW.] |
| 9/21/05 | Oddly Enough - Naked Words: Librarians Pose for Sexy Calendar |  "Librarians
aren't usually considered sex objects. That might be changing
here. Six area library administrators have produced a sexy 2006
calendar they are selling to raise money for their libraries.
It's called 'Desperate Librarians.' The idea came about
when Craig Lahm retired after 32 years of running Kaukauna's library,
and his colleagues in the Outagamie Waupaca Library System wanted to
come up with a different kind of gift. Five middle-aged library
directors and a 32-year-old assistant each put up $200 and posed
provocatively, using oversize books to cover what their clothes usually
do. Each posed for two photos. The women appear to be naked
in many of the photos, but all were at least partly clothed during the
shoot, said Ellen Connor, Manawa's library director. 'It's
probably going to be a collector's item,' Lahm said of the
calendar. 'I'm going to be eBaying it in 20 years.'" [P2S: Librarians posing for porn calendars! Buy one here! "Proceeds benefit the public libraries in Weyauwega, Clintonville, Waupaca, Marion, Seymour and Manawa," Wisconsin.] |
| 9/19/05 | Keep Porn At Home, Not Writing Center | "My opinion is that students should not use the Writing Center for looking at pornography or erotica, it is that simple. .... The [Jefferson Community and Technical College] Writing Center ... is a place to learn and to study - not to view oral sex or any other kind of offensive or erotic content, either in print or on the Internet. This past summer the center's staff had to repeatedly ask at least one student to leave the center for doing exactly this. English Instructor and Writing center Coordinator, Stacy Taylor said, 'we have had to ask students to leave because they were viewing material that made others uncomfortable and was clearly not for a class assignment.' .... For someone to use the resources available in the center is unfair and disrespectful not only to the students needing to use the computers for coursework, but also for everyone around that may not share enthusiasm for pornography or erotic content. .... Taylor said, 'I do believe in everybody's First Amendment rights and I am not for censorship in any way, but it's unfortunate when I have to ask someone to leave the Writing Center because they can not make their own decisions about what is appropriate behavior in a public place.' For those students that choose to view such content, please bear in mind that there are places you can go to view whatever kind of content you want. For example you can go home and do it in the privacy of your own house. You can go behind the dark windows of the adult only bookstore and have a field day there." [P2S: CIPA-compliant filters would stop this kind of anguish that some student had the guts to put into words, guts because the administration is likely responsible for not filtering in the first place using false ALA claims.] |
| 9/16/05 | Antonovich: Plan to Block Porn at Library Deficient; Librarian Issues Report on Shielding Children from Objectionable Material | "The county's top librarian has proposed measures to keep children from inadvertently seeing Internet pornography
while it is being viewed by adults in public libraries. County
Supervisor Michael Antonovich said, however, that's not good enough -
and the goal is to eliminate pornography completely from the Los Angeles County libraries. .... The situation came to the supervisors' attention after a
Canyon Country woman visited the local library with her 4-year-old
daughter and noticed a man sitting next to them viewing pornography in
plain sight of her child. [County Librarian Margaret Donnellan] Todd said in the report submitted to the board Tuesday, '... the library makes no attempt to determine which (Internet) sites meet the legal test of obscenity....' .... The
report identified five steps that might be taken to ensure children are
not viewing pornography, but banning pornographic sites from library
computers was not among those steps. The steps include:
+ Permanently attached privacy screens on all computers. + Filters on children's computers to allow limited access to Internet sites. + A change of location for adult computers so they are not in the direct path of travel for children. + Public signs informing people of unfiltered computers in use. + A requirement that any adult wishing to use a children’s computer first receive permission from library staff. Antonovich and his staff believe Todd's recommendations are not enough. 'The supervisor doesn't feel these recommendations go far enough,' [Tony] Bell[, spokesman for the supervisor] said. Bell said ... 'it does not behoove the taxpayer or library staff to go to such an extent to preserve the computers for porn users in a public place. We feel the most expeditious, fair, solution is to eliminate (pornography) altogether.'" [P2S: Another example of lie-brarians misleading governing bodies with ALA propaganda, only this time the government is not falling for the tricks. Notice the lie-brarian admits "the library makes no attempt to determine which (Internet) sites meet the legal test of obscenity," but then recommends solutions that do not stop that very obscenity. MORE GOVERNMENTS NEED TO BE AWARE OF HOW LIE-BRARIANS INTENTIONALLY MISLEAD THEM WITH ALA PROPAGANDA! LOS ANGELES CITIZENS SHOULD THANK COUNTY SUPERVISOR MICHAEL ANTONOVICH who obviously treats office as a public trust to protect the public.] |
| 9/15/05 | Party Chair May Oppose Harris |  "In 1996, he was elected to the Plano City Council and served as mayor pro-tem from 1999 to 2001. On
numerous occasions, the ACLU threatened personal lawsuits stemming from
Neudorff's efforts to remove pornography from the public library
computers. According to his Web site, Plano was the first community to institute such a strict filtering policy. The policy is now duplicated by countless other communities." [P2S:
Mayors everywhere: here's a Mayor who had the guts to protect his
community by using Internet filters. Notice also the ACLU
"threatened" him several times for trying to install computer
filters. The ACLU is a radical organization dedicated to destroying America from within. And Judith Krug of the ALA served on the Board of the ACLU for three years while working at the ALA. Consider reading "The ACLU vs America, Exposing the Agenda to Redefine Moral Values" where we learn the ACLU founder said, "Communism is the goal."] |
| 9/8/05 | Shielding Children from Sex in Media is Seminar Topic | "Sherrie Wieland of Roseburg was walking through the children's section of the Douglas County Headquarters Library a couple of years ago when she saw something on a computer screen that appalled her. Pornographic images that someone had viewed online had been left on the screen. .... Max Leek, director of the Douglas County Library System, said the computers in the main branch's children's sections are equipped with such software ... and ... it has been effective in preventing accidental viewing of content like pornography. Although incidents like the one Wieland describes are rare, he said, it's difficult to completely avoid it because people don't always follow the rules and the software can't block all such content. If people don't follow the rules, they are asked to leave." [P2S: An admission, if only implicit, that acceptable use policies are a failure!] |
| 9/8/05 | Children View Porn at School | "A Wellington school has begun an investigation into how a group of its pupils were able to view sexually explicit images, including bestiality, on a computer in the school library. It is understood that around 8 children, all aged 11 or under, were involved in the incident at Thorndon School, which occurred during an unsupervised session on the library computers." [P2S: See also "School Acts to Prevent Porn Viewing," Sept. 9, 2005.] |
| 8/29/05 | The Next Justice: Primum Non Nocere; The Measure of Roberts's Conservatism is What He Won't Do On the Bench | "Last week, Ralph Neas of People for the American Way, Judge Roberts's most automatonic opponent, came out officially against him. The Committee for Justice's Sean Rushton responded by putting out a list of positions that People for the American Way, under Mr. Neas's leadership, has taken in various court cases. Among the things he opposes: parental choice in education, voluntary prayer in public places, pornography filters on public library computers, regulation of hard-core Internet porn and even restrictions on simulated child porn. Not that Mr. Neas is a negative fellow. He supports deleting 'under God' from the Pledge of Allegiance, redefining marriage to include same-sex couples, enfranchising felons, forcing openly gay scoutmasters on the Boy Scouts, partial-birth abortion, judicially imposed tax hikes, removing the Ten Commandments from public places, and, of course, racial quotas in college admissions." [P2S: People for the American Way, as shown above, and the ACLU holds nearly identical views as the ALA (see The ACLU's Shocking Legacy: "A report by the Special House Committee to Investigate Communist Activities stated 'The American Civil Liberties Union is closely affiliated with the communist movement in the United States, and fully 90 percent of its efforts are on behalf of communists who have come into conflict with the law. It claims to stand for free speech, free press and free assembly, but it is quite apparent that the main function of the ACLU is an attempt to protect the communists'") . The ALA policies on age discrimination and the failure of librarians to protect children from pornography all stem from the direct ACLU-ALA connection (see The Internet and the Seduction of the American Public Library). The ALA, the ACLU, and People for the American Way all launched the challenge to CIPA that became US v. ALA (see ACLU, ALA File Law Suit Against Child Internet Protection Act - American Civil Liberties Union, American Library Association Declare Law Unconstitutional - Brief Article). Is it any wonder why the ALA is so extreme?] |
| 8/21/05 | Parents Show High Tolerance; Web Sites Available on School Computers Regularly Draw More Concern than Books Available on Library Shelves | "Citing tolerant and liberal parents, media specialists for Columbia Public Schools say book challenges are rare in the district. Since 2000, Columbia has received only four requests to remove books from school libraries. During that same period, however, about one parent each month has asked the school to block a Web site. .... Most such requests involve pornographic sites that children were able to access from school." |
| 8/20/05 | "Banishment" From a Public Library? | "Some time ago I approached the [Powhatan County Public] Library Director to ask why there were no internet filters on the computers that were available for public use. Many Public Libraries are notorious for making internet pornography accessable to their patrons. I heard several of the same excuses that I had heard before at other Public Libraries. 'It's not a problem here' and 'filters are too expensive.' I even offered to pay for the filtering software. Ultimately, the truth seems to be that many Public Libraries just simply don't want to place any limits on the internet pornography that can be accessed on their computer screens. .... I encourage you to stand against the flood of sin that seeks to overwhelm the young people in your community. You can make a difference for good. Though you may find yourself 'banished,' there will be a place prepared for you if you remain faithful to your King." [P2S: Ah, another person/group besides P2S to offer money for filters only to have it refused.] |
| 8/14/05 | Sleaze Aids Sleaze | "From the day this concerned mother of two undertook to point out how many sexually inappropriate books she believes have wound up in that city's public school libraries, she's been vilified by those arguing that kids should be free to digest such material without their parents' knowledge or consent. She believes that books with such wholly inappropriate, sexually exploitative content should be restricted to a parents' section in school libraries and that parents should be notified before their kids are given access to the material. That decision should not be left to school librarians, a.k.a. agents of the state. How can any reasonable adult be opposed to that? [T]he school librarians, i.e., the state, has knowledge and control over children's reading material, but not their parents." [P2S: While applicable to Internet filtering issues, this article is mainly about books in public school libraries and Laurie Taylor's successful yet ongoing efforts to remove certain books from the children's sections of Fayetteville, AR public school libraries. Go to www.wpaag.org to learn more.] |
| 8/14/05 | Public Porn Online | "State Library patrons are accessing porn on the internet -- but staff are powerless to stop them. Instead it's up to library staff to confront patrons if they visit inappropriate sites. 'We don't have software to stop patrons accessing porn,' said State Library digital strategies manager Lloyd Sokvitne. 'We do have an "acceptable use" policy that explicitly states that it is against that policy to access or display material that is offensive to others.' But library staff have told the Sunday Tasmanian that patrons have become abusive when approached and questioned about their use of the internet. One junior member of staff said she was 'dreading' having to confront anyone." [P2S: Another Acceptable Use Policy failure. See also Tas Library Visitors Accessing Porn.] |
| 8/13/05 | Toss Out the Pervs: Menino Vows to Keep Kids Safe in Libraries |  "The
mayor has declared war on sex offenders who use the city's libraries, providing
staffs with mugshots of the worst offenders and instructing police to help
librarians boot them. The crackdown is motivated by fear
that predators might be hunting for kid victims or using library computers
to find child pornography. .... [T]he mayor received
complaints that a purported Level 3 sex offender
was lingering in the children's section of a library branch.
.... 'We went right into action immediately. Let's
protect the users and punish the individuals in the library who shouldn't
be in the library,' Menino said. 'It's better to be proactive than
reactive.' The resulting policy kicked into high gear yesterday,
when the Copley Square Central Library received enough booklets with sex
offender information to send to each of the city's 27 branches. At
each library, one book will be given to librarians and another made available
to the public. Police want librarians to call them when their instincts
tell them a patron is up to no good. 'We
all know when the hair on the back of our neck stands up,' Linskey
said. .... In another library-related measure, a small squad
of Boston municipal police officers two weeks ago was dedicated to patrolling
all the library branches." [P2S:
Boston Mayor cracking down in public libraries -- because librarians won't.
The Boston
Public Library's Internet Policy claims to comply with CIPA but in the
next sentence reveals the presence of non-CIPA compliant unfiltered computers:
"The Boston Public Library complies with the federal Children's Internet
Protection Act which requires the use of filtering software for adults,
teens and children. Adults, defined by the law as over the age of
17, may choose to use unfiltered computers for Internet access."
CIPA requires al computers to be filtered, not just some. Hey Boston,
wake up, your librarians are misleading you before your very eyes!
Your Mayor has made an excellent start. A great finish would be to
filter all computers all the time by actually complying with CIPA, not claiming
to be complying with CIPA.] |
| 8/12/05 | Valparaiso Librarian Suspended After Patrons Visit Porno Sites | "A Florida Panhandle librarian has been suspended and may be fired by officials upset that a registered sex offender and three boys allegedly used the city library's computers to access pornographic Internet sites. Sue Martin, head librarian at the Valparaiso Community Library, was suspended with pay and will receive a hearing within 60 days, City Attorney Doug Wyckoff said Thursday. .... Hard drives have been removed from the computers and the public has been prohibited from using them until further notice. .... The library's Internet policy forbids using computers for 'illegal or fraudulent activity' or displaying 'images which other library users may find offensive to view.' Parents or guardians must sign a responsibility contract before minors can use the computers, acknowledging they are strictly for educational purposes and that it's impossible for staff to restrict access to all controversial materials. [A man], 25, was charged with possession of child pornography several days after he allegedly accessed porn on a library computer. Police said they found computer discs, tapes and pictures of child pornography at his home. Billingsley said Police Chief Joseph Hart a week later told him that three juveniles also had viewed pornographic material on a library computer. Bob Gorin, coordinator of Okaloosa County's public library cooperative, said ... [b]locking software is available but is easy to get around...." [P2S: Another Acceptable Use Policy failure, this time with a registered sex offender. Why is the filter so "easy to get around"?] |
| 8/12/05 | Library as Porn Peddler | "Then, of course, there's the sensitive issue of young children. .... Should
public libraries be the willing purveyors of soft porn to kids?
Apparently, the American Library Association believes the answer to
that question is 'yes.' Here's its official statement on 'Free Access to Libraries for Minors':
Library policies and procedures that effectively deny minors equal and equitable access to all [italics mine] library resources available to other users violate (Article V) of the 'Library Bill of Rights.' The American Library Association opposes all attempts to restrict access to library services, material and facilities based on the age of library users..... The ALA also conveniently ignores a definitive 2003 precedent: U.S. et al. v. American Library Association (yes, the same bunch). In that case, the court flatly rejected the ALA's claim that it was a violation of the First Amendment to install Internet software filters to prevent minors from accessing pornographic material. Minors aren't adults. Their rights are limited, as are their responsibilities. Libraries, like schools, are obliged to act in loco parentis - in place of responsible parents - to safeguard kids. The ALA is as bad as the American Civil Liberties Union when it stakes out abstract, dogmatic positions devoid of responsibility and common sense. Strategic planner LaPierre confirmed that the ALA's absolutist position on access to porn for kids is 'consistent with DPL policies.' There ought to be something we can do locally to change that." [P2S: Another library blindly following the ALA. See this Free Republic thread.] |
| 8/12/05 | Libraries Now Wireless Zones | "The City of Boulder Public Library system has installed wireless Internet access points at three branch locations, and officials say locals are already surfing sans wires in droves. .... Wireless users are asked to avoid 'inappropriate' uses such as visiting pornography sites while in the library, but Reed said she hasn't witnessed problems with WiFi video or audio uses to date. 'We'd remind people they're in a public setting, and what might not be offensive to them might be offensive to another person, and this has to be a place where people feel comfortable,' said Reed." [P2S: Okay, all you molesters, please agree to play nice in the library.] |
| 8/11/05 | Mom Outraged at Porn in Library; County Officials Say Visitors Have First Amendment Right to Look at Explicit Content | "A Santa Clarita mother who took her 4-year-old daughter to the library for a learning experience was outraged by pornography on a computer screen in plain view of her child, she said Wednesday. But county library officials said they can do nothing to halt such uses of library computers because visitors have a First Amendment right to view pornographic material. Lorrie Holguin said the incident last week was doubly offensive, because the computer in question was just 10 feet or so from the children's section in the Canyon Country Library. Holguin said she had escorted her daughter to play games on the computer when she 'noticed the man sitting next to us was viewing very graphic, harsh pornography.' 'I was absolutely horrified!' she wrote in a letter to Santa Clarita Mayor Cameron Smyth. .... 'It is a First Amendment issue,' [a library spokeswoman] said. 'The Supreme Court ruled that they have the right to view what they want ... as long as it is not illegal....' To control content would be censorship, she said. .... She added: 'The library serves a variety of outlooks and lifestyles. We provide (the computer service) free of charge without censorship.' But Holguin was unsatisfied with the library's response to the situation. 'We will not be going back,' she said." [P2S: This librarian is flat out lying; the government blindly follows along against the will of the people, as the online poll shows. Controlling content is not censorship, a word she uses glibly to scare people. True, people can view "legal" pornography, but a public library is not the correct forum. And again we see the failure of ALA-engendered policies and procedures designed to avoid Internet filters. As always, we urge this mother to contact us for further information, and we urge the librarians and city government to read and follow US v. ALA.] |
| 8/11/05 | Comic Relief; Are You a Man Or a Mouse? | "A few did discuss the stabbing at the library on Saturday, in the bathroom where homeless men frequently perform their morning ablutions after staking out the computers, where they'll sit as long as the librarians let them, putting porn within eyeball's reach of kids." |
| 8/10/05 | Library Kid Porn Pervert is Jailed | "A DAD-OF-THREE who downloaded more than 1000 child porn images on a school library computer was jailed for two years yesterday. [He] was only caught when a pupil glanced over his shoulder and told staff what he had seen. Some of the images showed sado-masochism, bestiality and adults having sex with children. [He] used the internet in Earlston High School library for more than a year. It doubles as a public library. .... [He] admitted making and possessing indecent photos of children at Earlston and Galashiels libraries...." [P2S: In England the sentence for allowing a child to accidentally view porn is 2 years in jail. In the United States the sentence for masturbating in front of a child is 2 months suspension from the library or the incident is just called "unfortunate." Guess which country is controlled by the ALA?] |
| 8/10/05 | Keeping Our Kids Safe on the Internet | "Especially for small towns, the Internet opens previously unimaginable super-highways of information to any and all who are curious enough to travel them. But some of the off-ramps can lead to danger, especially for children and youth who may naively-and sometimes unintentionally-encounter predators and pornographers on the prowl. And it happens more often than you might think. .... Parental involvement works at home, but Internet access is available at other stops in a child's day-not only a friend's house, but also libraries and schools. Director Cathy Fish said parental involvement is a key component of the Internet strategy at Hillsboro Public Library. 'We have an internet agreement that must be signed by a parent if a person less than 18 (years old),' she said. .... Fish said the library also uses a statewide filtering system offered through the Kansas State Library, but she called its effectiveness 'sporadic.' .... 'There's been a couple of times when I've tapped a kid on the shoulder and said, "You know, your mom wouldn't like you looking at this." They turn beet red. 'I try not to make a big deal out of it, though.'" [P2S: To this librarian, kids looking at porn is "not a big deal"! Thank you, ALA.] |
| 8/9/05 | Foti Emphasizes Dangers to Children Using the Internet | "Louisiana Attorney General Charles Foti Jr. told a crowd of Lafayette Parish's elected leaders recently that his High Technology Crime Unit spends 75 percent of its time and energy investigating sex-related Internet cases. Foti says the number of cases is growing. That intense focus is indicative of the incredibly widespread use of the Web for malevolent purposes such as the exploitation of children. Foti's comments should create awareness among parents that all communities are hunting grounds for sexual predators who use the Internet. It should be a wakeup call for those who have young children with access to a computer. There is a very dark side of the Internet. It consists in part of the endless assortment of brutally explicit hard-core pornography. With a mouse click, even the very young can travel to Web sites that offer photos, stories and movies depicting sex acts of every nature between people of all ages. Even more threatening, however, are the sexual predators who stalk the Web. Pedophiles lurk in chat rooms, seeking to establish sinister relationships with children. They also use e-mail to make contact and promote their malignant agendas. .... Remember that your child could make contact with a sexual predator on a school or library computer. Learn what safeguards are utilized there." [P2S: If the school or public library is ALA-controlled, the safeguards are effectively nonexistent.] |
| 8/9/05 | Council Race Puts Rift in Spotlight; Dan Anderson, Facing a Challenger for his Arlington Council Seat, Has Often Been at Odds with Other Members | "Dan Anderson is aware he's not popular with some of his colleagues on the Arlington City Council. At times during his six years on the council, Anderson has found himself the odd man out. .... He has lobbied repeatedly for ... pornography filters on computers at the library ..., among other things." [P2S: Yes, if you want to comply with the law and protect children from rape and molestation, often you are considered by the politically correct to be the "odd man out." We hope Mr. Anderson wins reelection for standing up against the tide and doing what's right.] |
| 8/9/05 | Harmless Hackers or Criminals? The Case of the Kutztown 13 | "They're being called the Kutztown 13 - a group of high schoolers charged with felonies for bypassing security with school-issued laptops, downloading forbidden Internet goodies and using monitoring software to spy on district administrators. .... The Kutztown Area School District ... reported the students to police only after detentions, suspensions and other punishments failed to deter them from breaking school rules governing computer usage. In Pennsylvania alone, more than a dozen school districts have reported student misuse of computers to police, and in some cases students have been expelled, according to Jeffrey Tucker, a lawyer for the district. The students 'fully knew it was wrong and they kept doing it,' Tucker said. .... As school districts across the nation struggle to keep networks secure from mischievous students who are often more adept at computers than their elders, technology professionals say the case offers multiple lessons. .... The trouble began last fall after the district issued some 600 Apple iBook laptops to every student at the high school about 50 miles northwest of Philadelphia. The computers were loaded with a filtering program that limited Internet access. But those barriers proved easily surmountable: The administrative password ... was taped to the backs of the computers. .... At least one student viewed pornography. .... IT staff at schools are often poorly trained, making it easy for students with even modest computer skills to get around security, he said. .... The district isn't backing down, however. It points out that students and parents were required to sign a code of conduct and acceptable use policy, which contained warnings of legal action." [P2S: A school "acceptable use policy" fails to prevent children from viewing pornography just like those in public libraries fail. That's why the ALA recommends them so much instead of Internet filters that actually work. What a coincidence! Is your school safe?] |
| 8/8/05 | Public Libraries, The Left, and the Corruption of Children | "What better way for liberals to change public opinion on homosexuality than to indoctrinate the youngest and most vulnerable children. ....
In addition to the public school curriculums and school libraries, a significant threat posed to our children is taking place at our local tax-supported public libraries. .... I decided to visit my local library to see how accessible and what materials were available. .... When I went up to do some research on the internet, I decided to check the Google history of the computers which allow unfettered internet access. Someone using the computer had looked up topics such as 'Gallery magazine,' 'Young Women in Wet-Tees,' and 'Young Women in Cut-Offs.' Shockingly, we had an individual arrested for downloading child pornography in this same library a few months ago. Still this was no reason to put a filter on the computer; because according to liberals the free speech of pedophiles must be protected. The hand made sign exclaiming, 'No Porn, Or Chatting' was felt to be a significant deterrent. As I was researching the content for this article, my home internet filter blocked access to the two homosexual newspapers. Not to worry, I was able to go to my local public library and pull up information on their websites. Focus on the family's Citizen magazine reported in 'Libraries Feel the Pressure,' the local chapter of Citizen's For Community Values (CCV) in Memphis, Tennessee, was successful in getting filters installed. 'The battle began after a mother and her 15 year old son happened upon a man masturbating as he viewed pornography in a Suburban Memphis library. The mom reported the incident to the library and police.' The offender's penalty was no access to the library for 60 days. As I left the library, I noticed a policy sign that read, 'Children under the age of 8 must be accompanied by someone at least 14.' How reassuring, having a 5 year old under the careful watch of a 14 year old. .... Much of this homosexual indoctrination comes from the aiding and abetting policies and practices of the American Library Association. According to Family Friendly Libraries (www.fflibraries.org), 'Because of ALA lobbying size and power, they've succeeded in getting most states to treat their "Library Bill of Rights" as a legal extension of the First Amendment. The ALA had liberalized those rights even further to exclude "age" as a qualifier for library policy.' A child of any age can have access to harmful material without the consent of their parents, but the parent will have to pay the overdue fee. 'The official MANUAL OF PUBLIC POLICY POSITIONS states that their membership is expected to support the ERA, the concept of a nuclear freeze, gay rights, opposition to mandatory AIDS testing, national health insurance, and minors' access to sexual resources both in and out of the library. The ALA has even publicly lobbied against the Boy Scouts' policy of not allowing homosexuals to be Scout Masters.' Indoctrination of our children into homosexuality is just the tip of the iceberg. .... The ultimate goal of the liberal Left is the removal of any and all barriers to sexuality so that anything is permissible even pedophilia. Consider that sitting Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has advocated for lowering the age of consensual sex to 12. Those of us who care about our children can cry and bemoan the left, but more blame is to be put on those of us who have been asleep at the wheel, me included. The sexualization of our young people is perhaps the greatest threat we face in our nation today. Earlier and earlier we are seeing the media show children as viable sex partners, dating and dressing more immodestly at younger and younger ages, and as having an anything goes attitude towards sex void of any consequences. It will only be a matter of time before we are absolutely snowed under with filth and perversion in our libraries, and communities. Consider that the average age now of exposure to pornography is 5 years of age. The other side is more dedicated to the corruption of our children more than we are at saving and protecting them from harm. They are mobilized and dedicated and will never stop. Is it time you started to care? You may feel uncomfortable and may be called homophobic, intolerant, fascist, or a censor, but the alternative is certainly much worse, losing the hearts and minds of our children. .... For additional resources go to: www.wpaag.org, www.fflibraries.org, www.pabbis.com, www.ccv.org, and www.missionamerica.com. .... 'And they that shall be of thee shall build the old waste places: thou shalt raise up the foundations of many generations; and thou shalt be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of paths to dwell in.' Isaiah 58:12" [P2S: The entire article is excellent, and it covers the ALA's influence in places besides the library, like schools. It's really a well-written, eye opening call to arms. Go read it all.] |
| 8/4/05 | Bridgeville Man Pleads Guilty in Pornography Case | "A Bridgeville man pleaded guilty yesterday in Beaver County Court to possession of child pornography. .... [H]e admitted in February to viewing pictures on a computer in the Community College of Beaver County library. [He] was caught when a library employee tipped off college security. .... The computer was seized and turned over to state police...." |
| 8/2/05 | Libraries Keeping Kids Away from Online Porn | "The internet can be
a dangerous playground for kids. The government knows it and
that's why lawmakers passed the Children's Internet Protection Act back in December, 2000. It forces libraries to monitor which web sites children have access to.
11-year-old Lindsey Gilbert likes to surf the web but she also knows the dangers lurking in cyberspace. 'If somebody's trying to sell something on the computer like drugs or something -- they shouldn't be on that,' said Gilbert. That's why the Toledo-Lucas County Library has protective measures in place to make sure kids don't see something they shouldn't. Last summer, the library installed filters on all of its computers. They're the same kind used by many public schools. 'It has 38 categories that you can deny your patrons accessing. And, of course, it includes any illegal materials, pornography, violence, hate, gambling, drugs,' said Library Deputy Director Margaret Danziger. The filters can tell if you're looking for something smutty or legitimate information. 'They differentiate between someone who wants just to view breasts, nudity -- and those who want information on breast cancer,' said Danziger. .... But even adults don't have full access. They have to follow the library's internet policy, which prohibits users from viewing porn sites. That is good news for moms like Myla Gatlin, who says it's always nice to have an extra set of eyes watching out for your kids. 'They're not around me all the time so that's kinda like a private mother of their own that guards them and helps me as well to keep them from seeing things that I would definitely not want them to see,' said Gatlin. Library officials say they had to install the filters if they wanted to qualify for federal funds. Also, we should point out the filters only block visual images -- not text or audio." [P2S: Shhhh! Don't tell the ALA! Filters work! They don't block breast cancer, a favorite deception of the ALA. Adults can ask that they be bypassed. Parents welcome the extra help (remember, the ALA advises filters are not really effective). And, worst sin of all according to the ALA, this library is actually trying to "protect" children!! Shhhh!] |
| 7/30/05 | Porn Access at Public Library Criticized; Dad Wants Material Kept from Youths | "After observing what he calls pornographic material being downloaded and viewed by a teenager at a public library, a Racine man is now on a mission to change the law. Java Orr said in an interview last week that while visiting the Racine Public Library three weeks ago with his 6-year-old daughter, he observed a male teenager downloading and viewing pornographic material on a computer in the adult services area. Orr said that when he brought his complaint to library officials, they said nothing could be done to prevent the youth from viewing the material. 'It's insane that kids can actually see and read about this kind of sexual material at a public library,' Orr said. 'Furthermore, that my child or any other child can easily walk by and witness it.' Orr is taking his fight to keep children from viewing pornographic material at the Racine Public library to the public. In the past week, Orr has spent hours in front of the library petitioning residents to sign his Child Friendly Library Act, which he hopes will get attention from the Legislature. He has gathered more than 500 signatures and has set a goal of 1,000. 'The bill would prevent children, including young adults, from gaining access to obscene or pornographic material' at a public library, Orr said. .... [Racine Public Library Director Jessica] MacPhail said a separate youth services area in the library provides five computers equipped with filters to weed out such material. She said that area is used primarily for children through eighth grade. .... MacPhail said the Racine Public Library does post its Internet access policies for the public. The policies state ... it is unacceptable to use the library's Internet equipment to send, receive or display text or graphics that may reasonably be construed as obscene by community standards.[P2S: Another child computer-only filtering library fails to protect children. Another Acceptable Use Policy joke. Another 6 year old child sexualized by the ALA's policies and defiance of the law. Another parent that should sue the ALA, the local library and town, and the library board of trustees. This constant onslaught against children in the face of the law is sickening, isn't it? Isn't anyone getting tired of reading story after story on this web page?] |
| 7/28/05 | Libraries Struggle to Keep Porn Off Computers | "An irate mother claimed her teenage daughter was exposed to Internet pornography at a Baltimore County library. .... Willa Taylor's 17-year-old daughter went to the Northpoint library to do some research, she was shocked at what she caught a glimpse of on the computer next to her. 'She said while she was there, there was a man sitting right next to her and watching porn,' Taylor said. 'She saw the man's ... you know ... and the other picture was a woman's legs straight up in the air.' Her daughter was too embarrassed to speak with us, but Taylor was irate and called the library. .... Four years ago, 11 News exposed this problem as the I-Team's hidden camera caught people in Baltimore, Howard and Anne Arundel counties openly viewing pornography on library computers. .... Robinson took Taylor's concerns to Baltimore County's public library director Jim Fish. 'That's very traumatic,' Fish said. 'I feel sorry. As a father of two teens, I have a great deal of empathy.' Fish said the library has had filters in place for seven years -- even before the Children's Internet Protection Act. He said although they are getting better, they are not 100 percent effective. .... Anyone who wants to use the Internet must read and sign an acceptable use policy. All of the public libraries in the Baltimore area have similar policies." [P2S: There's those useless ALA-recommended Acceptable Use Policies again. Related story: Video: How Do Libraries Prevent Porn On Computers?] |
| 7/26/05 | Governor Pledges Support for Internet Filters in Public Libraries | "Governor Rod Blagojevich surprised representatives of a conservative women's group this week when he told them he would support an effort to filter children's Internet access in public libraries. Blagojevich reportedly made the comments Monday afternoon at the Eola Public Library in Aurora, immediately after he signed into law a ban on selling and renting sexually explicit video games to minors. Concerned Women for America-Illinois' state director Kathy Valente said the governor appeared concerned when he learned children could get access to violence and pornography on Eola Public Library's computers. 'We just pointed out that children could access the same images on the library's computer screens that he was trying to protect them from seeing in video games,' Valente said outside Aurora's Eola Public Library. 'He said he didn't know the library allowed the access to pornography on their computers. That's when he told us he would help.' .... 'It was embarrassing that the governor chose a public library for the signing where children have taxpayer-funded access to the very things he's trying to protect them from,' she said. 'That makes as much sense as signing an environmental bill at a smeltering plant. What was he thinking?' .... This past spring, State Representative Kevin Joyce (D-Chicago) introduced legislation which would have required public libraries to filter Internet access. The legislation met strong resistance from the ACLU, Illinois librarians and the state's PTA, and failed to get out of committee." [P2S: THE GOVERNOR OF ILLINOIS JOINS THE FIGHT AGAINST THE ALA! See how he joins the fight after discovering the truth the ALA attempts to hide about public libraries. Read about Librarian Deception and Misinformation in Illinois as a response to the Governor's reported statements.] |
| 7/22/05 | Man Faces Charges of Downloading Porn at UW-L | "Charges are pending against a La Crosse man who reportedly was caught Wednesday viewing child pornography on a University of Wisconsin-La Crosse library computer. .... A librarian called UW-L police at about 5 p.m. Wednesday after growing suspicious [he] was using a public access computer to view pornography, UW-L Police Chief Scott Rhode said. Officers found at least one computer disk that contained images of child pornography, Rhode said." [P2S: What a coincidence -- another library that drools over the ALA Library Bill of Rights has patrons that drool over pictures of child pornography. La Crosse apparently enjoys libraries that attract criminals, as we reported below, or else they would do something about it, like removing the ALA influence from their policies.] |
| 7/22/05 | Man Arrested for Having Child Pornography | "Lincoln police arrested a transient Wednesday for possessing child pornography. .... [The transient] told police he printed the pictures at Bennett Martin Public Library.... Only some of the library's computers have pornography filters." [P2S: Once again, a library that filters only some computers still suffers from criminal activity. Is anyone seeing a pattern yet?] |
| 7/22/05 | Man Faces Charges In Connection With Child Porn; Police Say Man Printed Photos Off Internet At Library | "A Lincoln man who was arrested in connection with possession of child pornography ... obtained the pictures by using computers at the public library. Screens allow library patrons to surf the Internet privately. .... Library officials said they have worked hard to establish its computer policies, balancing safety with privacy." [P2S: Boy, those privacy screens the ALA tells us to use are really useful, aren't they! The library claims it was attempting to "balance safety with privacy." Yeah right. The privacy of the criminals -- that's likely why "computer logs are not kept." To protect its citizens, this city needs to shed the ALA psychobabble. Let's see if they have the guts to defend themselves against the overbearing ALA or will they just shuffle the deck chairs on the Titanic.] |
| 7/22/05 | West Palm Beach Becomes Hotspot for Wireless Surfers; Web Users Find Free Net Access Downtown | "The city is the first in the county to provide free wireless Internet service to residents and visitors in the downtown area, Mayor Lois Frankel said. The service will use the same Web filtering as the library and will prohibit access to pornographic and other objectionable Internet sites." [P2S: Good news, finally -- contrast this excellent library with ALA-guided libraries that claim this is impossible. More ALA misinformation apparently.] |
| 7/20/05 | Porno Peeping Via Internet Vexes Librarians | "Internet users at public libraries are trusted to browse the Web freely, but sometimes that trust is abused. .... Several months ago police were called to Silas Bronson Library in Waterbury because a man was seen viewing child pornography. The Wolcott and Southington libraries also have had instances of people looking at inappropriate content. .... Southington Public Library director Jay Johnston said his library considered using filters, but decided it was too much of an invasion of privacy. Filters also don't always work. Instead, Southington members use a card to sign onto the computers. .... The Silas Bronson Library also considered filters, but decided to use a sign-in method instead. 'Children and caregivers use our library a lot during the summer,' said Emmet McSweeney, acting director of Silas Bronson. '(We are) doing our very best to keep control of this thing.' Ramona Harten, director of the Cheshire Public Library, said at her library, workers cannot do anything unless the person is viewing illegal material, such as child pornography, in which case they would call the police. If patrons are viewing legal pornography, something like www.playboy.com, they can claim First Amendment rights and possibly sue the library if staff interfere. If someone else wants to call they are more than welcome to, said Harten. 'As long as they understand that calling the police when there is no crime can get [the caller] into trouble,' she said. Other libraries, such as the Prospect Public Library, have a policy saying that anyone viewing a Web site with pornography will lose their Internet privileges. Patrons must sign a sheet saying they won't disobey the rules. .... To make sure children do not see inappropriate material, the Wolcott Public Library has separate computers just for kids, something Southington and Prospect have as well. To effectively manage Internet use on computers the American Library Association recommends using codes of conduct, Internet training classes, privacy screens and time limits." [P2S: PATRONS ARE WARNED BY THE LIBRARY THAT IF THE PATRONS CALL POLICE ON PEOPLE FOR WHAT TURNS OUT TO BE "LEGAL PORNOGRAPHY," THEN THE PATRONS WILL GET "INTO TROUBLE"! Oh my! Librarians have been so successful in misleading the public that now they are warning the public if they call the police for the wrong reasons!!!! And look at the other completely wrong statements made by these librarians. And libraries that filter only the children's sections do not stop children from being attacked by adults on unfiltered adult computers. And the use of library cards has failed in other libraries because people were trading cards. And agreements not to view porn, a favorite of the ALA for circumventing the law, are useless. Good people will not look at porn in public libraries anyway and bad people will not care about such silly agreements. Similarly, people are not supposed to carry guns in some states but that doesn't stop the criminals from carrying them, does it? That's why court houses have metal detectors -- to stop the criminals from bringing in weapons. Well Internet filters essentially perform the same function -- stopping those who refuse to comply with social agreements. Lastly the argument is made that filters don't always work. Who ever said they did? Filters will never work 100%. Does that mean you don't use them? Metal detectors do not stop plastic weapons. Does that mean you don't use them? If filters are never to be used, why did anyone waste time on a law requiring filters and a US Supreme Court case finding that law constitutional? These librarians are possibly allowing or creating a danger to children in their own communities so as to satisfy the radical agenda of a union of librarians far, far away. "(We are) doing our very best to keep control of this thing"? NOT!] |
| 7/19/05 | Librarians Protest Possible Financing Cut; Denton County: Group Argues Against Plan Linking Anti-Porn Filters | "Librarians from across Denton County filled seats Tuesday in the Commissioners Court to argue against a plan to cut their financing unless they agree to install anti-pornography filters on their public computer systems. Denton County has proposed cutting its funding to county libraries and nonprofit organizations by 20 percent. The library funding, however, could be eliminated under County Judge Mary Horn's proposal. .... Ms. Horn's move to vote on library funding Tuesday was stalled when Commissioner Sandy Jacobs persuaded her colleagues to give librarians time to approach their town and city councils about ways to reduce the chances that pornography could be viewed on library computers, especially by children. 'This is not an adult-child issue,' Ms. Horn said. 'It's an access-to-porn issue. I don't care if you're 14 or 40.'" [P2S: Read what P2S wrote to Judge Mary Horn in support of her actions, and we'll have to write again so town and city councils know that librarians argue the very same arguments that they lost decisively in US v. ALA finding filters legal.] |
| 7/18/05 | The ALA and Porn Filters and How Far Is Too Far In "Young Adult" Books? | "The well resourced,
radical, internet porn loving, anything-goes-at-any-age ALA's impact on
children, local communities, and public tax expenditures is very
troubling. A small, out of the mainstream circle of people
in the ALA have a huge impact as they define and implement their new
and strange ideology in both public and public school libraries.
Plan2Succeed is an organization that plans to succeed at 'Stopping the
ALA from Pushing Porn in Public Libraries.' They have useful
information on: - How the ALA continues to resist and undermine the Supreme Court decision on filters - Information about the ALA and children - Crimes and Filters in Libraries It is disgusting how some public libraries are becoming 'safer' for public porn and perverts but unsafe for children." [P2S: Naturally, we agree fully. We thank PABBIS - Parents Against Bad Books In Schools for this - please visit them to read the actual text of various public school books and make up your own minds as to their appropriateness for your own children. (See also www.WPAAG.org.)] |
| 7/18/05 | Man Arrested For Child Porn In USF Library | "University of South Florida police arrested a Tampa man at the university library on Sunday after other library patrons reported seeing him looking at child pornography on a computer, police said. .... People around him noticed he was looking at Web sites depicting young boys in 'various states of dress and poses' and alerted library security, Klingebiel said. Library security revoked [the man]'s Internet access and called police. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement will analyze the computer to determine whether [the man] downloaded any pornographic images...." [P2S: Using the computers to track down the criminal is terrific. The ALA, however, is wholly against that and local libraries often follow the ALA's lead.] |
| 7/17/05 | Mayor Won't Let Phoenix Become Another 'Sin City' | "Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon wants the downtown and central areas of the Valley's core to feel more like family-friendly Disneyland than Las Vegas' Sin City. .... All those moves come on the heels of Gordon's restrictions on city library patrons to access pornography on public computers. That was a problem at the city's main library just north of downtown. 'We will respect the Constitution, but we are not going to give incentives to help adult businesses, the mayor said. Business leaders, especially those downtown, welcome Gordon's efforts and hope they will spur further economic activity including retail, tourism and an increased ASU expansion. 'That's what good mayors do,' said Stan Barnes, president of Copper State Consulting, a downtown lobbying firm, of Gordon's efforts to make downtown family-friendly. Brian Kearney, chief executive of the Downtown Phoenix Partnership economic development group, agrees. He said he wants the Copper Square area to be for families and tourists, not adult businesses. .... Gordon said he wants to protect children and city neighborhoods from dangerous repeat sexual offenders." [P2S: Whoa! Mayor Gordon "wants to protect children," something the ALA is totally against. According to the ALA's intellectual leader Judith Krug: "I get very concerned when we start hearing people who want to convert this country into a safe place for children." Well, Mayor Gordon, the ALA is "very concerned" about you -- watch out! Do radical, extremist librarians make you quake in your cowboy boots? Businesses nationwide, it's time you also make the ALA "very concerned" about your interests in protecting children -- BUSINESSES MUST STOP DONATING TO THE ALA UNTIL IT STOPS DEFYING THE LAW! Maybe Judith Krug will "pull her hair out"!] |
| 7/17/05 | Por-no-no: A Twisted Trip Through Public Libraries' Battle with Internet Pornography | "People don't usually describe a trip to the public library as 'obscene' or 'violating.' But that's the way Kelli Phillips described her recent visit to Evansdale's house of knowledge. 'I took my 4-year-old son to the library and I was sitting at a table behind the computers. I looked up and saw two men were looking at ... pornographic materials, so I reported it to the librarian,' Phillips said. .... But the library's no-censorship policy meant there was little they could do. .... 'I thought there was a block or filter or something,' Phillips said. 'I didn't realize this stuff is available in public.' .... French Johnson, whose library gave up federal funding in order to avoid mandatory filters, said trial filters have blindly blocked out legitimate Web sites about breast-feeding, nursing homes and the unfortunately named city of Essex. .... [Judith] Krug [of the ALA] said the idea of librarians looking over a patron's shoulder and deeming sites obscene is a violation of patron privacy. 'What you look at at the library is your business as long as it's not illegal,' Krug said. .... While blocking pornography may keep most patrons happy, such actions have never been tested against the First Amendment in court." [P2S: Wow! This article is loaded with the same misinformation that P2S has been pointing out time after time as if US v. ALA never existed. The misinformation comes from the media as well as the librarians as this story says filters have never been tested in court. Here's another library turning down federal funding to keep serving up porn to children and criminals while the ALA claims libraries are underfunded. And those Krug quotes are priceless in that they demonstrate one way the ALA defies the law: The article says, "Krug said the idea of librarians looking over a patron's shoulder and deeming sites obscene is a violation of patron privacy. 'What you look at at the library is your business as long as it's not illegal,' Krug said." Contrast this with the deception used on the ALA web site: "Scenario 2: A library has a bank of PCs in which the filter is in a default 'inactive' state. The PCs are clearly labeled to be used 'By Adults Only.' Library staff monitor use on a regular basis. Library staff supervise use of the computers; if staff thinks a person under age 17 is using the 'adult' PCs, they ask for some identification." This is used as an excuse to leave filters "inactive." But it talks about staff supervision. Krug, on the other hand, says that's "a violation of patron privacy." So libraries may have "inactive" filters and librarians will not be looking over any shoulders, yet the library will claim it is using CIPA-complaint filters to accept federal funding. Is this not defiance of CIPA and the US Supreme Court?] |
| 7/16/05 | Former Beverly Public Library Director Indicted; Is Charged with Indecent Assault on Teenager | "As the library director and so much more for the city of Beverly for the past 19 years, [the criminal library director] ... preyed on a male teenage library patron. .... [He] met the alleged victim at the library two years ago when the teenager was 15 years old. The alleged victim said he befriended [him] after the library director found him viewing an Internet site [P2S: sex] on a library computer. .... [He] retired in the spring and is receiving a $30,000 pension with medical benefits." [P2S: Why did this story leave out that the kid was viewing a sex site on the public library computer, hmmmm?] |
| 7/15/05 | Fleecing the Public | "Then there's the case of [the] former Beverly library director ..., who was indicted by a grand jury Wednesday on multiple counts of possession of child pornography and indecent assault on a minor. Last month the Beverly Retirement Board - saying it had no choice in the matter - granted [the criminal library director] early retirement that carries with it a $30,000-a-year pension and full health benefits. He retired after serving a paid suspension following his arrest last April 22 and collecting almost $30,000 for unused sick, vacation and personal time. He stands to lose his pension and other retirement benefits should he be convicted and there is a finding that the crime or crimes occurred while he was at work. But the city is unlikely to get back any of the tens of thousands of dollars [the criminal library director] has collected to date. But then that's the way things usually work in the Bay State where all rights belong to those who work for the government and those who pay the bills are expected to just keep on paying." [P2S: And all rights go to the criminal library director child assaulters who get their pick of children viewing sex sites on library computers, courtesy of the ALA.] |
| 7/14/05 | Strip Club Owner Guilty of Unauthorized Building Use | "Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon..., a moderate Democrat, has also imposed a ban on public library patrons from viewing pornography on the Internet at city computers.... Business leaders generally approve of Gordon's ... library porn ban. " [P2S: PHOENIX BUSINESS LEADERS APPROVE OF LIBRARY PORN BAN!!!! Businesses should stop funding the ALA until it stops advising libraries to defy the law.] |
| 7/6/05 | Libraries Ban 14 From Using City Computers | "Library officials have banned 14 patrons from using public computers since January for violating the 'no pornography' policy at city libraries. The City Council approved the policy banning patrons from viewing pornography on city computers in September, despite objections from civil liberties groups. 'There is no constitutional right to view (pornography) in our libraries,' Mayor Phil Gordon said. 'Our libraries are not adult bookstores or adult video stores, rather places for families. And that's the way it's going to stay, and why I fought so hard for it.'" [P2S: Mayor Phil Gordon of Phoenix is OUTSTANDING! We hope other governmental leaders follow his lead to protect children. He should be awarded special recognition by the Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section (CEOS) of the US Dept. of Justice!] |
| 7/4/05 | Keeping Children Safe From Prying Eyes | "How many of you know what your children are doing on the Internet? If you don't, then it is high time for you to do some checking before it is too late. .... Today, we often read in the newspapers or watch TV news about molest, rape, paedophiles, kidnap, and even murder cases that involve children and teenagers, and most of these cases are said to originate from some sort of online activities such as surfing and chatting. .... If you think that children and teenagers access these inappropriate content at cybercafes, then think again. Most of these unwanted exposures are said to happen at home with 67 per cent of the cases, while another 15 per cent and three per cent occurred in schools and libraries respectively. .... 'If we don't think about it now, our kids will be living in danger,' Pramotedham says. .... 'Parents need to do something rather than nothing,' Pramotedham says." |
| 6/30/05 | NEW: Sex Offender Charged With Downloading Child Porn at St. Mary's | "A 55-year-old registered sex offender was arrested Wednesday afternoon at a St. Mary's University library, accused of downloading sexually explicit images of young children. .... According to a police report, teen girls saw a man looking at pornographic images on a computer at the Louis J. Blume Library, a federal repository of documents open to the public. The girls told a library employee who then called police." |
| 6/29/05 | ALA Council Calls for Withdrawal from Iraq | "The Council of the American Library Association (ALA) has passed a resolution that calls for the withdrawal from Iraq of all U.S. military forces and a return of full sovereignty to the people of Iraq." [P2S: What is it the business of librarians to weigh in on foreign policy? Be that as it may, the ALA appears to support terrorists just as it appears to support the terrorization of children in public libraries. See this Freeper thread for more.] |
| 6/29/05 | Crime Blotter | "At 4 a.m. June 10, pornography was discovered on a computer in Millar Library [Portland State University]. Disposition of the case is pending." |
| 6/?/05 | Child-Pornography Possessors Arrested in Internet-Related Crimes: Findings From the National Juvenile Online Victimization Study | "Where and How Did CP [child pornography] Possessors Use Computers to View and Acquire Pictures? Almost all of the arrested CP possessors (91%) mainly used home computers to access child pornography ...; however some ... mainly used computers at less private places like at at work (7%) or other places (2%) such as libraries, schools, and rental venues." [P2S: This groundbreaking national survey of law enforcement estimated the number of arrests for child-pornography possessors in Internet-related crimes and described the characteristics of the offenders, the crimes they committed, and their victims. It was produced in cooperation with OJJDP and the University of New Hampshire's Crimes against Children Research Center. 60 pp.] |
| 6/24/05 | Working Against Local Taxpayers: The American Library Association | "The ALA is a
private organization of librarians, and the public should be aware of
the fact that it is NOT a government agency, nor does it have the legal
authority to dictate its policies to local elected or appointed Library
Boards. Taxpayer funded public libraries belong to the
local taxpayers and as such should reflect the community's needs and
values and not succumb to the radical dictates of a private organization promoting its own arbitrary social and political agendas.
In recent years the ALA has come under considerable controversy for its fierce promotion of its self-proclaimed 'Library Bill of Rights,' most notably Policy V: 'A person's right to use a library should not be denied or abridged because of origin, AGE, background, or views.' The ALA's idea that minors have the same rights as adults to read whatever they want to in a library [without parental consent], or to access any information they want to on taxpayer funded library computers [even legally challenging CIPA and COPA], has caused a firestorm of protest from concerned parents. Challenging the ALA policies are individuals and organizations such as Dr. Laura Schlessinger, Concerned Women for America, the Family Research Council, Focus on the Family, Citizens for Community Values and others. These organizations are interested in protecting the sensibilities and vulnerabilities of minor patrons under 18 years of age by promoting 'Family Friendly' libraries. Local citizens are pressing liberal, ALA-indoctrinated, library directors and staff to respect the 'community standards' and local, state and federal statutory laws on obscenity which are relevant to the selection, display and access policies concerning available materials in the public library system. Our challenge is to take back the ownership of our local, taxpayer-funded libraries from unfriendly private associations that have systematically forced their hostile policies upon the public. Parents and citizens need to participate with their local Library Boards in maintaining a 'family friendly' atmosphere that successfully serves the needs of the community without undermining the strength and values of the traditional family." |
| 6/24/05 | Iran Targets Dissent On the Net | "[T]he Iranian government is blocking pornographic sites, and other sites with sexual content." [P2S: What does this say about the ALA's efforts to block the blocking of porn in American libraries? SmartFilter] |
| 6/23/05 | Oak Lawn Library Vows to Keep Playboy On Shelf | "Resident Mark Decker asked the library to remove the adult magazine from its inventory because it could incite molesters into action, he said. Decker, a father of three young children, said that sexually excited men should not be allowed to view such material in a building that also has child visitors. 'I was ticked off that some guy might be looking at Playboy when my kids are there,' he said. But library officials disagreed. .... 'It's a public library,' said Judith Krug, director of the office for intellectual freedom for the ALA. 'If you don't like the book, magazine, CD-ROM or film, put it down and pick up something else.' .... 'I get very concerned when we start hearing people who want to convert this country into a safe place for children,' she said." [P2S: Well, at least Judith Krug of the ALA who made up and maintains for decades this whole push-porn-on-children, librarians-no-longer-protect-children-from-porn, let's-defy-the-US-Supreme-Court policy is consistent. In the past she said, "Blocking material leads to censorship. That goes for pornography and bestiality, too. If you don't like it, don't look at it ... Every time I hear someone say, I want to protect the children, I want to pull my hair out." Speaking of beasts!! Do you think this one should set policy in your local public library?] |
| 6/23/05 | Man Caught Downloading Porn at Library | "AN ONLINE watchdog has warned councils across Wales to be more vigilant after it emerged that pornography was available for download on public library computers. The Internet Watch Foundation said local authorities should be taking extra care and calling in expert advice to ensure that their online safeguards are as foolproof as possible. .... The person who found the obscene material ... said, 'I just could not believe my eyes that disgusting material like this was on public view. I thought libraries were meant to have systems in place to ensure this kind of thing is wiped out. What if it had been a child who discovered the images?' .... Executive board member for education Mary Thomas added that the council took the misdemeanour very seriously. 'We will not tolerate this sort of abuse of the library facilities. Our officers acted as soon as they were made aware of the problem. They have removed the images and traced the offender. He will not be allowed to use the facilities again. We take this sort of thing very seriously and have measures in place to prevent such incidents, which are few and far between.'" |
| 6/21/05 | Wireless 'Net Coming to Metro's Libraries | "Wireless Internet access will be available at Metro libraries, possibly as soon as late August, with branches throughout the system going wireless in phases. .... Like the current system, wireless access through libraries will employ filters, which essentially act as censors to block out pornographic sites, a library spokeswoman said. .... Within the library buildings, you will be able to surf the Internet [on personal PCs]. Library cards will not be needed for this service." [P2S: Wireless access CAN and SHOULD be filtered, although the ALA recommends unfiltered wireless access as another end run around the law. Fortunately for Tennessee, the people run the libraries, not the ALA.] |
| 6/16/05 | Sex Offender Found Viewing Porn At HCMC | "A level three sex offender was found viewing pornography at Hennepin County Medical Center earlier this week, HCMC said. .... 'It makes me uncomfortable that somebody can just walk in off the streets and access that kind of stuff,' said Rachel Smith, a dental hygienist who works at HCMC. HCMC patient Anissa Echols [said ']there's a lot of kids and stuff so that's really scary.']" |
| 6/7/05 | Man Charged With Downloading Child Porn | "An Iowa City man faces a felony charge for allegedly downloading child pornography in November on a computer at the University of Iowa's Hardin Library for Health Sciences. .... Two computer technicians looked at the recently visited Web sites and determined that Hodges was browsing pornography sites. Investigators confiscated the computer and verified the sites as containing child pornography. .... Online court records show [the man, age 31,] previously pleaded guilty to sexual exploitation of a minor and reckless use of fire in 2003." [P2S: The computer techs ought to be given awards for their actions to encourage others; we bet the ALA will find a way to condemn them somehow.] |
| 6/6/05 | Pornography OK to Watch in Library | "Instead of being used for research or homework, computers in the David Adamany Undergraduate Library are often used for another purpose: to watch pornography. Many students and staff walk by and regularly spot users watching pornographic material. 'Yeah, I witnessed a couple of white guys masturbating on the first floor, but I quickly turned my head,' said Antoine Stevens, a freshman. 'After that, I went to the third floor.' Library staffers are finding that the community access terminals, located on the first floor of the UGL, are where users are getting in heavy viewing time because it seems easy to log on and 'get off.' 'The community access terminals are frequently used by people who do not attend Wayne State,' said Andrea Williams, a senior who works at the information desk in the UGL. 'We get a lot of complaints about people viewing pornography and we have also had problems with people masturbating to porn.' Yet, it's OK for anyone to look at porn (as long as it's not child pornography) in the UGL because Wayne State University is a public institution. 'The library can not kick anyone out for viewing porn, but we can tell them that their behavior is not acceptable,' said Williams. 'It's a privacy act and this is a public institution. So, we can't say 'you can't watch porn.' 'We just have to make sure people don't get too physical.'" [P2S: Any questions on the need for Internet filters? Just don't get "too physical" and you can masturbate all you want in the Wayne State University public library. Hey, maybe the public library can host a masturbator's convention and the ALA can award them for innovative ways to attract people into the library!] |
| 6/3/05 | Peeping Tom Suspected At UW Law Library |  "University of Washington law students are asking for more security after a possible Peeping Tom was discovered in a women's restroom. .... The law library is open to the public and some students told KIRO 7 it's drawing in the wrong crowd. 'There
are a number of people who watch pornography in the library all day so
that kind of behavior might foster an incident like this,' said Tori Lallemont, UW student." [P2S: Why is it always the victims of criminal activity who understand the effects of unfiltered computers on criminals?] |
| 6/1/05 | Connaughton Pushing for 'Net Filters | "Putting filters on public-library computers to block patrons' access to hard-core pornography isn't a First Amendment issue. 'Libraries are not in the business of purchasing pornography for citizens to view. And they shouldn't be providing their patrons with the same or even more intense types of pornography over the Internet,' Republican Party lieutenant-governor nomination candidate Sean Connaughton said on Wednesday during a campaign stop at the Staunton Public Library. .... 'It's something that I think the state should be doing,' Connaughton said. '.... The state should go out and provide the funds to library systems to purchase and install these systems and then provide funds for them to maintain them. Connaughton said the state should also lead the way toward the establishment of standards for the filter systems." [P2S: BRAVO! This guy has guts!] |
| 6/1/05 | Library Pervert | "A PERVERT who used a school library computer to download more than 1000 images of child porn is facing jail, ..., 42, was only exposed when a pupil glanced over his shoulder and alerted staff. He admitted to police he got sexual pleasure looking at the images of 13 to 15-year-old girls, adding: 'I need some help with this.' Selkirk Sheriff Court heard that more than a year [he] visited the library at Earlston High School in the Borders to use the internet. The premises also combine as a public library." |
| 5/31/05 | When 'Shhhh' Just Won't Do It: Jackson County Library Officials Have Decided to Hire a Security Guard to Deal With Unusual Problems at the Medford Central Library |  "[P]roblems have prompted library officials to hire a security guard
for all hours of operation to deal with situations beyond the scope of
a librarian. 'This is really not what the library staff are
trained to deal with,' said Meghan O'Flaherty, Medford library
manager. .... The security guard,
for example, ... caught another man looking at pornography on the
Internet and told him to stop or leave the building.
.... O'Flaherty said that with fewer staff, it has become more
difficult for librarians to patrol every corner of a building that is
five times the size of the former Carnegie library. ....
'We don't have the supervision capability that we used to have,' she
said. .... Library patron Aaron McCord said he liked the
idea of a guard, particularly because the library is such a public
place. 'It doesn't seem like people are good at policing themselves,' said the Medford father of two. 'I think to have security and keep people safe is the most important thing.'" [P2S:
Here a father of two children states the obvious, "It doesn't seem like
people are good at policing themselves," but the ALA insists so-called
acceptable use policies are sufficient to protect patrons. The
security guard option is excellent, has been used elsewhere, but can
only happen where a community refuses to follow ALA drivel. This
community, however, is torn between two lovers, the ALA and the
citizens, so they filter only one computer.
Why not follow the law, filters all computers, and protect the children
from men viewing pornography in the first place?] |
| 5/28/05 | Police: Suspect Viewed Child Porn at Library | "A 57-year-old township resident has been charged with downloading child pornography onto a computer at the public library. .... [He] allegedly walked into the main branch of the Wayne Public Library on Thursday afternoon and logged onto one of the computers that provides free Internet access. Library patrons need only show their driver's license or other form of identification to the librarian in order to obtain an access card with a PIN number they then plug into the computers. Police say that [he] accessed several Web sites, some of which contained nude pictures of children, and downloaded them. A patron using another computer near [him] became concerned about the content and then notified a librarian, who phoned police. .... The Wayne Public Library has software blocks on its computers that prevent children from accessing pornographic material. The access cards issued to children are different than those given to adults." [P2S: Another case where blocking porn on child computers does not stop the criminals on the adult computers. Another library defying US v. ALA, the result being as reported. At least the librarian called the police, something the ALA discourages.] |
| 5/26/05 | Bill Would Require Filter on Library Computer | "Public libraries in Massachusetts would be required to equip at least one Internet-wired computer with technology that blocks material that is 'harmful to minors' under legislation proposed by a state lawmaker. State Rep. Charles A. Murphy, D-Burlington, said his bill would ensure that parents who bring their children to the library can be assured their child won't have access to pornography if they use a computer with a content filter. 'The focus is more on the parents. It's giving the parents a choice to put their kids on that particular computer,' Murphy said. 'I understand it's not a perfect solution.' .... Librarians in Massachusetts and across the U.S. have been adamantly opposed to any attempt to mandate content-blocking technology on public access computers, saying those decisions should be left to the boards of trustees which run the libraries. .... Pat McLeod, director of the Milne Public Library in Williamstown, said her library trustees voted not to install the filters, and forego some $80,000 in federal funding. 'I don't have the money to buy the filtering software. If my community came to me and said, 'Listen, we've got a severe problem, we want you to get the filter,' I think we'd give it a hard look,' McLeod said. 'But no one has ever said, 'Why don't we filter the machines.'' McLeod said the library has had problems with library users logging onto pornography sites, but those are dealt with on an individual basis." [P2S: More evidence of ALA control over public libraries and public libraries refusing federal funding at a time when they complain about a lack of funding. See how the librarians use community inaction as an excuse to follow ALA doctrine. State Rep. Charles A. Murphy, read US v. ALA. Read also Bill Seeks to Filter Content for Kids, 5/29/2005.] |
| 5/26/05 | Library Board Restores "Bill of Rights" to Policy Appendix | "A standing-room-only crowd of supporters for the American Library Association's Bill of Rights filled the Central Resource Library Meeting Room last week when the Library Board voted 5-1 to restore the bill to the Collection Development Policy Appendix. The board in April voted 4-3 to remove the bill from the appendix to the Library Collection Policy and related references within the policy. .... Fred Logan, the library's legal counsel, spoke for rescinding the April vote. 'The three documents do have some legal dimension and a substantial history. They have been part of the collection policy since 1956. I suggest it makes sense to keep those documents intact,' Logan said." [P2S: Apparently, US v. ALA is completely ignored by this town as is the ALA's purposeful defiance of the law. Sickeningly, even the library's lawyer ignored the law. We wonder if this "standing-room-only" response was caused by the ALA seeing the removal of the law-defying language as a threat to their efforts to defy the law before other libraries similarly reject language in defiance of the law. When a child is raped or molested here, and it's just a matter of time, the victim's family will have more than an adequate basis to bring punitive damage claims against all involved, including the ALA.] |
| 5/?/05 | Maintaining Intellectual Freedom in a Filtered World | "As a proponent of intellectual freedom, I advocated and received administrative support for unfiltered Internet access in the Mankato Area (Minnesota) Public Schools from 1994 through 2001. But because of [CIPA], our district installed an Internet filter. I was expecting a raft of problems. .... I was certain I was violating my long-held personal beliefs that every individual, regardless of age, has the right to access and read a multiplicity of ideas and viewpoints, free of censorship in any form. .... Happily, the sky has not fallen since we installed our filter. The complaints about overblocking and underblocking from teachers and students have numbered less than a dozen since 2001. .... [I]t is the responsibility of the teaching staff to see that students do not access inappropriate materials.... .... [O]ur district seems to have been able to both meet the requirements of CIPA and give staff and students access to the greatest possible range of online resources." [P2S: For Fair Use reasons, we provide page 2 only, but the entire article is worth reading. The author criticizes the Electronic Freedom Foundation's report "Internet Blocking in Public Schools" as needlessly overblown and just plain wrong. This proud defender of intellectual freedom takes a position in direct opposition of the ALA: filters work well and teachers are responsible for what children see -- the ALA says filters do not work and only parents are responsible for what children see. If this authors' attitude takes hold in public schools, the ALA's days of defiance of the law based on overblown and just plain wrong information are nearing an end. WebBlocker] |
| 5/20/05 | [Criminal] Remains Free on Probation | "[A criminal] wasn't really doing anything he wasn't supposed to do when he used a library computer for job reasons, though that was a 'technical' violation of his probation sentence. That's what Circuit Judge Gary Jacobs concluded Friday when he decided to not revoke the probation sentence the former Mattoon High School assistant principal received for a child pornography conviction. A term of [the criminal]'s probation is that he not use the Internet unsupervised.... .... [T]he judge said ... a library could be considered a supervised setting. [The criminal] admitted that he had pornography on his school computer where students could see it. He also pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges of public indecency, alleging he fondled himself through his clothing in front of students, but ... Jacobs acquitted him of a charge of criminal sexual assault that accused him of performing oral sex on a male student at the school, and that offense would have required a prison sentence. .... Jacobs ... agreed with defense attorney Ron Tulin, who noted that [the criminal] had to sign in with a librarian to use the computer." [P2S: LOOK! PUBLIC LIBRARIES ARE CONSIDERED SUPERVISED WHEN CRIMINAL CHILD SEX OFFENDERS ARE IN THEM BUT NOT WHEN CHILDREN ARE IN THEM!! "Q.) Is any attempt made to supervise children's use of computers in the Library? If not, what would this entail in terms of time and personnel? A.) No. It would be incredibly staff intensive and guidelines would be difficult to formulate. Some parents are more permissive than others. How would the library staff determine what is acceptable?"] |
| 5/20/05 | Lieutenant Governor Candidate in Virginia Calls for State-Funded Library Filters | "Sean Connaughton, a candidate in the June 14 primary election for the Republican nomination for Lieutenant Government in Virginia, says he will push for 'for legislation to provide the funds necessary to install and maintain pornographic filters on public computers.' .... 'The costs involved in this effort are relatively minor given the harm that may be prevented,' he said. " [P2S: POLITICAL CANDIDATES TAKE NOTE: Sean Connaughton, the Republican candidate for Lt. Gov. in Virginia, has been distributing flyers taking credit for getting porn filters installed on county computers and on public library computers in Prince William County, VA. His flyers (#1 thing he will do) say as Lt. Gov. he will "Lead the effort to install pornography filters on computers at libraries so our families will be protected." His web site is at www.connaughton4ltgov.com. One whole side of his flyer has a girl at a computer with in big letters the question: WHO'S PROTECTING OUR CHILDREN FROM INTERNET PORNOGRAPHY? See his TV commercial.] |
| 5/20/05 | Naperville to Launch Fingerprint ID System for Internet Access | "The Naperville (Ill.) Public Library board approved a $40,646 contract May 18 with a local technology firm to install fingerprint scanners on its public internet computers. .... [C]ardholders will only be asked for a fingerprint scan if they intend to use the internet workstations, and patrons who object to that can request a staff member to log them in. In 2004, Naperville police subpoenaed the login records of a man who had been viewing pornography at the Nichols branch. In the process of investigating the incident, NLP officials discovered that many patrons logged in using the library cards and PIN numbers of friends or relatives. West told AL that the library has implemented a policy allowing parents to request software filters on their children's internet use. 'We discovered that kids frequently borrowed each other's library cards to log on,' he said, 'but the new system will prevent that.' The only other library using similar biometric technology, West said, was the Buffalo and Erie County (N.Y.) Public Library...." [P2S: Wow! And notice the law-defying use of library cards and parental permission to bypass Internet filters were failures because people just switched cards or PINs. "Kids frequently borrowed each other's library cards to log on." If your library is thinking of using these systems proven to be illegal and ineffective, consider thinking again -- let's see how the fingerprint scanners do over time. See Library Card? Check. Fingerprint? Really?, 5/20/05; IL Library to ID Patrons Via Fingerprints; State Confidentiality Law Stands, 5/24/05; Big Brother On the Net, 6/7/2005.] |
| 5/18/05 | Librarian's Brush with FBI Shapes Her View of the USA Patriot Act | "It was a moment that librarians had been dreading. On June 8, 2004, an FBI agent stopped at the Deming branch of the Whatcom County Library System in northwest Washington and requested a list of the people who had borrowed a biography of Osama bin Laden. We said no. .... [O]ne of our patrons had sent the FBI the book after discovering these words written in the margin: 'If the things I'm doing is considered a crime, then let history be a witness that I am a criminal. Hostility toward America is a religious duty and we hope to be rewarded by God.' Undeterred, the FBI served a subpoena on the library a week later demanding a list of everyone who had borrowed the book since November 2001. .... [O]ur trustees ... were resolute and voted unanimously to go to court to quash the FBI subpoena. Fifteen days later, the FBI withdrew its request." [P2S: Another article, like below, not about filters, but nevertheless about how librarians will defend criminals against law-abiding citizens. THE LIBRARY REFUSED TO TURN OVER RECORDS OF A POSSIBLE TERRORIST TO THE FBI, EVEN AFTER A SUBPOENA!!! THE FBI NEVER GOT THE INFORMATION!!!!] |
| 5/17/05 | Investigation Into Library Pornography | "Gainesville police detectives are looking into how a children's videotape, checked out from the library, wound up full of pornography. A local mother made the discovery almost a month ago but very little has happened with the investigation. .... It wasn't until Tuesday that a judge ordered the library district to hand over their records. A couple weeks ago the State Attorney's Office issued a subpoena for the records, but the library director says that wasn't enough and requested a hearing to throw out the subpoena. .... A spokesperson for the State Attorney's Office says it takes several days to get on a judge's calendar. He adds it wasn't a 'great delay' to get the judicial order but feels the subpoena should have been enough to get the records. .... Alachua County Attorney Bill Harlan, representing the library, told Judge Toby Monaco they had no interest in obstructing the investigation and pointed out they asked for the judicial order to be issued to hand over the records." [P2S: Normally we write about filtering issues. In this case, however, the common theme is the library's actions to help police identify possible child sex criminals. THE LIBRARY REFUSED TO TURN OVER RECORDS OF A POSSIBLE CHILD SEX CRIMINAL AFTER THE STATE ATTORNEY GENERAL ISSUED A SUBPOENA!!! A law that protects criminals from children allowed the library to insist on obtaining a judicial order before releasing the records that might have quickly stopped similar crimes against children in the future! The library is so defensive about this that they have to argue "they had no interest in obstructing the investigation." That's another example of why we call them lie-brarians. Recall that "when a public librarian in Delray Beach, Fla., recognized some of the suspected hijackers in the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon as men who had used the computers in her small library, she immediately called the police. That broke a Florida law that guarantees confidentiality to library patrons. It also violated a cardinal principle of librarians never to tell the police, in absence of a court order, about who uses their rooms and what books they check out. But almost no one thinks Ms. Hensman did the wrong thing." Except, of course, the ALA. "Judith Krug, director of the American Library Association's Office of Intellectual Freedom, said, 'I would have felt better if she had followed the Florida law.'" The way we read this is that the ALA would have preferred the 911 terrorists library records were not made available to law enforcement until a law that should not apply to non-citizens trying to kill thousands of Americans was followed anyway. Whose side are they on? And Krug's the one who created or perpetrated the "age" discrimination excuse to push porn on children, now exposed as illegal in US v. ALA. Floridians ought to reconsider that law in light of the illegal activities and shocking anti-American statements of those favoring it and in light of the US Patriot Act.] |
| 5/17/05 | Library Discusses Internet Filters | "The Solano County Board of Supervisors will decide later this year whether to add filters at libraries in Fairfield, Vacaville, Vallejo and Suisun City. .... Concerned parents recently challenged the county's policy, adopted in 1996, which allows unfettered Internet access. They argue that children can pull up Internet porn or watch others who do." [P2S: This is an excellent example of an article written by someone totally biased in favor of the ALA, someone appropriately named "Bunk," as in ideas that are absurd and contrary to good sense.] |
| 5/14/05 | Sex Offender Nabbed at ASU | "A convicted sex offender eight days into his parole was caught recently looking at child pornography on an Arizona State University library computer, according to police. .... He is not affiliated with the school." [P2S: IT'S HAPPENED AGAIN! They did not want to filter then. Will they now? Doubt it, with the ALA breathing down their necks. From two months ago, March 8, 2005, see ASU Porn Computing Policies Unlikely to Change; Recent Incidents Not Enough to Alter Rules at University.] |
| 5/13/05 | Information Alert: Internet Filters Become Campaign Issue | "Internet filters became a campaign issue when Sean Connaughton, candidate for Lt. Governor [of Virginia] in the Republican primary, proposed that the General Assembly pay for the installation of filters on public library computers. His opponent, Senator Bill Bolling (R-4, Mechanicsville), voted in favor of a bill supported by The Family Foundation [of Virginia] that requires libraries to install the filters if they receive taxpayer money. On the Democrat side, Viola Baskerville (D-71, Richmond) voted against the bill this year, while Chap Petersen (D-37, Fairfax) voted in favor. .... Everywhere The Family Foundation staff goes in Virginia, citizens see this proposal as a common sense idea that has broad support, particularly among families. .... It seems the only opposition to this bill comes from either left-wing "free expression" groups that don't seem to care much if our children are exposed to hardcore pornography, or some in the library community who claim the filtering technology is unaffordable. Neither has a strong case, as the Supreme Court has already upheld the Constitutionality of a similar federal law, and the cost of Internet filtering technology can be as little as $10-$15 per computer." [P2S: Another approach people should consider using to nullify the ALA's defiance of the law.] |
| 5/13/05 | Oklahoma Library to Allow E-Mail, Gaming After All | "'This library has sided with the molesters against the children,' reacted an anonymous reader of the online Enid News. The posted comment concluded with a link to Plan2Succeed.org, an antipornography website whose unidentified developer describes its mission as 'stopping the American Library Association from endangering children.'" [P2S: The reporter below got it half wrong. We are not "an antipornography website" but we are trying to stop the ALA from endangering children. When the ALA defies CIPA and US v. ALA, we think that defiance endangers children, the very people sought to be protected by the law the ALA chooses to defy. Notice the article talks about "inadvertently causing information to be censored." If CIPA-compliant filters are used, and if the libraries relatively quickly temporarily disable the filters upon request by people of a certain age group, then there is no censorship according to the law. Yet the ALA and this ALA publication keep pushing the Big Lie, that filters are censorship so they should not be used. It truly is surprising how the very people involved in US v. ALA continue to act like its holdings do not exist, or worse, that they do, yet people should intentionally do the opposite. Instead of P2S being attacked for bringing the truth to light, the ALA should be made to comply with the law, and citizens should know the ALA and ALA-controlled librarians are intentionally defying the law and misleading the public. In Enid's case, the library has chosen to side with the ALA against the citizens and the law (CIPA and US Patriot Act). By the way, that "anonymous reader" the ALA article's author wrote about is actually clearly described as P2S Citizen's Group and we believe that the library's intentional defiance of CIPA, US v. ALA, and/or the US Patriot Act, likely at the behest of the ALA, necessarily means the library has sided with the criminals against the children. Remember, this is a public library, and the public are the people of Enid, not the people of a huge law-defying union of librarians from out of state.] |
| 5/11/05 | Filters Sought for Library Computers | "Accessing Internet pornography on public library computers will become difficult if lawmakers approve proposed legislation to require filters. .... 'I do support having filters,' said state Sen. Robert Creedon, D-Brockton. 'There are some people who view it as censorship and others say we should have filters. I believe computers that receive state aid should have filters.' .... Controversy over viewing Internet porn surfaced at the John Curtis Free Library last year when a 12-year-old girl noticed a young boy viewing sexually explicit images on a computer in the adult section. .... 'That is why I brought this issue to light,' said [Hanover resident Rosemary ] Baker. 'I want other parents to know the library is not always the safe place it's thought to be.' .... The American Library Association opposes having Internet filters on its computers. ALA officials say computer filters will be a form of censorship and prevent patrons from reaching Web sites that have information about various diseases such as breast cancer. Baker said protecting children from online porn should be a priority for libraries." [P2S: Curtis librarian Lorraine Welsh then goes on to give the usual litany of ALA disinformation designed to defy the law and convince people to do the same. This article also recognizes that the ALA ignores US v. ALA by claiming filters are censorship when they are not.] |
| 5/10/05 | Library Access to Internet Will Continue | "Library patrons will continue to have access to the Internet and e-mail under new guidelines approved Monday. Once new software is installed - which may not happen until July - computer users at the Public Library of Enid and Garfield County will be required to have a library card before they can log on, the library board decided. .... Enid law enforcement officers had asked the library board to consider some restrictions on computers because of evidence the computers have been used by sexual predators to contact children. .... Computer users must comply with an on-screen agreement. .... Library officials will maintain the privacy of their computer users. .... Enid police could obtain the information with a warrant. .... Police Chief Rick West also spoke, saying the police department is not concerned with censorship but is concerned about protecting Enid youths." [P2S: This library is protecting the rights of molesters to molest children without being molested by the police. This library has sided with the molesters against the children. Mr. Molester, please agree to "comply with an on-screen agreement" before molesting any of our children, your pick, of course. And if you get caught, we'll give you a few hours or days lead to get away from us while we force the police to obtain a warrant to determine your identity. It is truly shocking how libraries continue to defy US v. ALA and decry censorship, even in the face of police requests based on illegal activity, and the sheeple just go along with it. Disgusting.] |
| 5/10/05 | New Scrutiny For County Volunteers | "Nominees who volunteer to serve on Johnson County boards can expect closer scrutiny from county commissioners after a controversial vote last month by the Johnson County Library Board. .... The move came a week after the Johnson County Library Board voted 4-3 to remove guidelines of intellectual freedom by the American Library Association from its collections-development policy. Some supporters said the vote signaled the need for local control of the library collection to protect minors from objectionable material. Critics called it censorship." [P2S: The critics are wrong -- it's not censorship -- see US v. ALA, unless the critics know better. It is not "intellectual freedom" to allow children to access hardcore graphic pornography, neither is it "age" discrimination to keep them from seeing it, as the ALA maintains.] |
| 5/10/05 | Money for Library Internet Filters Urged | "Sean Connaughton, who's seeking the Republican nomination for lieutenant governor, yesterday called for legislation to provide money to install and maintain filters to block pornography on computers at public libraries. Connaughton, chairman of the Prince William County Board of Supervisors, said the broad language of state statutes about limiting the exposure of library patrons to pornography have made its application uneven ... with libraries across the commonwealth using different schemes to meet the laws' requirements.'" [P2S: We would vote for him on this alone, but we bet the other candidate may take a similar position as well since it's the law and it protects children from predators and the ALA.] |
| 5/9/05 | Consumer Reports Finds Filtering Softwares Improve Blocks on Pornography Improved But Restrict Acceptable Web Sites | "Consumer Reports' (CR) latest tests of filtering software show that while Internet blockers have gotten better at blocking pornography, the best also tend to block many sites they shouldn't. In addition, Consumer Reports found the software to be less effective at blocking sites promoting hatred, illegal drugs or violence. The June issue includes ratings of 11 popular filtering software products and advice for concerned parents who are trying to better protect their children online. .... The full report on filtering software is available for free on http://www.ConsumerReports.org." [P2S: Consumer Reports, an independent source, says filters are better at filtering porn, but not other categories. For CIPA, the main concern is porn so this is acceptable. Overblocking is also reported but US v. ALA addresses that issue already. CR even recommends the ALA for information on filters! When will ALA lie-brarians stop saying filters don't work? See also Study Rates Porn Blockers, 5/28/2005. Safe Eyes, Parental Controls (9.1) from Microsoft, AOL Parental Controls (9.0)] |
| 5/8/05 | Libraries' Web Policy Scrutinized | "Responding to public criticism of their open-access Internet policies, Solano County library officials will report to the Board of Supervisors Tuesday on methods that could lead to more restrictive access to computers at local libraries. The report, penned by library Director Ann Cousineau, also, however, makes a strong case for leaving the library's current access policy exactly as it is. .... Toni Horn, a Vacaville parent of two daughters, ages 6 and 9, said her children were shocked by pornographic images at a local library when they stumbled upon a teenager using the library's computers inappropriately." [P2S: The report by the library director is filled with ALA propaganda, so we wrote to the town to advise them of the specifics.] |
| 5/7/05 | Library Issue Could Be Revisited | "County commissioners filled one of two open seats on the Johnson County Library Board this week, a move that could lead to reconsideration of a disputed vote last month. .... Last month the library board voted 4-3 to remove the American Library Association's 'bill of rights' and other guiding principles of intellectual freedom from the board's collections development policy [to give] the board authority to shield children from inappropriate material such as pornography that the library association's guidelines did not. But a vocal minority on the board said the vote was tantamount to an attack on the First Amendment - a 'smokescreen' to hide a conservative agenda to censor library materials opposed by the far right." [P2S: They never get sick of the misinformation campaign to ignore/discredit US v. ALA and to continue sexualizing children.] |
| 5/6/05 | Mother's Call Gets Son in Hot Water | "Kevin Francois gave up his lunch break to talk to his mother, but it ended up costing him the rest of the school year. Francois, a junior at Spencer High School in Columbus, was suspended for disorderly conduct Wednesday after he was told to give up his cell phone at lunch while talking to his mother who is deployed in Iraq, he said. .... A teacher who saw Francois on his phone told him to get off the phone. But he didn't. .... Francois said he told the teacher, 'This is my mom in Iraq. I'm not about to hang up on my mom.' Francois said the teacher tried to take the phone, causing it to hang up." [P2S: Censoring porn is supposedly bad for a child's education development but censoring a boy's soldier Mom in Iraq from talking to her son is what this teacher apparently did with zest. Is this crazy or what? We guarantee if that boy was using his phone to view porn, the teacher would not have dared take the phone away from him.] |
| 5/4/05 | Woodlawn Library Going Wireless for Internet | "The Woodlawn Library will be the first county library branch to get wireless Internet access when an addition is completed in August. 'If someone has a wireless device such as laptop, a cell phone or PDA, they will be able to access the Internet,' said Shelly Shires, the technology support coordinator for the Baltimore County Public Library. .... Shires said that wireless access is quickly becoming the standard in public libraries. Wireless Internet access - sometimes called wi-fi for 'wireless fidelity' - allows patrons in the library to access the Internet without plugging their laptops or PDAs into a modem or other device. Internet access is provided on a radio signal. .... While some institutions offering wireless access require people to have a user name and password, Baltimore County will not require any pass codes. 'When someone walks into the library they will have to have no staff interaction and still be able to completely access the system,' Shires said. Like other computer users, wireless users will be expected to adhere to Baltimore County Public Library's acceptable use policy, which warns users not to view material from pornographic Web sites...." [P2S: The so-called "acceptable use policy" should be called the "unacceptably useless policy." NOTICE TO PEDOPHILES, RAPISTS, AND MOLESTORS: BALTIMORE COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY WELCOMES YOU TO VIEW AND DOWNLOAD PORNOGRAPHY WITH "NO STAFF INTERACTION." PLEASE FEEL FREE TO ENJOY THE LITTLE CHILDREN WHILE USING THE TAXPAYER-SUPPORTED PORNOGRAPHY MAINLINE, SINCE THE ACCEPTABLE USE POLICY NEVER STOPS OTHER CRIMINALS FROM SEXUALIZING OTHER CHILDREN. HERE'S ANOTHER REASON WHY WE'RE CALLED "THE GREATEST CITY IN AMERICA." COME ON DOWN, YA' HEAR?] |
| 5/4/05 | Candidates Favor Unfiltered Access | "John Curtis Free Library Trustee Patricia Pervane and challenger John O'Leary oppose having Internet filters on the library's computers to prevent patrons from viewing pornography. Both candidates said the devices raises censorship questions and possible legal issues.... 'They also took a poll that indicated 10 parents wanted filters and 98 do not want the filters. The parents need to take responsibility for their children's behavior.' She said the use of Internet monitors could raise legal questions about censorship by civil liberties groups. Controversy over accessing online porn surfaced at Curtis last year when a 10-year-old boy was observed viewing sexually explicit pictures on a computer by a young girl. .... She also said library patrons of all ages are required to sign a release form to use a computer. .... She also said Internet filters don't always prevent savvy computer users from viewing sexually explicit images. 'There is no perfect filter,' said Welsh. 'There are people who can get around them.'" [P2S: If they are opposed to filtering pornography, that means they allow the porn into the public library. Sick, isn't it? See the cavalcade of ALA excuses: 1) there are censorship issues (and the lie-brarians know better than the US Supreme Court in US v. ALA, right?), 2) the people are against it (naturally, if you mislead them about the law), 3) parent's have to watch their own kids (great, but that did not stop the Philly library rape and other crimes, and librarians who defy the law cannot use this as an excuse), 4) savvy people can bypass filters so they are essentially useless (so US v. ALA was a waste of time, right?), 5) everyone agrees to abide by the rules of something like an Acceptable Use Policy (as if criminals care -- just see all the molestations that happened in libraries that rely on such ALA-engendered policies), and 6) there is no perfect filter (so US v. ALA doesn't take effect until filters are perfect, right, and the provision allowing the disabling of filters is out of sight, out of mind, right?). On the "Children's Page" the three "Recommended Reading" sites are all ALA sites, and on the "Teen's Page" the top three recommended sites are again ALA sites. With all the web sites available, is their any doubt who runs this library -- definitely NOT the citizens. Does anyone think with the anything-goes policy of this library that namesake Mr. John Curtis of Boston from 1887 would be proud of the library's administration and staff? When the first rape or molestation occurs in your library, someone contact us and we will help you win punitive damages against the lie-brary, the town, and the ALA that defies US v. ALA.] |
| 5/4/05 | Board in Johnson County, KS, Board Excises ALA Bill of Rights Language | "Does the American Library Association's (ALA) Bill of Rights stop a library from protecting children from pornography? Worried about that possibility, the board of the Johnson County Library (JCL), Overland Park, KS, recently voted 4-3 to strip the language from the library's collection development guidelines. The action may turn out to be symbolic, as two of the board members who voted to delete the language are at the end of their term. Plus, patrons have made their displeasure over the action known to JCL staff. 'Because of patron response to the action, the staff will request that the action be reconsidered,' County Librarian Mona Carmack said." [P2S: Wow! The ALA almost seems to get it! But then they say it's only symbolic and patrons, likely misinformed by the ALA lie-brarians, are supposedly against the recent changes. Right - so why is the lie-brary staff asking for the change and not the public? When the first rape or molestation occurs in your library, someone contact us and we will help you win punitive damages against the lie-brary, the town, and the ALA that defies US v. ALA. Sadly, see A Step Back for Library, 4/30/05.] |
| 5/3/05 | Guard Turns in Man | "A 25-year-old Sarasota man was arrested Monday and charged with seven counts of downloading child pornography at the Selby Library in downtown Sarasota, according to a press release from the Sarasota Police Department ... after a security guard took [him] into custody. The security guard said [the man] was using a computer at the library to download and print to a public printer 'naked, sexually indecent pictures of children,' according to the release." [P2S: See also Man Arrested For Downloading Child Porn At Library, 5/2/05, and Man Charged for Accessing Porn at Library, 5/3/05] |
| 5/2/05 | Libraries Vs. Pornography |  "Chris
Stockman the college student doesn't like the idea of filtering
Internet stations at public libraries. Without full access to
research such things as the human anatomy, library computer stations
are useless to the 40-something nursing student. As
a mother, however, Stockman doesn't like the idea of her young child
seeing pornographic images on computer screens at the library. Because it's nearly impossible to separate educational material from the lewd content permeating the Internet,
officials in charge of public libraries have to choose between the free
flow of information and locking out sites that may contain offensive
pictures or text. .... According to Solano County policy, library
staff can revoke a visitor's computer privileges if they use the
Internet to view 'extremes of sex or violence,' but there is no
automated filter to keep people from seedy sites. But that might
change. The issue of whether to filter library online
content has come once again to the attention of Solano County policy
makers, who this month will consider requests
from concerned parents to put limits on Internet access at the seven
libraries in their jurisdiction. Several people spoke up at
recent meetings of the county Board of Supervisors about the need for
online filters. It appears they've gotten through. A
majority of supervisors say something needs to be done to keep children
and adults from using government property to look at porn.
.... Library administrators hesitated to say whether they would
favor a change. Only a small percentage of the Internet users
breach the gap between appropriate and inappropriate Web sites, Library
Director Ann Cousineau said. 'But it does happen,' she
said. Even with staff members roaming the library, it isn't
always easy to control what people are looking at, Cousineau
said. .... Some California counties chose to filter
Internet access, and others rely on policies similar to the one that
governs Napa and Solano. It's ultimately up to the county's
governing body to choose for themselves. For instance, Alameda
and Contra Costa counties have restrictions, Yolo County has none, and
Sacramento filters children's Internet stations but not those for
adults. .... As for Chris Stockman, she's more mother than
student. 'If I had to choose, I'd say
filter it,' she said. 'It would be inconvenient for the work I'm
doing, but the way it is with children in there it's like putting
Hustler magazine on an eye-level shelf.'" [P2S: See how the librarians toe the ALA line. CITIZENS: Read US v. ALA to see how and why the librarians are wrong. Also, filters, when properly configured, work just fine without blocking breast cancer sites.
The articles below show libraries that filter only the children's
computers still suffer from child molestations and other crimes -- one
library even regretted trying that method in the first place. SEE
HOW CITIZENS SPEAKING UP CAN HAVE AN EFFECT!] |
| 5/1/05 | Loving Our Library and its Flaws | "Like a love affair that has lasted for almost a year, we are starting to see a few flaws. It smells sometimes. It makes you wait. And, more than once while visiting the Seattle Central Library, we've spotted pornography on the computer screen. 'I love that there are public places and where people can borrow books and use a computer,' said patron Sheila Magnano. 'But to me, pornography is the bottom.' .... And for all the library's newness, and the international awe, it turns out libraries face the same issues everywhere, from Denmark to Des Moines. [N]ot everyone thinks porn belongs on the same computers that students use. .... And, in response to concerns about patrons viewing pornography, Harris said, the library has implemented closer staff supervision and installed devices that block neighboring patrons from seeing other screens. 'There is a principle where if you want access to the information,' Harris said, 'you should be able to get it.' If we are a city committed to our Central Library, we need to remember that 'public' is the system's middle name. Smell, porn and all." [P2S: This article states porn is perfectly acceptable in a public library and should be an example for the world! Do Seattle citizens think this or is this another instance of an ALA takeover with media approval?] |
| 4/29/05 | Jacquielynn Floyd: Porn Fear Frazzles Library | "You know, I always thought it might be pleasant to be a librarian, to spend all day in a peaceful place surrounded by books, to light a little lamp of knowledge against the void of ignorance. On second thought, though, the job might make me run screaming and flailing into the street. Other people's lofty ideals and smug political grandstanding seem to be making the librarian life awfully difficult these days. .... Easy, for instance, to nod in earnest agreement when Ms. Horn flatly said: 'I don't want taxpayer-provided porn.' .... The reality isn't so simple. The filters create more problems then they solve, said Pilot Point library director Phyllis Tillery. 'They're expensive, and they don't work,' Ms. Tillery said. .... It's easy to have an opinion in this debate. It's a lot harder to cope with the reality." [P2S: Another pro-ALA journalist promoting another pro-ALA library director as gospel, completely ignoring how they are both totally wrong. Actually, 100% wrong. P2S has published a response entitled, ALA Policies Make a Librarian's Life Difficult, 5/1/2005, containing a dozen links to source material to prove how wrong these people are and how they defy the law of the land.] |
| 4/28/05 | Police Say Man Viewed Child Porn in Library | "A Bridgeville man is accused of viewing child pornography while on a computer at the Community College of Beaver County library on two occasions in February. .... A CCBC librarian observed Drobiezewski viewing pornographic material on a computer at the library on Feb. 15 and contacted campus security, according to a police report. .... Reading from the system's Internet usage policy, [Diane] Ambrose[, director of the Beaver County Library System] said, 'These computers are to be used for educational, informational and recreational purposes.' 'They may not be used for unauthorized or illegal purposes. Viewing "obscene and other sexual materials and performances" ... is not allowed.'" [P2S: This library director correctly defies the ALA and calls the police for help. Further, the library defied the ALA's defiance of the US Patriot Act by turning over computer usage records to the police.] |
| 4/28/05 | Local Students Say It's Easy to Access Porn at School |  "Clear
Lake ISD will be taking a closer look at its computers to after some
students claimed they're looking up more than just research.
Technicians will check the histories of every computer at Clear Lake
Intermediate. Some students claimed to
have bypassed network Internet filters in the computer lab and
downloaded inappropriate material like pornography. Students say
it happens often. 'Kids go to inappropriate sites and look at
pictures of nude women while they're supposed to be doing class
work....'" |
| 4/28/05 | Librarian Has More to Say Than Just 'Shhhh!' | "Dear Abby:
I have been thinking about writing this letter for a long time.
I'm the director of a small public library. I love my job and
serving our patrons, but you would not believe some of the outrageous
behavior that occurs in libraries - so I have written:
A Librarian's Plea for Library Etiquette .... If you want to view pornography, buy a home computer. While we support free speech, our facility needs to be child-friendly. No one - not children, other patrons or staff - wants to see your 'private life.' .... I know this letter is too long to print, Abby, but thank you for letting me get this off my chest. I feel better. - Marian the Librarian in Kansas Dear Marian: You're welcome. I'm printing your letter in full because it has merit, and also because I suspect most of the offenders do not know any better." [P2S: Another librarian defying the ALA, only on a national stage. Thank you, Dear Abby, and thank you, Marian the Librarian.] |
| 4/26/05 | Stranger Danger Lurks Online | "Jan Lorch, violence prevention coordinator at Memorial High School, helped plan the forum after organizing a presentation by Nooyen for district staff, who watched her go online posing as a 13-year-old girl. 'Within a matter of minutes, she started getting hit on by old men,' said Lorch, who, as a school social worker, thought she had 'heard it all.' 'I was shocked and concerned,' said Lorch. 'Even the computer teachers and the library people were surprised by what they saw and what they heard. We all felt that this was something parents needed to see.'" [P2S: Librarians in this story are unaware of the dangers to children of the Internet. Therefore, how can they be trusted to protect children?] |
| 4/24/05 | Librarian Charged in Teen Porn Pal Case | "The longtime director of Beverly's public library has been placed on paid administrative leave while he battles charges he used gay porn to foster a furtive friendship with a teenage boy. .... No stranger to controversy, [the library director] was forced out of his job as director of the Peabody Institute Library in 1986 after allegedly encouraging two boys to masturbate. Prosecutors allege that after [the library director] caught a 15-year-old foster-care boy surfing a sex Web site on a library computer in 2003, he brought him to his house for a private viewing. Prosecutors said the teen visited Scully at home 'hundreds of times' to watch gay skin flicks. Beverly Mayor William Scanlon said yesterday he was 'terribly shocked and saddened' by the accusations against [the library director], who is also a corporate officer of ... the North of Boston Library Exchange, according to public records." [P2S: A LIBRARY DIRECTOR AND BOSTON LIBRARY EXCHANGE OFFICER! KICKED OUT OF ANOTHER LIBRARY FOR GETTING TWO BOYS TO MASTURBATE! GETS HIRED AGAIN ANYWAY! CATCHES A KID ON ONE OF HIS PUBLIC LIBRARY'S COMPUTERS VIEWING GAY PORN! THEREAFTER HAS A TWO-YEAR RELATIONSHIP WITH THE KID! A STATUTORY RAPIST? NO WONDER THE ALA IS AGAINST FILTERS!!! See also, Library Leader Accused of Giving Porn to Minor, 4/28/2005. Happily, see Librarian Retires Amid Sex Assault, Porn Charges, 5/19/2005. Unhappily, see Taxpayers On the Hook for Scully Payoff, 5/27/2005.] |
| 4/23/05 | County Library Vote Spurs 'Rights' Debate | "The chief proponent of a Johnson County Library Board action earlier this week contends it was simply a housekeeping matter. But others see it as a threat to intellectual freedom. Spawning this nascent debate was a library board decision Wednesday to remove from its collections policy adherence to the American Library Association's 'bill of rights.' .... At a rancorous meeting Wednesday, the board voted 4-3 to strip the bill-of-rights language [about age discrimination] from the library's guidelines regarding acquisition of books and other materials. .... The opponents ... said the deletion was tantamount to an attack on the First Amendment. .... James Berger, another board member who voted for the change, said library policies should reflect the direction of the board, not the national library association. 'Parents see libraries as a safe haven where their children can go and have a good experience,' said Berger.... He said the library association guidelines stripped the library board of the ability to safeguard children from objectionable material, such as pornography. 'If we put up a sign that said, 'Parents, drop you kids off at your own risk, that would be fine,'' Berger said. 'But we don't.'" [P2S: HALLELUYAH! A LIBRARY BOARD OF TRUSTEES HAS FINALLY ACTED TO EJECT THE LAW-DEFYING CHILD-ENDANGERING SECTION OF THE ALA'S RULES SAYING AGE MAY NOT BE USED AS A REASON TO KEEP CHILDREN FROM SEEING ANYTHING INCLUDING PORNOGRAPHY!!!! P2S URGES EVERY LIBRARY NATIONWIDE TO FOLLOW SUIT! REMOVE THE WORD 'AGE' FROM YOUR LIBRARY'S ADHERENCE TO THE ALA'S SO-CALLED LIBRARY BILL OF RIGHTS!!! You have to admire the guts of the library board majority for stating the obvious, "the library association guidelines stripped the library board of the ability to safeguard children from objectionable material, such as pornography." And just so you all know, all First Amendment concerns have been addressed in US v. ALA, a case that also supports separate standards based on age as P2S has been saying for a long time. NEW INFORMATION: JOHNSON COUNTY COMMISSIONERS REACT BY REQUIRING FURTHER LIBRARY BOARD MEMBERS TO SUBMIT THEIR MOTIVATIONS FOR JOINING THE BOARD!!!!! CITIZENS - IT'S TIME TO VOTE OUT COUNTY COMMISSIONERS WHO QUESTION THE MOTIVATIONS OF THOSE YOU WISH TO COMPLY WITH THE LAW!!!! SEE Library Vote Concerns Officials, 4/29/2005. Sadly, see A Step Back for Library, 4/30/05.] |
| 4/23/05 | It's No Longer Your Grandpa's Library | "Every week or so, there's another story in my favorite newspaper about the financial fix our libraries are in. It's hardly a surprise. Our libraries are now being asked to provide all kinds of services that didn't even exist in your grandfather's day. .... Evidently, it's too late to ask ... if the taxpayers should be providing access to porn on the Internet. .... I do, however, begrudge people who expect a taxpayer-provided computer, so they can watch porn and other stuff that's so degrading that it has to be screened from younger library patrons." |
| 4/22/05 | [Not Titled] | "Meet [library director criminal]. The 66-year-old Philadelphia academic--until last week a University of Pennsylvania Vice Provost and Director of Libraries--was nabbed yesterday on kiddie porn charges. According to Philly cops, [he] downloaded pornographic images of children onto his office computer at Penn's Van Pelt library, the university's main library facility. A search of [his] computer turned up more than 2000 illicit images, according to investigators." [P2S: Now we know why we wanted to be a library director.] |
| 4/21/05 | American Library Association Receives $380,000 Grant from Ford Foundation | "The American Library Association (ALA) has received a grant of $380,000 from The Ford Foundation [to] be used over a two-year period to support three major ALA initiatives that will support intellectual freedom and advocacy efforts. 'This generous grant from the Ford Foundation comes at an important time for libraries and the ALA,' said ALA President Carol Brey-Casiano. 'We are delighted to have the Foundation's support to pursue these timely projects concerning privacy rights, intellectual freedom and library advocacy.' .... The second initiative encompasses 'Lawyers for Libraries' and 'Law for Librarians.' Lawyers for Libraries is a project to create a cadre of attorneys across the country committed to the defense of intellectual freedom in libraries. The goal of Law for Librarians is to provide librarians and trustees with legal fundamentals of the First Amendment, which gives users the right to read freely in libraries,and to create a means of enabling librarians to effectively partner with their legal representatives to defend against censorship. The ALA Office for Intellectual Freedom will administer this initiative." [P2S: THE RADICAL LEFT GETS OVER A THIRD OF A MILLION DOLLARS "TO CREATE A CADRE OF ATTORNEYS ACROSS THE COUNTRY" TO "DEFEND AGAINST CENSORSHIP"! NOW SINCE THE US SUPREME COURT FOUND THE USE OF FILTERS IS NOT CENSORSHIP, AND SINCE THE ALA IS OPENLY DEFYING THE LAW, THIS MEANS THE ALA WILL LAUNCH A MASSIVE PRESSURE ATTACK ON LOCAL COMMUNITIES TO CONVINCE LOCAL LIBRARIES TO EFFECTIVELY DISABLE ALL FILTERS SO THAT CHILDREN WILL BECOME EVEN GREATER TARGETS FOR AN EVER INCREASING NUMBER OF PUBLIC LIBRARY RAPISTS AND MOLESTORS! THIS IS A SERIOUS THREAT TO THE HEALTH AND LIFE OF AMERICA'S CHILDREN! THE ALA OFFICE RESPONSIBLE FOR OVERSEEING THIS IS THE VERY ONE RESPONSIBLE FOR SAYING CHILDREN MAY ACCESS PORN BECAUSE IT WOULD BE AGE DISCRIMINATION TO KEEP THEM FROM SEEING IT!!!!!!] |
| 4/21/05 | Blocking All Explicit Material Impossible, Library Official Says | "A computer expert yesterday told a County Council subcommittee that is considering legislation to block all pornographic material in Allegheny County's 44 public libraries that even the most sophisticated filters will let images through. 'Most filtering systems are very good at blocking texts and [specific Internet addresses],' said Dan Jude, chief executive officer of Security Software Systems, a Texas-based company. Unfortunately, he said, no technology is available to block sexually explicit graphics and photos. .... Members discussed legislation, authored by County Councilman Vince Gastgeb, that calls for the eiNetwork, which links the 44 public library systems of the Allegheny County Library Association, to use filters capable of blocking all pornographic or inappropriate material found on the Web. The legislation was in response to a February incident at the Bethel Park Library in which a pair of 12-year-old girls sat down at a computer terminal to review homework. At the same time, a man sitting next to them viewed nude women wrestling. .... Speaking during yesterday's meeting, District Judge Robert C. Wyda, who charged [the man], said [he] had engaged in that type of behavior for a couple of years. 'The librarians knew it was going on, but they couldn't catch him,' Wyda said." [P2S: Can you believe this was going on for years? NetSweeper] |
| 4/21/05 | Nevada PL Tightens Policy After Child Porn Case | "Last year, [while] using a computer at the Washoe County Library System, Reno, [a man] was seen by another user to have pictures of naked children on the screen. Last week he pleaded guilty to possession of child pornography, and was sentenced to five years of probation. The Reno Gazette-Journal reported that the case prompted the library board to change its Internet policies. Before the ... incident, library staff members weren't sure whether they needed solid proof of illegality before calling the cops. Now, a series of guidelines instructs them to contact 911 and library officials, and to do what they can to preserve evidence. The library filters some but not all of its computers. [The man] was using an unfiltered workstation designated only for adults." [P2S: Again, unfiltered adult computers used for criminal activity. Again, the library considers complying with the law only AFTER a serious incident occurs.] |
| 4/19/05 | ACLU of Rhode Island Releases Report on "Troubling" Internet Censorship in State's Public Libraries (Press Release) | "The American Civil
Liberties Union of Rhode Island today released a report showing that
public libraries in the state are impeding patrons' access to
information on the Internet through the unnecessarily expansive use of
so-called 'blocking software.' Calling the findings 'troubling,' the 18-page report, 'Reader's Block,'
urged libraries to reassess the policies and practices they have
implemented. 'We are hopeful that this report will encourage
public libraries in Rhode Island to take every possible measure
available to provide their patrons with the freest access to the
Internet that is allowable under the law,' said Steven Brown, Executive
Director of the ACLU of Rhode Island. .... [T]he deeply flawed software
keeps patrons from accessing tens of thousands of lawful and
informative political, medical and other sites, while often failing to
block alleged 'pornographic' sites. .... The ACLU report
notes that during a recent session at a local library, the software
blocked access to the official web site of famed photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, a health web site for men, and an interview with actor Peter Sellers, among other sites. The report points out that 'the unnecessary blocking of Internet material by public libraries only exacerbates the so-called digital divide
in this country between those who have easy personal access to the
Internet, and those who must rely on their local library for this
access.'" [P2S: The ACLU's article
and underlying report is very misleading and advocates defiance of the
law; it should be dismissed as propaganda. First, they quote Justice Souter who can "smell a rat when a library blocks materials already in its control," but just look at any library that refuses to filter and you will see policy disclaimers about the web sites that are NOT under their control. Second, the ACLU categorizes US v. ALA as a case "requiring public library censorship" despite ruling the exact opposite. How seriously should anyone consider the words of an organization that characterizes a US Supreme Court case to be exactly opposite of the actual holding of the case? |
| 4/19/05 | " | Third, the ACLU says
the US Supreme Court's censorship is a "blatant distortion" of the role
of librarians. Since the ACLU likely believes, like the ALA, that
it is age discrimination to keep children from seeing porn, then we
suppose preventing librarians from allowing children to access porn is
indeed a blatant distortion of the ALA's view of the world. Fourth, the ACLU complains too much power is in the hands of the filtering companies. This ignores that there are many filtering alternatives, each one can be set as any library wishes, other librarians and even this very ACLU report have reported that filters are causing no problems at all but are working well, and any librarian can be asked to temporarily disable the filters. Fifth, the ACLU argues the filters perpetrate the "digital divide" because some people "must rely on their local library for ... access." Never mind that the ALA has characterized the US Supreme Court as racist for this very reason, it is totally without merit. Internet access can be had in a wide variety of places now other than the public library. And if the librarians are concerned people might not be able to access porn, not to worry, a Florida man was arrested for viewing child porn in a local Kinko's on an Internet computer available for customer use. Sixth, the ACLU complains filtering software was a "process limiting access to a vast amount of information for thousands of public library patrons." This is gross overreaching for obvious reasons but for a very subtle reason as well. Google is the number one search engine. Google has over 8 billion pages indexed and ready for searching. Suppose a search returns 20 hits and 5 of them are blocked. Setting aside that one merely has to ask to have the filters disabled under the right circumstances, the 5 blocked sites are a tiny drop in the bucket of pages the library patron is not seeing. It is estimated that the Internet actually holds over 64 billion pages but Google indexes only 8 billion. So before any search results are returned, 56 billion pages have been effectively "blocked" from the library patron. And since there are ways to search many more billions of pages than on Google, and since the libraries do not assist patrons in finding these pages sometimes called the "deep web" when they could quite easily merely by providing a few links, it is the libraries that are effectively blocking billions and billions of pages from library patrons. In other words, if libraries don't like a few pages being blocked even if this is perfectly legal, then libraries should make the effort to open up the deep web to library patrons, not defy the law and fail to filter. |
| 4/19/05 | " | Seventh, the ACLU
arguments repeatedly rely on cites from the cases overturned by US v.
ALA. And as to the facts, the ACLU calls filtering software a
"blunt instrument," obviously ignoring the truth that modern filters
are working well. They base some of their facts, such as on web
sites being blocked, on a four year old report! Really, this is
quite laughable as technology has greatly improved in four years.
But recent information would not support the ACLU's conclusions, so
they choose to use the old data and arguments from many years ago,
particularly from before US v. ALA. Frankly, we can't understand
how anyone who really reads what the ACLU is saying and providing as
proof can take the seriously.
Eighth, the ACLU has an axe to grind. "On the whole, and quite unexpectedly, many librarians have responded neutrally to the use of blocking software." So obviously they were expecting librarians to be against the filters. Here's more evidence of bias: "On a positive note, the Jamestown library was no longer blocking 'language considered foul' as it had in the past." Here's more: "The filtering software itself performed as expected - quite poorly." Is is possible the ACLU is seeing only what it wants to see? Now that the ACLU bias is evident, we believe they have marginalized themselves. They have shown their report is a mere propaganda effort to try the reargue the arguments lost years ago in the US Supreme Court. Ninth, the ACLU makes recommendations that either openly defy US v. ALA and CIPA, or make effective end runs around compliance. What good is the law if anyone can take action that essentially nullifies the law? Adult computers obtaining automatic exemptions essentially nullifies the law. Staff computers being permanently disabled also nullifies the law. The ACLU even says, "Although it is true that CIPA, as interpreted by the FCC, requires that blocking software be installed on all computers, disabling it on staff computers should not pose legal problems because the staff are 'adults' engaged in 'lawful' work." So they are using legal legerdemain and excuse making to openly defy the law. This is not just our opinion, this is openly written into their report! And remember the facts they reported, that no staff members were blocked even once after the application of the filters. The facts are against the ACLU and the law is against the ACLU. Exactly why should anyone seriously consider their recommendations? By the way, look how this report admits librarians opposed filters because of ALA directives: "[We've had] no comments from patrons [about the new Internet filters]. Librarians opposed because of American Library Association's Library Bill of Rights tenet "Free and Equal Access to Information," but as of now, the staff has not been encumbered by filters.'" P2S suggests this information be used when suit is brought against the ALA for the rape and molestation of children.] |
| 4/18/05 | Library Rethinks 'Porn' Policy | "If you walk into the library with an axe and start surfing Internet porn sites, you're bound to cause a stir. After a similar incident at Lewis and Clark Library, one must now check weapons at the door. But Library Board members aren't sure what to do about online smut. .... [T]he Web presents a First Amendment quandary. .... The library doesn't subscribe to Penthouse, but it can't easily keep dirty pictures off its computer screens. The question is how to do so without muzzling intellectual freedom. For starters, Internet filters don't work. 'We do not filter the Internet access here because the filters do not work,' [interim library director Becky] Foster says. 'Adults have a right to look at anything not pornographic.' Apparently, trying to Google the word 'breast' - with the intention of looking for information on 'breast cancer' - can run afoul of Internet filters. Unlike at school, public librarians aren't babysitters. 'We want to make it a great experience,' Foster says. 'But we can't tell kids what to do or not to do.' .... [Parent Joe Pennington] suggests computers for kids and computers for adults. 'One thing I'd like people to know is: Do you know that your child has access to pornography?' Pennington says. 'I didn't know. Did I fail or is the system failing?'" [P2S: Ignorance is bliss, isn't it? These people totally have it wrong. There is no First Amendment "quandary" because that has been resolved by the US Supreme Court in US v. ALA. Further, Internet filters DO work and breast cancer is NOT excluded. That statement about not being able to tell kids what to do or not to do comes from the ALA's so-called Library Bill of Rights that essentially makes it age discrimination to keep children from seeing porn. Is this what the people in Montana want or is this the radical position of the ALA being forced on another unsuspecting community. Mr. Pennington, the system has failed you. The ALA defies CIPA and US v. ALA and no one does anything about it; your local library absorbs ALA policy like it was a second skin that excludes the wishes of your community - just look at all the misinformation in your library's policy. Even you, as a parent, are to blame. You think it's okay to filter only the children's computers - molesters will still have access to porn on unfiltered computers and to the kids on the filtered computers; you are likely willing to give up protecting your children fully if only the library will cave in a little on it's possibly illegal actions by filtering only a few computers. Your child will heal from an axe wound but being molested will ruin her life forever. Read US v. ALA, get a backbone, and protect the children in your community from the ALA librarians before you have to protect them from a perpetrator's ACLU lawyers.] |
| 4/18/05 | Laura Bush Honor Raises Questions | "The decision by the [ALA] to announce that 'ALA Honors First Lady' has caused significant consternation among some ALA Councilors, some who questioned whether official channels were bypassed and others who consider her an endorser of presidential policies they deplore. While the honor was not any official award voted by council, Councilor Michael McGrorty observed, 'The public don't [sic] see our machinery at work, nor do [sic] they [sic] appreciate fine distinctions. All they [sic] see [sic] is an award given by the ALA to the President's wife, whom they [sic] view [sic] as a part of the current administration and its policies.'" [P2S: Giving an award to the First Lady is painful for the ALA but giving an award to the ALA person responsible for defying CIPA and US v. ALA is not. By the way, the ALA despises our government but loves bad grammar--public is singular, not plural. Exactly why does the ALA despise our government?] |
| 4/15/05 | Library Bill Giving Cops Access to Confidential Data May Die | "A bill pushed by Naperville police to give officers access to confidential library records in the event of an emergency appeared headed for defeat Thursday. .... The Naperville Police Department sought the legislation after a standoff that occurred on May 18 with the Naperville Public Library. Three teenagers reported to library officials that a man was viewing pornography and fondling himself in the computer lab. Library officials called police, but the man was gone by the time police arrived. When police asked library officials for the name and address of the cardholder that had logged onto the computer, library officials balked, citing the Illinois Library Records Confidentiality Act. The act prohibits library officials from releasing registration or circulation records except with a court order. .... Without the bill, police have to wait to obtain a court order before learning the identities of people allegedly involved in violent crimes, Dunn said. Naperville Police Capt. Ray McGury said it took more than six hours to learn [the perpetrator's] identity. .... 'This is a public safety issue. This is not about power,' McGury said. 'We just want to know if Joe stabs John, we'd like to know who Joe is.'" [P2S: Just whose side is the ALA on? The library protected the criminal's right to masturbate before three teenagers in a public library. The ALA ought to be honest about its goals and add to its so-called Library Bill of Rights: "Thou shalt have the right to masturbate in front of children in public libraries without police harassment because librarians only provide information and never make moral judgments."] |
| 4/13/05 | Public Library Board Votes Unanimously For Filters |  "On
the recommendation of Ardmore Public Library Director Daniel Gibbs, the
library board voted unanimously Tuesday to install anti-pornography
filtering hardware on the library's public-access computers. .... A local woman, Geri Amon, complained in January that her children were exposed to inappropriate images being viewed by computer users at the library. After hearing about Amon's complaint, Gibbs immediately ordered all of the Internet-accessible computers moved to a new location within the library. The
change made it easier for the staff to monitor the screens but didn't
provide the same degree of protection as filtering. 'I think it's
great,' Amon said after hearing about the board's decision. 'I'm
glad they took it seriously. I just think it's a sign of the
times, and we just have to protect the children.'
.... The decision will bring the library into compliance with the
federal Children's Internet Protection Act and permit the staff to
apply for discounts on Internet connections and other federal
funding. .... 'I think this is
the right thing for the library and the library patrons,' Gibbs
said. 'It's consistent with meeting community standards. We
are the public, the same as the people we serve.'" [P2S: WAHOO!! A LIBRARY BOARD THAT GETS IT!!! AND THE LIBRARY DIRECTOR GETS IT TOO!!!! This is all too rare! iPrism] |
| 4/13/05 | Child Porn Case Spotlights Libraries' Internet Policies | "Whenever staff at the county library passed near [the perp] as he scrolled through Internet sites, he would quickly change his screen, but when a nearby computer user saw pictures of naked children, he called the sheriff's office. [The perp], 30, who was using one of the Washoe County Library's adult, nonfiltered computers in northwest Reno to download child pornography, was arrested and charged with 13 counts of possession. .... The issue ... ultimately provoked the county library's Board of Trustees this year to change procedures for handling suspicious activity on the Internet.... .... The staff members are now encouraged to call 911, notify managers, preserve evidence, turn off the computer's monitor and even remove the computer's mouse and keyboard or disconnect the Ethernet cable if appropriate, according to the official procedures." [P2S: More evidence filtering only the children's computers solves almost nothing. More evidence libraries are defying ALA directives to do everything possible to thwart law enforcement. Someone please send us those official procedures for posting on this site.] |
| 4/12/05 | House, Others Receive Dubious Muzzle Awards | "A ... measure to pull state funding from libraries lacking Internet filters [has] garnered the Virginia House of Delegates a 2005 Jefferson Muzzle Award recognizing disregard for free speech principles ... from the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression ... [for] people and groups guilty of outrageous freedom of speech violations, center officials said. 'Fortunately they did not pass in the Senate,' Robert M. O'Neil, the Albemarle County center's director and former president of the University of Virginia, said of the pair of House bills. .... The library filter bill would have required public libraries to install content filtering for all Internet access on library computers or face the loss of all state funding. It passed the House 78-16.... Del. Rob Bell, R-Albemarle, ... defended the filter bill ... [saying] 'I think many parents are concerned about what the Internet shows their children, whether at home or in the library, and to keep child porn out of our libraries is a good idea.'" [P2S: Sad, isn't it? Yes, parents are concerned as the 78-16 House vote shows, but librarians, university presidents, and American-sounding leftist organizations aren't--quite the opposite is true for them--leave no child unsexualized.] |
| 4/11/05 | Pervert Went on Library's Computer to Access Child Porn | "Brand new computer systems with blocking devices have been installed in North Wales libraries to prevent perverts downloading child porn. It comes after a man who used public libraries to download porn was jailed for 12 months at Mold crown court. .... He was caught after leaving a collage of indecent photographs on a computer in Wrexham library. Shocked staff alerted police who found six computer disks containing 11 indecent photographs of children at his home.... .... The judge, Mr Recorder John Hillyer, placed him on the sex offenders' register for ten years. He said: 'People like you are responsible for children being abused. Without a market they would not be created.'" |
| 4/9/05 | Gangs Threaten Library Peace | "Public libraries are supposed to be sanctuaries of whispered words and quiet reading, but packs of teenagers who showed signs of gang affiliation recently threatened the peace at Centennial Park Branch Library in Greeley. .... 'I couldn't concentrate,' said 13-year-old library patron Jacob Aguirre, who said the packs of obnoxious teens took over the computer stations. They were looking at porn and shouting a lot.' .... For about three weeks, the teens all but took over at Centennial Park Library. .... Those kids soon discovered you can only push librarians so far: The library decided it was time for a crackdown and asked police to help. .... Even the Greeley-Evans School District 6 got involved by contacting some of the teens' parents, Reid said. Soon, peace was restored and the library staff learned that sometimes it takes much more than a simple 'shush' to deal with problem patrons. 'It toughened some of us up,' Reid said." [P2S: According to the ALA, "as for obscenity and child pornography, prosecutors and police have adequate tools to enforce criminal laws. Libraries are not a component of law enforcement efforts...." What we see is another library using common sense to defy the ALA's own policy by doing what's right to protect the community. Although it's puzzling, the library does use Internet filters, yet gangs were able to view pornography for three weeks. Hmmmm. Seems a little tweaking or retooling is necessary.] |
| 4/8/05 | Stranger Than Fiction: Nudity, Theft and Mischief at Olin Library | "Sometimes the library's best stories aren't found in the stacks. .... Olin has its share of mischief. The most common complaint involves people misusing the computers. When one man was asked to get off a computer because he was looking at pornography, he told a librarian he wasn't looking at porn-he was just trying to run his business. Slightly more than half of the incident reports involve people not affiliated with Washington University, Britton said. 'Which is a lot considering that the thousands of people who use the library everyday are almost all students,' he added." |
| 4/7/05 | Thousands Use Local Public Computers |  "Tens
of thousands of people use public computer stations at the Muncie
Public Library each year. Bracken Library at Ball State
University also offers computer time, and for-pay businesses like
FedEx/Kinkos also provide the service. 'We get an awful lot of
use on these computers,' said Muncie Public Library Director Virginia
Nilles. MPL offers more than 70 computers with Internet access at
its facilities. In 2004, MPL's computers were used 85,225 times,
Nilles said. .... For every
high-profile and embarrassing incident like the March arrest of a man
caught downloading an e-mail containing child pornography on an MPL
computer, thousands use the computers for research or work or
recreation. .... MPL uses filters to prevent its
computers from being used to access Internet sites with obscenity or
gambling, for example. Recent advances
in filter programs mean that they will no longer block access to sites
with information about breast cancer, Nilles said. Computer users over the age of 18
can ask that incorrectly-blocked Internet sites be available, she
added. 'We haven't had a problem with it,' Nilles said.
Nilles said the library worked with police to
arrest the man accused of receiving illegal e-mails. 'We were
responsible for catching that guy,' Nilles said. 'We will not
allow people to do illegal things in our libraries. If we can
catch them, we will.'" [P2S:
In a rare statement of defiance of the ALA, this library director is to
be congratulated for 1) using Internet filters, 2) admitting they don't
block breast cancer web sites because of recent advances in technology,
3) admitting that there has not been a problem unblocking
incorrectly-blocked sites, 4) differentiating between people 18 and
over who get sites unblocked and children 17 and under who do not, and
5) working with the police to arrest people abusing the computers --
each one of these five points is diametrically opposed to the
statements, actions, and directives of the ALA and its followers.
CONGRATULATIONS TO MUNCIE PUBLIC
LIBRARY (INDIANA) DIRECTOR VIRGINIA NILLES FOR DEFYING THE ALA AND FOR
ACTING ON BEHALF OF THE COMMUNITY, NOT THE ALA. Note to
librarians who know the ALA is wrong to defy the law but are afraid to
act: you won't melt when the ALA throws water on you -- the exact
opposite is true.] |
| 4/6?/05 | Librarians Honor a Novelist Whom Parents Would Like to Ban | "The American Library Association, dogged champions of unfiltered Internet access for all, young and old, has managed to outdo even itself in the libertarian librarian department." [P2S: The story goes on to talk about an ALA award for a book for children about homosexuality, rough sex, pimps and drugs. The ALA continues to push porn on children.] |
| 4/6/05 | Librarians Forced to Sniff Out Unwashed Vagrants | "The emergence of computers and the Internet in libraries also has turned librarians into pornography police. Most libraries have stations in which patrons can surf the Web or check e-mail for a limited time for free -- but some abuse that privilege and look at Internet porn. The D.C. public library system has no set policy on Internet use, but has separate computers for children. Internet pornography also has been a problem at Virginia libraries. Some state lawmakers this year attempted but failed to pass legislation requiring libraries that receive state funding to install and use Internet filters that block pornography." [P2S: Librarians who follow the ALA's call to defy the law to stop porn are porn purveyors, not porn police.] |
| 4/1/05 | Mother, Children See Porn On Library Computer; Some Counties Do No Filter Computer Materials |  "A Vacaville mother hopes her shocking experience at a county library
will change the way people search the Internet. When Toni Horn
and her daughters went to Vacaville's Town Square Library last
Saturday, they went online to look for children's books, Horn said, but
instead saw something very adult. 'There
was a young boy (next to us), who I believe was a minor, looking at
pornography. I looked at my kids, and my 9-year-old daughter was
staring right at it,' Horn said. The boy was asked to leave, but
Horn said her feeling of unease didn't go away. She now wants the
library to block porn. 'We came to the library to check out books
and promote learning for our kids. Instead, I had to explain to
my 9- and 6-year-old daughters what Internet pornography was,' Horn
said. .... For Horn, whose daughter now refuses to go to
the library, it's not a First Amendment issue but a social one.
'It just makes me mad. The whole thing makes me mad. I
don't expect my kids to live in a bubble, but to come to a public
library? It's just appalling to me,' Horn said." [P2S: Here's another story (Ardmore, OK) where kids see porn other kids had on the screen,
thereby affecting multiple kids in different ways. The Vacaville,
CA news story includes a video news broadcast and an online poll asking
"should public libraries allow access to unfiltered materials" where
the PEOPLE ARE VOTING 2 TO 1 IN FAVOR OF FILTERS!
Today is April 1; who are the April Fools for not stopping librarians
from defying the law (and the vote of the people) requiring all
computers to be filtered? See also Whether to Filter Internet; Mother Raises Issue After Library Incident:
"It's a common-sense thing to me," said Horn. "The library has
filtered their selection of magazines that are available and it should
also filter Internet access. Allowing a pubescent teenager full
access to the Internet is like putting a stack of porn magazines in
front of him and telling him not to look at them." And see Supes Agree to Mull Library 'Net Policy, 4/7/2005] |
| 4/1/05 | Man Cited with Indecent Exposure | "A Lexington man was arrested at the W.T. Young Library [University of Kentucky] Wednesday evening and charged with indecent exposure and criminal trespassing [and was] arrested ... after a security officer saw him looking at pornography on a computer and masturbating, the police report said; other library patrons were in the area, and [he] was exposing himself to others, it said. .... 'The problem with that is this is an open campus, and the library is a public facility.'" [P2S: No. The problem is the failure to use Internet filters perfectly legal in a public facility.] |
| 4/1/05 | Candidates Make Their Stand | "Candidates for townwide office in Monday's annual town election fielded a variety of questions, ranging from pornography to affordable housing and dual tax rates at yesterday's candidates' forum. .... 'I'm upset about pornography in the library. I hope things change,' said resident Barbara Porter, who challenged the Library Trustee candidates to find a solution. Concern arose several years ago when complaints were publicized that pornographic sites were not filtered out in the Town Library computers. " [P2S: The candidates then went on to spew the ALA line so this town will remain exposed to pornography.] |
| 3/31/05 | Students Gain Early Access to Report After Three-Hour Wait |  "After being told that the ad hoc committee report would not be released until this morning, three
students waited for over two hours before successfully persuading
Provost Alan Brinkley to allow them to read the document in his Low
Library office late last night. The students, all members of Columbians for Academic Freedom,
were angry after hearing rumors that the report had been released to
some press outlets. .... [University President Lee]
Bollinger ... was inside the building at a dinner and lecture with Desmond Tutu and Toni Morrison,
so the students deliberated for roughly 45 minutes about what course of
action to take as they regrouped on the Low steps. Inside
the building, the students encountered University spokeswoman Susan
Brown, who refused to let them see the report under any circumstances,
despite the fact that it had already been released to some press
sources. .... After leaving the building, the
students caught sight of Brinkley on the Low steps, and conversed with
him for roughly 10 minutes about why they were not allowed to see the
report. Brinkley apologized to the students and told them that he
would check on why they could not view it. .... Thirty
minutes later, Brinkley reappeared, told the students that they would
be allowed to view the document, and asked them to wait at one of the side entrances to Low.
Weiss, Roth, and Beery waited for about 30 minutes before growing
impatient and walking into Bollinger's office on the building's ground
floor. Just outside Bollinger's office,
the students encountered a group of security guards that directed them
to return to the outside entrance. Brinkley said that the
students were forced to wait so long because the decision to let them
see the document 'wasn't spur of the moment. It took quite a
while.' Eventually, the students went into Brinkley's
office with the provost. They sat in his office until close to
midnight reading the report...." [P2S: In the interests of their definition of free speech, librarians push pornography on children and intentionally defy the US Supreme Court. In this article, however, the library is the backdrop of the denial of free speech to students exposing the antisemitism and racism rampant among professors at Columbia University.
"The decision to let them see the document 'wasn't spur of the
moment. It took quite a while.'" Can you imagine the
condemnation and indignation of librarians and the ALA and the cries of
Free Speech as-applied violations and "horror stories" if "it took quite a while" to decide to disable a computer Internet filter? Or can you imagine if security guards kept children from viewing pornography?] |
| 3/30/05 | Internet Pornography Filters Urged At All Libraries | "In early February, a pair of 12-year-old girls sat down at a computer terminal in Bethel Park Library to review some schoolwork. At the same time, a man sitting next to them viewed nude women wrestling on a Yahoo chat room. The man, [age] 38, was charged with disorderly conduct.... Meanwhile, staff members at the library have upgraded their computer filters to block all chat rooms and have set aside certain computers for children 17 and younger. 'We do take our commitment to public safety very seriously,' said Cheryl Napsha, the library's director. But Allegheny County Councilman Vince Gastgeb, R-Bethel Park, hopes libraries across the county will adopt even stricter measures to prevent similar incidents. He wants the eiNetwork, the computer network that links the 44 public library systems of the Allegheny County Library Association, to use filters capable of blocking all pornographic or inappropriate material found on the Web. .... 'I don't want any public funding going to any library until we know these filters work,' Gastgeb said. .... If someone does access those sites, 'we need to know,' he said. Gastgeb's resolution calls for libraries to file a report with the county when their computer systems don't stop certain material. .... 'In a library, there's a presumption of safety for minors,' he said." [P2S: Wow! Every community government needs a man with backbone like Mr. Gastgeb. We especially admire his calls for accountability and the teeth needed to ensure the community's wants and needs are not circumvented by ALA types. Bravo! Even the ALA has taken note of Mr. Gastgeb: Allegheny County Councilman Calls for Mandatory Filters. NetSweeper] |
| 3/30/05 | Peers Who Peer: Who Could Be Spying On You? | "When San Jose State University formed a joint library with the local public library, it incorporated the public library's privacy screens on its computers. The privacy screens use the same technology as the screens on an ATM - which allow only users who are standing directly in front of the screen to view its contents. .... According to the Spartan Daily, the screens allowed the library to maintain open access with no filtering and provide privacy for patrons. The paper also reported that some saw the implementation of the [privacy] screens as a way to view pornography in the library - and that 21 arrests have been made on suspicion of lewd acts in public committed by patrons who got carried away while viewing pornography in the library." [P2S: 21 arrests for lewd acts in a public library! And they still have no filters!! Hey, Reno, Nevada is nearby, wanna place bets on where the next library rape will take place?] |
| 3/28/05 | Students Wonder Why They're Dining With Dell |  "Time
for yet another dinner at Holloway Commons. Make a sandwich,
survey the soup selection and grab your favorite seat by the window,
but don't forget to check your e-mail. That's right, University
[of New Hampshire] Hospitality Services has now equipped Philbrook,
Stillings and Holloway Commons with computers for students and staff to
use amidst their daily dining excursions. .... 'They
were installed with good Samaritan intent ... but people aren't
responding as well as we had hoped.' Inappropriate displays and pornographic content have been appearing frequently upon the screens he said." [P2S: No wonder the Old Man of the Mountain's face fell off -- pornography in a public university's dining facilities would make anyone lose face, except librarians and college faculties.] |
| 3/28/05 | Catching Up With ... Martin Davis; Library Critic Says Politics Gets Personal | "The real issue to me was the fact that adults have access to hardcore porn in our library system. I was at Morrison (branch, in SouthPark) four weeks ago, using the computers, and the guy beside me was downloading porn. I told the attendant and she said she'd report it. I asked if there were other ways to follow up, she said no. .... When I was initially going down there to the commissioners to do something, (Democratic chairman) Parks Helms played a deaf ear to it. The vehicle to change this is the Republican Party." |
| 3/27/05 | West Gardiner Approves New Fire Station | "When it came time to vote on a sum of money for the Gardiner Public Library, residents vented their frustration toward the library director, Anne Davis, but eventually voted to appropriate $23,613 for the library. Last week, Davis told a legislative committee that children have a right to privacy when they check out books from the library. She was one of the librarians who testified against a bill that would have required them to tell parents what materials their children were borrowing. Some voters at the town meeting, including a local pastor, expressed dismay about Davis' comments and the fact that a child could access pornography at the library. Davis assured parents at the meeting that the computers face the middle of the room and can be seen by everyone. A few residents still wanted to vote against funding the library." [P2S: Another library director moving the chairs on the Titanic. This is the same library from below where they said the US Supreme Court "manipulates the public with misinformation and fear," (10/5/04) and where they threatened "the whole network may fall apart" if they don't get what they want (10/10/04). Just who's manipulating whom?] |
| 3/25/05 | Library Approves Web Filters; Ypsilanti Board OKs Internet Porn Screens Activated by User Cards | "Internet filters activated by a user's library card will be used to prevent children from accessing pornographic or other adult-oriented sites on the Internet from Ypsilanti District Library computers. The library Board of Trustees voted 5-1 Thursday to install the user-activated Internet filters on the library's computers. The move is a departure from a previous policy that rejected Internet filters and is a compromise with new board members who ran for election in November on the filter issue. .... [T]he change will provide the protection that some board members want and will continue to allow adults full access to the Web. .... Roe, who campaigned on the filter issue in November, said the change is not enough. 'We should not allow anyone to access pornographic Web sites at the public library,' he said after the meeting. .... Internet filters became an issue two years ago after the library refused a request by Ypsilanti Township officials to install them on library computers. The officials also recruited area clergy to help pressure the library board on the issue. .... Nearly half of all Michigan libraries have installed pornography filters since the high court ruling [US v. ALA]." [P2S: Board President Roe is correct. Unfiltered adult computers will continue to endanger the children. Too bad the pro-filter people caved in here after all the successes this community had to protect children -- is a compromise that endangers children a little less really a compromise or is it a defeat. Don't let this happen in your own communities.] |
| 3/24/05 | Especially for Parents: Pandora's Box Today | The focus this month is pornography, especially on the Internet. Sharon Secor writes, "if the libertine vanguard of the sexual revolution cracked open our modern day Pandora's Box, then certainly the Internet has blown the lid right off of it. And, indeed, our culture has been profoundly changed." Sharon also says, "But, like Pandora, we still have hope. The moment that each of us who cares take an active stance in bringing this situation to a halt -- by refusing to accept or ... support those who distribute or profit from the distribution of pornography, by demanding appropriate legislation, by settling for nothing less than our children's right to a childhood untainted by adult concepts of sexuality – the tide will turn." [P2S: Bravo! Please read the full article! The ALA and the libraries it de facto controls may be huge nationwide distributors of porn, even defying the law to continue pushing porn. P2S is trying to "turn the tide" -- please help us!] |
| 3/24/05 | Community Access Makes For a Painfully Distracting Library | "Yes, the [Wayne State Purdy/Kresge Graduate Library] is open to just about everyone as long as they behave appropriately. There are community access terminals for people who don't have computers and want to look for jobs, use e-mail, or whatever. Sometimes the 'whatever' includes downloading pornography." |
| 3/23/05 | Cyberspace Attracting More Child Predators | "'Anything of porn nature is not allowed,' said Larry Bennett of the St. Joseph County Public Library. That's why there are security cameras, officers, filters, and constant monitoring at the St. Joseph Library. Just last week, security had to throw a couple of people out of the library for illegal activity on one of their computers. 'We don't want to play a role in something happening to a child,' said Bennett. The fact remains that something can happen to a child, anywhere, anytime, even at home." [P2S: Larry Bennett of the St. Joseph County Public Library sure said the right things to keep the public library family friendly, and we applaud him for this. We especially admire the tough language that the library should not "play a role in something happening to a child." But the article revealed that last week the Internet filters failed to prevent the need to "throw a couple of people out." Is it possible better filters could be used, or could the existing software be better configured or implemented. Adding further cause for concern, the library has a policy that directly incorporates the American Library Association's so-called Library Bill of Rights. The ALA is an organization that believes children may have access to pornography because it would be age discrimination to keep them from seeing it. Worse, the ALA has brazenly announced that it recommends libraries defy Internet filtering laws and specifically the US Supreme Court case of US v. ALA that held the federal law to be constitutional. Is this how the people in South Bend feel, that children may have pornography and the US Supreme Court should be ignored? Is this the public library or the ALA's library, South Bend branch. Of course a library has broad discretion, but not discretion to defy the law. Let's see if the library will back up its excellent words with action. It should remove its adherence to the ALA's Library Bill of Rights. It should improve its filters and usage policies. But from what we read about the "security cameras, officers, filters, and constant monitoring," it sounds like the library is well on its way toward serving and protecting its patrons at the same time. Let's hope it makes a few more tweaks and cuts the umbilical cord to the ALA, at least until the ALA stops defying the law of the land.] |
| 3/22/05 | Filtering vs. Open Access | "Have you ever been doing research on the Internet and suddenly something completely inappropriate popped up on your screen? Many schools and libraries are taking measures to make sure teens and other children are not exposed to inappropriate material, such as pornography, while surfing the Net. .... Many school districts install or provide schools with software that blocks and filters out Web sites containing inappropriate content. .... The school also has an Internet acceptable-use policy.... The San Jose Public Library has open access to the Internet, ... no restrictions or filters on its computers for Internet use, allowing users access to all Web sites. However, the San Jose Public Library does have an Internet access policy.... The library has also created Web pages specifically for children and teenagers with age-appropriate links." [P2S: This is written by a junior in high school! Soon her research will show the ALA-designed so-called acceptable use policies are never respected by criminals. And as for age appropriate links, the so-called public library thinks it's okay to link to Go Ask Alice, a web site about autoerotic asphyxiation, fisting, and bestiality and Teenwire by Planned Parenthood, a web site about getting abortions without telling your parents -- these web sites have been removed from state web sites by state Governors because taxpayer money should not be used to push these web sites on children. If someone offers to explain those topics to the author of this article, they may get arrested, but the library gets away with pushing it on all teenagers. 8e6] |
| 3/21/05 | County Weighs Library Ban on Sex Offenders; After One Commissioner Suggests Keeping Offenders Out, the Board Considers Whether It's a Problem | "Clark County commissioners and library leaders are mulling whether registered sex offenders pose a threat to young library users -- and whether libraries should be off-limits to them. .... [Commissioner Marc] Boldt said the county has 1,100 registered sex offenders, many of them categorized as sexual predators. He said he wants to protect young library users from harm and suggested banning sex offenders from libraries. County Commissioner Steve Stuart also expressed concern about youth safety, saying he has a teenage son who uses the libraries. Stuart said commissioners have seen reports of sex offender incidents at libraries but said none were in Clark County. Boldt, a former legislator, said that to authorize such a ban, an effort would have to be launched to amend a pending piece of state legislation -- Substitute House Bill 1147. The bill creates 'community protection zones' near schools and bans registered sex offenders from living near public or private schools. Boldt said a reference to libraries would need to be added to the bill." [P2S: Here's a novel concept worth investigating -- everyone get on it. Watch as the ALA types destroy it here so it won't be modeled nationwide.] |
| 3/20/05 | Library Director Bette Ammon Moving On to Coeur d'Alene Public Library |  "Ammon
doesn't shy from controversy. She and the Missoula library's staff
have been vocal opponents of the Patriot Act and federal efforts to clamp
down on Internet pornography. The library has rejected federal 'e-rate'
subsidies, a provision of which requires libraries to install Internet filters,
which Ammon calls unnecessary, intrusive and unworkable. 'This library
has always been strong on intellectual freedom, confidentiality and privacy,'
she said. 'Our constitutional protections are being eroded under the
guise of patriotism.'" [P2S: Another
librarian director proud to defy the law and endanger the citizens.
Doesn't "shy away from controversy"? The controversy
is over; now she is in defiance of the
law like a common criminal, only she endangers all children in the entire
community and turns down federal money while begging for more money from
you! Coeur d'Alene citizens -- get ready for your children to be raped
and molested in your public library because your new library director enjoys
defying the law, according to the article. Her
public statements of defiance and her actions are an open welcome mat for
pedophiles who look for exactly these kinds of policies.] |
| 3/19/05 | Foster Father Charged in City in Sexual Abuse of 2 Young Girls | "An Ellicott City foster father was arrested in 1994 on charges that he had molested his then-17-year-old foster son for seven years. [T]hen a state administrative law judge, [he] pleaded guilty to two counts of child abuse and avoided a prison term. He was later convicted of abusing another young boy and then of viewing child pornography on a computer at the central Enoch Pratt Free Library." |
| 3/18/05 | Man Accused of Downloading Child Porn at Library; Homeless Suspect Found with Photos at Shelter | "Albany police arrested a 21-year-old homeless man who's accused of printing child pornography he accessed on the Internet at the New York State Library. .... The library does not use Internet filters because they can block legitimate sites." [P2S: Filters will never be perfect and will always overblock. The law accounts for this by saying the filters may be disabled upon request, and the library knows this. Shame on the New York State Library that chooses to ignore the US Supreme Court, but chooses to endanger children.] |
| 3/18/05 | Accessing Porn Sites in Library is Legal, Few Complaints Received | "CMU does not punish students who view Internet sex on university computers even if the pornographic material is used for non-academic purposes. University officials say accessing porn Web sites on campus won't be restricted or limited, because of Internet free speech rights. Ryan Buckley, communications and program developer for Information Technology, said viewing pornography on university computers goes against the intended use. .... However, the university has received few indecency complaints about students who viewing porn. Detroit senior Andre Henry usually goes to the Woldt Computer Lab at least four times a week where he says it's common to receive Internet porn advertisements sporadically pop up on his computer screen. .... 'If students pay the fee to use the computer labs and if they want to look at porn, then why not?' OIT officials say the CMU Police requested the investigation of one child pornography case a few years ago because that is illegal. .... Currently, there are 300 computers installed in Charles V. Park Library. Dean of Libraries Thomas Moore said he's not too concerned the computers aren't equipped with Internet porn filters. 'We haven't had any recent complaints of porn being viewed on library computers. Nothing has come to my attention,' he said." [P2S: These librarians have obviously never read US v. ALA or choose to ignore it as the ALA has advised. They choose to wait for someone to be attacked before applying a simple, inexpensive solution compared to the results of criminal activity. At least in university libraries there is likely a very reduced population of young children to prey upon. But young adults are not immune. Those who give the money to keep this university going ought to closely examine what is going on in the libraries, why, and what can be done about it, then consider using the purse strings to rein in the anything-goes librarians. See our online comments in the Feedback section of the article.] |
| 3/16/05 | Lafayette Delays Computer Filter Decision; Board Suggested Ignoring State Law Requiring the Technology | "After lively philosophical and legal discussion, the Lafayette City Council delayed a decision Tuesday on whether to implement a state law requiring filters on public library computers. The city's Library Board recommended that the council not require Internet filters on computers, despite a state law passed last year to protect minors from harmful material. The board cited First Amendment concerns, unreasonable costs and a 'flawed' law as its reasoning. .... Mayor Chris Berry said Lafayette and other libraries shouldn't have to comply because the law is an 'unfunded mandate.' 'This law is unfair, and it stinks,' Berry said. 'If we're going to take a stand on what our values are — which is to fund libraries — then we take a stand.'" [P2S: Again the porn pushers confuse people with "lively legal discussions," completely ignoring that all legal issues have been asked and answered in US v. ALA and all the library need do now is comply with the law. First Amendment concerns? Hogwash -- US v. ALA resolves all doubt as to that issue. Read it--don't blindly believe the librarians! "Unreasonable costs"? Wrong, but even if if were so, how much is too much to protect children from being raped and molested? "Flawed law"? Agreed, from the point of view of those pushing porn on children, the flaw in the law is that it legally stems the flow of porn into public libraries. And those statements by the Mayor show his concerns are the protection of the porn pushers and porn viewers who are merely expressing their First Amendment rights just before they rape and molest children in public libraries. Citizens, wake up and vote that filth out of office and take back control of your own public library. It's a public library, not a porn pushers library, and it's the law.] |
| 3/15/05 | Lafayette Library Wants to Defy State | "The Lafayette Library Board is taking a stand against a state law requiring Internet filters on public computers. A report from the library's director, Michele Seipp, says members of the library board agree that installing filters 'is an unreasonable restriction of First Amendment rights to free speech and inquiry.' The law, which passed last year, requires the protection to prevent minors from viewing sexually explicit material." [P2S: See comments immediately above.] |
| 3/15/05 | Police: Man Accessed Porn at Libraries | "A man who has been accused of downloading child pornography on computers at public libraries was arrested while sitting at one of the terminals with materials that told of adults and children engaging in sex acts, authorities said. .... When [Muncie Police, IL] found [the man] he had a disc with stories about adults engaging in sex acts with children, Cook said. He also admitted to downloading several pictures of child pornography while using a computer at Ball State University, police reports said. The city public library's computers filter searches for obscene material, but they do not filter e-mails, library director Virginia Nilles said." [P2S: See also Library Waits for Better Internet Screening Technology, 3/21/05, and Child Porn Arrest at Indiana Library, 3/25/05. Websense.] |
| 3/11/05 | Scientific American Not Pornographic | "To the editor: .... We
do not have pornography. .... Sincerely, Jan Behrens,
Director, Knoxville Public Library." [P2S:
This library director out and out lies. She claims the library has
no porn. In reality, the library is perfused with porn; the library
admits this is the case by warning parents that only the parents may protect
the children from porn which is euphemistically called "access points."
The library explicitly complies with the ALA's defiance of the law of the
land. It says essentially that if your kid is raped or molested by
a criminal viewing unfiltered Internet porn, you cannot blame the library.
Too bad. See the library's "Internet
Policy":
In offering Internet access, library staff cannot control access points which offen [sic] change rapidly and unpredictably. Users are hereby notified that they are responsible for the access points they reach. Parents of minor children must assume responsibility for their children's use of or exposure to the Internet through the library's connection. In compliance with the Library Bill of Rights and the Freedom to Read statement, the Knoxville Public Library does not provide filters of any kind. The Knoxville Public Library assumes no responsibility for any damages, direct or indirect, arising from the use of the Internet.This means this community is in grave danger and must wrest control of the library back from the ALA, the library director, and the library board of trustees who are all knowingly and intentionally defying the law of the land designed to protect the very children being endangered. Knoxville, now that you are aware of this information, take action as soon as possible before your children become more statistics on this web site. P2S can report the library director's response to these comments was apparently to circle the wagons and call in reinforcements. Read Censor Alert; Plan2Succeed by Kelly Milner Halls: Plan2Succeed: ...ever heard of them? If you live in Knoxville, Iowa you may have. Because one of their loyalists supposedly registered a challenge to and defaced a copy of Scientific American magazine in a Knoxville Public Library branch, calling an unclothed illustration of a prehistoric woman -- a hominid -- pornographic. .... Ms. Behrens is well spoken and correct. But on March 15, she received a disturbing email from [a P2S member, shown above,] who claimed to be a representative of the New Jersey-based "Plan2Succeed" -- a venomous anti-freedom group determined to force their vision of morality on the rest of the country. I wonder if their women are forced to wear burkhas. Keep you eyes on this hateful group and deny them their wish to deny you your rights.Too bad for the Knoxville community that the library director found a notice of noncompliance with the law to be "disturbing." Perhaps we will offer to send the library of copy of that Scientific American magazine, by far one of the best magazines in the country. We are not trying to force our vision anywhere, we are just trying to get the ALA to stop defying the law of the land, a law set by two branches of the federal government, not by P2S, where the defiance of which may be directly resulting in the rape and molestation of children in public libraries! Lastly, the comment about the burkhas may be considered racist or discriminatory, inflammatory at the least -- and they call us a "hateful group" in the next sentence! |
| 3/11/05 | Guest Opinion: Internet Filters Work Part I | "This letter is in response to statements from the Library Association given as testimony at the March 2, 2005 Judiciary One Committee hearing against HB 2458. Those testifying on behalf of libraries continue to claim that filters don't work. Over the years, their arguments have not changed, yet filters have. I have had filtered Internet service for nine years, I have no idea how filters work, but I know they do. I have demonstrated their effectiveness before numerous groups, including several library boards. One demonstration took place at the Chicago Public Library.... .... Laura Morgan, Chicago librarian, stated, 'Because of its unrestricted Internet policy, the Chicago Public Library is now the only place I might take my children where there is a real possibility of them being exposed to unwanted pornography.' Another demonstration took place at the Nippersink Library in Richmond, IL in May of 2003. An American Library Association (ALA) attorney, Debra Coldwell Stone, presented their side. During the demo, the attorney asked me to type in the URLs of certain sites that she claimed filters blocked. I did. Every address she gave me was easily accessible through my filtered ISP. She was noticeably frustrated, since she had claimed these sites were blocked by filters. Those representing the libraries continue to make public statements that information on breast cancer, sex education, homosexuality, Quakers, Dick Durbin, Mars Explorer, Earl of Sussex, Earl of Essex, etc., is blocked. On March 2, 2005, it was even stated that the site to the Illinois General Assembly is blocked! This is absurd and I can easily prove it. According to the January 2005 edition of the Library Journal, 59.5 percent of libraries now say they comply with the Children's Internet Protection Act, meaning they filter all computers. Sixty five percent say they filter some terminals. If filters don't work, why are so many libraries using them?" |
| 3/11/05 | Guest Opinion: Internet Filters Work Part II | "The argument by the Illinois Library groups against filters has not changed over the years, but the problems continue and grow worse. .... An internal audit conducted in May 2001 found that library users accessed 7,000 pornographic Web sites in Chesterfield County's (VA) nine public libraries during a two-day period. (The Washington Times, June 23, 2001 Supervisors vote for porn filters; Other libraries have faced suits). PedoWatch is a group that works with law enforcement world-wide and monitors pedophile activities. PedoWatch director Julie Posey stated, 'When a particular pedophile finds that the library is a safe secure place to view and download pornography, he shares this information with others ... I have seen cases where pedophiles on the Internet use the library to talk with children and eventually lure them to have a face-to-face meeting. These children are then molested, photos taken and further exploited when he sends the child's pictures to masses on the Internet.' 'It is common knowledge in the business of pedophiles and traders of child pornography to go to your public library and download it because it's there. I can't tell you how many cases we've had ... when there's communication on-line, there's an IP address. I can't tell you how many times we trace that IP back to the public library,' said William Harmening: former Deputy Chief of Investigations for High Tech Crimes in the IL Attorney General's Office, Director of IL Computer Crimes Institute, State Wide Coordinator for Regional Computer Crimes Enforcement Groups of Illinois, testifying in support of Internet filtering legislation at a legislative hearing in Marion, Illinois, September 7, 2000. |
| 3/11/05 | Guest Opinion: Internet Filters Work Part III | "On February 19, 2005, a Philadelphia Library porn surfer was sentenced to 35-70 years for raping an eight-year-old girl in the library bathroom and leaving her for dead. He had just finished a porn surfing session and, according to library staff, was a regular. On September 29, 2004 it was reported by the NBC affiliate in Reno that, 'A 29-year-old Reno man was arrested on ten counts of suspicion of possession of child pornography Wednesday, after someone reported he was viewing sexual images of children on a computer at a public library in northwest Reno, Washoe County sheriff's deputies said.' On September 26, 2004, The Boston Herald reported, 'A 46-year-old man wanted in Arizona for failing to register as a sex offender was arrested at the Boston Public Library yesterday where he used a computer to try to lure a 12-year-old Maryland girl, police said.' On September 23, 2004, The News-Press (Florida) reported, 'A convicted sex offender who admitted downloading child pornography from the Internet at a Lee County [Florida] Public Library has been indicted in federal court ... Lee County Library Director Cynthia Cobb said the library system has installed software that blocks pornography on computers used by children. But computers used by adults have full links to the Internet.' A Los Angeles Times article reported that 'A convicted child molester routinely used computers at the Los Angeles Central Library to collect and distribute child pornography and was arrested after planning what he thought would be a sexual liaison with six youngsters--one as young as 3, police said.' (2/11/1999). A survey of 452 libraries, with only 27 percent responding, revealed 2,062 admitted problem incidents involving Internet pornography. 'Librarians witnessed adults instructing children in how to find pornography, adults trading in child pornography, and incidents involving both adults and minors engaging in public masturbation at Internet terminals. Analysis of computer logs from just three urban libraries revealed thousands of incidents that went unreported, indicating that the 2,062 incidents represent only a fraction of the total incidents nationwide.' The information is in Congressional record and cited in the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling on the Children's Internet Protection Act: Dangerous Access 2000 Edition: Uncovering Internet Pornography in America's Libraries, available at http://www.frc.org/get/b1063.cfm. Keeping in mind that Internet access in libraries is free and untraceable, hindering law enforcement from solving sex crimes against children, Illinois lawmakers must support HB 2458. It's the role of government to protect its citizenry." [P2S: BINGO! EXACTLY AS WE HAVE BEEN SAYING! THE ALA INTENTIONALLY LIES IN THE FACE OF THE LAW AND CHILDREN CONTINUE TO GET RAPED AND MOLESTED! ALSO SEE AGAIN THAT FILTERING ONLY A FEW COMPUTERS DOES NOT STOP THE MOLESTATIONS.] |
| 3/9/05 | Town Library Gets Mean | "Better return those overdue library books - they could land you in jail. [A victim of library disproportionality] of Burlington, Wash., called police to his home on Feb. 22 about a case of mail theft. But the cops found [he] had a warrant out for 'detaining city property' and missing a related court date. They promptly clapped the cuffs on the 20-year-old man. Turned out he had 18 books, worth a total of $268, long past due to the Burlington Public Library. 'I told [the police], "They're right on the table, take them,"' [he] told KOMO-TV of Seattle. 'They said, "No, we have a warrant, we have to arrest you."' [He] spent about an hour in the county lockup before promising to appear in court." [P2S: LOOK! NOT RETURNING BOOKS LANDS YOU IN THE SLAMMER! BUT WE'VE SEEN THAT ASSAULTING GIRLS IN PUBLIC LIBRARIES OCCASIONED BY DEFIANCE OF THE LAW IS EXCUSED AS "UNFORTUNATE"! See also here.] |
| 3/8/05 | ASU Porn Computing Policies Unlikely to Change; Recent Incidents Not Enough to Alter Rules at University | "Despite two reported incidents of people viewing sexual images of children at ASU libraries in February, no changes are planned for the libraries' computing policies. A female student reported ... on Feb. 23 that a 22-year-old Phoenix man was viewing child pornography in Fletcher Library.... The case is classified as inactive because ... all data is erased from RAM drives after 10 minutes of non-use.... In Hayden Library, a 44-year-old Phoenix man was arrested Feb. 4 after he allegedly downloaded images of clothed girls in provocative poses on a computer. .... State law requires public libraries to provide filtered Internet access to minors, but ASU libraries do not use filtering software because they are academic libraries that do not cater to children, said Sherrie Schmidt, dean of the Tempe campus libraries. .... 'Because we're an academic library as opposed to a public library, we can ask that children be accompanied by an adult,' Schmidt said. .... 'If ... [a person viewing pornography] wasn't engaging people in a disruptive way, we probably wouldn't have anything to do with that person because we're not on patrol,' Schmidt said. .... ASU spokesman Manny Romero said the pair of recent reports 'is causing some concern to the University,' but University librarians said the incidents do not constitute a phenomenon that would need to be addressed with policy changes. 'I'm not ready to rewrite policy based on basically one incident out here,' Myers said. Schmidt echoed that sentiment. 'I think we would have to see more incidents before we began changing policies,' she said." [P2S: Look carefully at this article and see 1) two Internet child porn incidents in a single month, 2) use of computer memory that is destroyed after 10 minutes of nonuse so the police were frustrated in their investigations, and it's likely the library does this to defy the US Patriot Act, 3) the psychobabble excuses for why the library needs not follow the law of the land, 4) the admission that viewing pornography is perfectly fine with the librarians, 5) the University's concerns are assuaged by the very librarians defying the law, and the University shows no backbone, 6) the librarians intentionally mislead people saying two incidents in a month is "basically one incident" and "does not constitute a phenomenon" and they need to see more child porn before that will even start thinking of filters, although two incidents in February is a rate of 24 per year. ASU ADMINISTRATION -- YOU ARE BEING INTENTIONALLY MISLED BY YOUR LIBRARIANS WHO ARE LIKELY INTENTIONALLY DEFYING THE US PATRIOT ACT, CIPA, AND THE US SUPREME COURT, THEREBY DIRECTLY EXPOSING YOUR COMMUNITY TO PHYSICAL DANGERS AND LEGAL DAMAGES. GET A BACKBONE AND REQUIRE YOUR LIBRARIANS TO COMPLY WITH THE LAW. Two months later, the criminals strike again -- will the library finally act?: Sex Offender Nabbed at ASU, May 14, 2005.] |
| 3/4/05 | Illinois Filtering Bill Defeated Again | "By a vote of 8–6, the judiciary and civil law committee of the Illinois House of Representatives killed a mandatory [I]nternet filtering bill March 2. It was the ninth time filtering legislation was defeated in the state, according to the Illinois Library Association, which had fought the bill. .... 'Our success is due to the many calls and e-mail messages from the library community, the other coalition members, and the many citizens who shared our concerns,' ILA Executive Director Robert P. Doyle said in a press release...." [P2S: The radical left here brags about mobilizing their "library community" and "other coalition members" (such as the ACLU, Planned Parenthood, etc.) likely to mislead the legislators. Citizens need to tell their legislators that times have change in nine years, US v. ALA of 2003 now makes filtering perfectly legal, and the ALA/ACLU/Planned Parenthood coalition does not get to dictate the law of the land. Are there family-oriented groups in Illinois who can counter this radical left, law-defying, child endangering coalition the next time around?] |
| 3/4/05 | The Cornell Daily Sunrise, Sunset | "On Monday, The Sun printed a revised list of things you should be doing to make the most of your time here at Cornell University. Obviously, sex in the library is at the top of that list. In a remarkable coincidence, sex in the library made the top of another list in The Sun the very next day ('Top 10 Places to Hook Up,' Opinion, March 1). This must be in the Pornology (the study of porn) library." [P2S: "Everyone with half a sense of adventure aspires to have sex in the library."] |
| 3/3/05 | Internet Restricted on Faculty Computers; Certain Websites are Now Blocked on Faculty Computers; Student Machines Remain Unaffected | "In an attempt to curb recreational use of the Internet, a filtering system has been installed on staff and faculty computers to eliminate visits to pornographic, adult gaming and adult gambling sites. .... In September, the college began monitoring staff and faculty activity online to determine the amount of time spent visiting websites not used for institutional or administrative purposes. .... Once the software was installed, 'we saw there were abuses,' said Kossler. However, faculty members are concerned about restricting certain websites, said Kay Dabelow, president of the Academic Senate. .... Kossler sees things differently. 'Staff computers belong to the college and are provided to employees to do their job,' he said. 'Using them for porn or gambling is inappropriate.' Not all faculty members see the filter as a threat, including Bruce Carter, dean of natural sciences. 'I don't see that it's a particular problem,' he said. 'I don't see that during my hours I should be going into those sites. I should be doing that on my own time.'" [P2S: That last sentence is unintentionally funny!] |
| 2/27/05 | Oak Park Library Alters Web Access; Facilities Around County Balance Interests of Adult, Youth Patrons | "A complaint about patrons viewing pornographic material on the Internet at the Oak Park Library has led to changes in the way the library, which serves both the public and Oak Park High School, allows computer access. .... 'We rearranged things and set up two terminals so that accidental viewing is impossible,' said McCormack. .... 'Parents just want to be sure that children are not accidentally exposed to inappropriate sites, adult Web sites, pornography or whatever,' McCormack said, 'while we have to not trample on the First Amendment rights of adult patrons.' .... McCormack said she has been told that there are at least two patrons who come in regularly to view pornographic Web sites. .... Starrett Kreissman, director of library services for Ventura County, said, ... 'We have moved computers, brought in privacy screens and required their use.' .... 'The filtering company decides what is filtered; that's been one of the biggest problems,' Kreissman said. Kreissman said that students may not be able to access Web sites because they are using search terms that have been filtered out. She gave the example of searching for 'breast cancer,' which would be blocked. .... Steve Brogden, director of the Thousand Oaks and Newbury Park libraries, agreed that filters can't do everything. 'They give you a false sense of security,' said Brogden. .... The Thousand Oaks libraries' computers are not filtered but have a strict policy requiring that children in sixth grade and below must be accompanied by a parent when using the Internet. .... Douglas said if there is a complaint, the patron is asked to log off the computer and leave and may lose library Internet privileges. At the three Oxnard libraries, Internet terminals are filtered, and patrons must ask librarians to unblock individual sites, said Barbara Murray, library director." [P2S: Oxnard libraries have it correct. All other libraries mentioned in this article have literally rearranged the deck chairs on the Titanic. See how the librarians are falling all over themselves to spout the lies the ALA has programmed them to spout -- anything to defy US v. ALA that requires filters on all computers. For example, one library says they don't filter but parents are required to be with children at the computers. Well a little girl in a Philadelphia public library was raped and left for dead when she was in the bathroom in a library where the criminal would not have been but for the unfiltered access--an acceptable use policy did not protect the girl. WARNING TO OAK PARK COMMUNITY AND SURROUNDING AREA: YOUR LIBRARIANS ARE KNOWINGLY PLACING YOUR CHILDREN AT GREAT RISK, AND YOUR COMMUNITY IS NOW PLACED ON NOTICE THAT, IF ANY MOLESTATIONS OCCUR IN YOUR LIBRARIES, PUNITIVE DAMAGES SHOULD BE AWARDED TO SEND THE MESSAGE THAT LIBRARIES SHOULD FOLLOW THE LAW OF THE LAND, NOT THE DEFIANCE OF THE ALA.] |
| 2/24/05 | Heights Library Plans Renovations, Shutdown | "The Morningside Heights Public Library will shut down this March for an overhaul. .... Most libraries in the New York Public Library System have children's books separated from the adult's and young adult's sections, she explained, but ... children and adults share the same desks, aisles, and computers on the second floor. .... 'Libraries used to be used for reading and studying,' the woman said, speaking on behalf of 'faithful library users in the neighborhood.' 'Now, in the afternoon, lots of 10-12 year-olds are monopolizing the computers, looking for porno sites. Then they run back and forth looking at the juicy parts,' she said. Despite other complaints of this nature, most readers at the library were generally in good spirits and satisfied with the services provided by the Morningside Heights branch." [P2S: This library, while citing the ALA as gospel, actually uses filters. Evidently they are ineffective or easily bypassed (as the ALA recommends) if "lots of 10-12 year-olds" are looking at "porno" sites for "the juicy parts." Will someone please tell us why the filters are not working as expected?] |
| 2/19/05 | Man Sentenced to 35-70 Years for Attacking Girl in Public Library | "A homeless man who tried to rape an 8-year-old girl and left her for dead in the bathroom of a Center City library has been sentenced to 35 to 70 years in prison. .... [At the Independence Branch of the Free Library, t]he girl was found unconscious and partially undressed, wedged between a toilet and a wall. She was hospitalized in critical condition. 'The violence of this crime is unspeakable. No words can describe what this little girl went through ... It was an unfinished murder,' Assistant District Attorney Deborah Harley told the judge. 'As soon as this little girl screamed, he grabbed her neck and squeezed what he thought was the life out of her. And then, when she was limp, he pulled down his pants, and pulled down her pants, and tried to rape her,' Harley said. Harley said the girl, now 9, continues to be unable to dress and feed herself and is afraid to be alone. " [P2S: Sadly, library rapes and attempted rapes are real, victims are forever damaged for want of Internet filters that libraries refuse to install despite the law, and victims are forced to ask the public for assistance. Isn't it sad the ALA's defiance of the law is so out of control that little girls suffer this way and are forced to asked for donations from the public? What should happen is the library and the ALA should be sued for compensatory and punitive damages so the rape and pillaging of children by libraries that defy the law occurs no more in the USA. This little girl still suffers because the ALA's sexual agenda takes precedence over protecting children even in the face of the law and the US Supreme Court. EVERYONE PLEASE HELP THIS LITTLE GIRL ATTACKED IN A PUBLIC LIBRARY BY A REPEAT OFFENDER THE LIBRARY AND THE ALA REFUSED TO STOP. See also 35-70 Years for Trying to Rape Girl, 8, in Library, Man Gets Prison for Attacking Girl, and Homeless Man Sentenced in Central Library Attack.] |
| 2/18/05 | Senate Committee Rejects Money for Porn Filters on Library Computers | "A [Virginia] House bill requiring public libraries to put software filters on their computers to block pornography failed to muster enough votes in a Senate committee today ... on a four-to-four vote by the Senate Finance Committee. A majority was necessary to move the bill to the Senate floor. Supporters say it's too easy to access pornography on a library computers, and even though filters are not foolproof, at least they would help. But Senator Edward Houck, an administrator in Fredericksburg's public schools says he's found filters on his school's computers to be counterproductive. He says he couldn't access the Code of Virginia on his school computer because some state laws have sexually explicit language." [P2S: This is an OUTRAGE. A handful of people, no one person, stops a bill to protect children because one biased (he is a school administrator and the ALA is entrenched in schools), uneducated (he has a bad experience with his school's filter and does not know there are better ways to use the software and better software altogether), and uncaring (he cares not about protecting children from pornography or molestation at public library computers and he cares not about truly representing his constituency) Senator doesn't know filters can be temporarily disabled under US v. ALA. This is an outrage and Virginians will suffer for the thinking or lack thereof of this one man. Politicians may be protected from law suit for bad decisions but the libraries are not. Virginians, prepare to sue your libraries and the ALA when the pornography and child molestation cases start rolling in courtesy of that one vote.] |
| 2/18/05 | Surfing Web on Wireless Wave | "About one-quarter of the public libraries and two-thirds of the academic libraries around the country have enabled laptop users to connect to the Internet on a radio frequency, said Carol Brey-Casiano, president of the [ALA]. .... Laptop users are subjected to the same rules as patrons using library computer stations, including penalties for visiting illegal Web sites. In some metro libraries, laptop users also are subjected to the same Internet filters designed to protect children from pornography. .... In Hennepin County, the library avoids applying universal Internet filters by declining federal money. 'We try to balance the citizen's right for information and our responsibility to youth,' Ryan said." [P2S: Another library refusing federal funds to keep the pornography free-flowing into the library to fulfill the ALA's sexual agenda. This refusal to accept federal funds possibly shows the ALA's nationwide campaign to raise money for libraries is a sham designed in part to enable libraries to remain unfiltered despite the law.] |
| 2/17/05 | FBI Targets Pedophilia Advocates; Little-Known Group Promotes 'Benevolent' Sex | "On its Web site and newsletters, the North American Man/Boy Love Association advocates sex between men and boys and cites ancient Greece to justify the practice. It goes by the acronym NAMBLA, and the FBI has been following it for years, linking it to pedophilia and recently infiltrating it with an agent successful enough to be asked to join the group's steering committee. .... It also says children should have the right to have sex with older men and that such relationships are 'benevolent.' The 26-year-old organization wants to overturn statutory rape laws and free molesters from prison, and encourages members to send Christmas cards to jailed molesters. .... NAMBLA holds annual national conferences and monthly meetings around the country. [NAMBLA] made headlines in San Francisco 12 years ago when a television station discovered a local chapter meeting monthly in a public library. .... The [ACLU] has come to the defense of the group's leaders and publications." [P2S: Lovely! Public libraries allowing child molesters to have monthly meetings in the library! Well the ALA is also defended by the ACLU and meets on a regular basis to discuss taking actions that may result in the same crimes against children, so perhaps the libraries are perfect for child molesters to meet. The FBI should target the ALA.] |
| 2/16/05 | Residents Say Library Used for Viewing Pornography; Constitutional Issues Involved |  "Several Oak Park residents say they are outraged
after discovering that two middle-aged male patrons of the Oak Park
High School library frequently use the facility's computer terminals to
view pornographic websites. [T]he men spend time each day
at the library looking at electronic porn. One woman said she
spoke to authorities, but was told that adult
citizens have the right through the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment
to view any website, pornographic or otherwise, at public libraries. The Oak Park library is unique because it serves both public school students and the general public.
The challenge for Ventura County library and Oak Park school district
officials is to protect the rights of underage students and the First
Amendment rights of adults. .... According to authorities, the Internet law only applies to libraries that receive federal aid,.
Starrett Kreissman, library director for Ventura County, said the Oak
library doesn't receive any federal aid. Years before the law was
enacted, the Ventura County library system filtered all Internet access
for its patrons until a local group sued and won its case based on the
First Amendment. Today, the library
system remains under a court order that states all adults must receive
unmonitored, unfiltered access to the Internet." [P2S:
More librarians ignoring US v. ALA and endangering their
community. Nice excuse: the school receives no federal
funds so don't use filters to protect children. And a court order
to provide unfiltered access is like a court order to allow all
pedophiles to work at day care centers; that court order is obsolete in
light of US v. ALA but the community is afraid to act. This
community is in deep denial. See also Man Surfs Porn At Local Library, Feb. 17, NBC4 TV, and Joint-Use Library Corners Porn Surfers, Feb. 18, ALA.] |
| 2/16/05 | Police: Man Viewed Sexual Images at ASU; Man Used Hayden Library Computers For Privacy | "A Phoenix man who allegedly downloaded images of children in sexual poses at Hayden Library was arrested and charged with eight counts of sexual exploitation of a minor earlier this month. Police reportedly found thousands of images of young girls on USB drives that [the] 44-year-old ... used at the library on Feb. 1.... .... He reportedly told police he looks at the images 'just about' every day and that he used Hayden Library 'due to the amount of time he could be online and the amount of privacy he could have at certain terminals.'" [P2S: Evidence that Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon's plan is working, the criminal here chose a nearby library with more "privacy.".] |
| 2/15/05 | East Valley News Briefs; Library User Indicted on Child Porn Charges | "An Arizona State University library patron who is suspected of downloading child pornography, has been indicted on six counts of sexual exploitation of a minor, police said Monday. [A] registered sex offender with child pornography convictions in Oregon and Tennessee, is being held on $108,000 bond. Investigators from the ASU Public Safety Department say another library patron saw [him] viewing the pornography. When police responded, they found [him] with a removable computer drive, onto which he downloaded the images." [P2S: Another library that adheres to the ALA so-called Bill of Rights.] |
| 2/14/05 | Child Porn Suspect Awaits Monday Arraignment; Louisville Man Faces More Than Two Dozen Charges | "A Louisville man is expected to be arraigned Monday after his arrest on more than two dozen charges of portraying a minor in a sexual performance. .... Detectives with Metro police's Crimes Against Children Unit began investigating [him] after he was accused of approaching a girl at the Bon Air Library." |
| 2/9/05 | Board Pleased With Actions Taken By Library | "Ardmore Public Library Director Daniel Gibbs got a 'thumbs up' from his board Tuesday for the manner in which he addressed a complaint from an Ardmore mother who said her children were exposed to inappropriate images at the library. .... Gibbs said he would continue to investigate filtering options for the library as well." [P2S: True to his word, see this 4/13/05 article entitled "Public Library Board Votes Unanimously For Filters."] |
| 2/9/05 | Library Says Its Safety Measures Work | "A weekend incident in which a man was accused of masturbating in front of a teenage girl at the La Crosse Public Library, while unfortunate, shows the monitoring system works, officials said Tuesday. .... Police were called to the library just after 4 p.m. Sunday after a 13-year-old girl alerted a librarian that a man sitting between her and her brother was looking at pornographic Web sites on a public computer and masturbating. The teen reported that at one point, [the masturbator] tapped her on the shoulder to get her attention, then smiled while he continued to masturbate. Library Director Kelly Krieg-Sigman said [the masturbator] has been barred from all library property, and police will be called if he trespasses. .... In the complaint, police said [the masturbator] admitted he was masturbating but said he was trying to be discreet. [He said] he masturbated at the library once a week. Patricia Boge, the library's community relations coordinator ... said the computers do not have Internet filters but those who sign in agree to not view pornographic sites." [P2S: An unfiltered library has a repeat masturbator and the response is to kick him out of the library, but not to install filters. Can anyone really argue that the library is not responsible for criminal activity where the US Supreme Court requires it to filter but the librarians refuse to comply with the Court? Look at this library's web site where the teen web page links to sexually explicit sites like Go Ask Alice where teens can learn about how to perform bestiality, autoerotic asphyxiation, fisting, etc. Can anyone really argue that the library is not pushing pornography into children's minds? What can you expect from a library so steeped in ALA doctrine that they invite a former ALA president to be a keynote speaker and spend up to $1,000 to attend a Illinois Library Association meeting. By the way, if your child observed someone masturbating in a public library after being tapped on the shoulder to gain her attention, then the guy smiles and continues masturbating, would you characterize that as "unfortunate" as the library has? CITIZENS OF LA CROSSE: BASED ON THIS STORY, YOUR CHILDREN ARE IN DANGER -- THIS IS *YOUR* PUBLIC LIBRARY, NOT THE ALA'S! DO SOMETHING! Once again we see so-called acceptable use policies are an abject failure.] |
| 2/6/05 | MTV Knows No Shame | "[MTV's] urge to sexualize children as young as possible was also made painfully plain by a recent report from the Sundance Film Festival, where Variety's Todd McCarthy found that depictions of sexually voracious and manipulative teenagers are taking over the art-film world.... One of the films McCarthy actually liked ... includes ... the barely pubescent '11-ish' son react[ing] to his parents' divorce by masturbating in the library stacks and smearing the result around school." [P2S: Masturbating in libraries happens often enough that movies feature the act and its result being "smeared" around schools.] |
| 2/5/05 | Bill for Porn Filters on Library Computers Passes House | "Public libraries [in Virginia] would be required to put pornography and obscenity filters on their computers under legislation approved by the House of Delegates. .... 'My concern is that every time the word breast or rump-roast comes up, we're going to censor it,' said Del. Albert C. Eisenberg, D-Arlington. The measure, which passed 72-17, now goes to the Senate." [P2S: This article shows the effectiveness of the ALA lies -- a politician deciding the fate of all Virginia children says filters are censorship although the US Supreme Court said the exact opposite almost two years ago. This is truly scary.] |
| 2/4/05 | Internet 'Filtering' Bill Stalled in Legislature; ACLU Says Measure Could Block Gay Sites on Library Computers | "A committee in the Virginia State Senate rejected by a tie vote a bill [SB 882] that would cut off state funds to public libraries unless they install software to block Web sites depicting subject matter defined as 'obscene' under Virginia law. Opponents of the bill, including the Virginia chapter of the ACLU, say so-called 'filtering' software programs usually fail to block all Internet sites being targeted while they often succeed in blocking other sites that are not sexually oriented, such as gay or safer sex-related sites aimed at preventing the spread of AIDS. .... Senator Mark Obenshain (R-Harrisonburg) introduced this year's version in conjunction with an identical bill introduced in the Virginia House of Delegates by Del. Samuel Nixon (R-Chesterfield). At a Jan. 10 news conference, Nixon said his bill ... would make Virginia law consistent with an existing federal law that requires public libraries to install blocking devices on computers with Internet access as a condition for receiving federal funds, the AP said. Nixon noted that the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the use of 'anti-pornography' Internet filters in public libraries, the AP reported. .... [G]ay groups have expressed strong opposition to Internet 'filter' laws, saying they often force public libraries or other institutions to install software that blocks non-sexually oriented gay sites, including sites for gay youth groups." [P2S: Despite US v. ALA, the ALA, in alliance with the ACLU and so-named "gay groups," have decided to bring their defiance of the law to Virginia. While telling Virginians they must make up their own minds ("the ACLU believes the decision on whether to install such filters should be left to individual libraries"), they tell Virginians not to use filters because they overblock web sites and the technology is no good. After almost two years, one would think they would stop making believe US v. ALA doesn't exist. Unfortunately, they continue to do this because they continue to fool the public, few do anything to stop them, communities continue to lose local control, and children continue to be raped and molested. In fact those who try to stop them are cast as "censorship nuts" and worse. VIRGINIANS: TELL YOUR LEGISLATORS TO READ US V. ALA SO THEY DECIDE WHAT VIRGINIA DOES, NOT THE ALA/ACLU/GAY COALITION ADVOCATING DEFIANCE OF THE LAW.] |
| 2/1/05 | Library Computers Moved for Additional Safeguards | "Ardmore Public Library Director Daniel Gibbs ordered 10 public-access computers moved Friday after an Ardmoreite reporter interviewed him last week in preparation for a story about children being exposed to inappropriate images at the library. ....SB 882'We made the change to further safeguard children,' Gibbs said. With the new setup, all the Internet-accessible computers will face either the reference desk or circulation desk, making it easier for librarians to monitor user activity. .... The library requires that children who use the Internet-accessible computers be accompanied by a parent or guardian or have written permission to use the computers without supervision." [P2S: The library requires children to be accompanied, but the article of a few days ago described "unsupervised" children viewing topless women. How can a library that allows violations of its own rules be trusted even if the deck chairs on the Titanic have been shuffled? Filters are the only effective answer. The librarian says he is doing this for the children but it is more likely he is doing this to prevent the application of filters. See other newspaper stories below where people just don't care who is watching them do what and where. NEW INFORMATION: LIBRARY ADDS FILTERS! See this 4/13/05 article entitled "Public Library Board Votes Unanimously For Filters."] |
| 1/30/05 | Parents Shocked by Online Images Viewed by Children on Library Computers | "A local mom says she was shocked when her children
[ages 9 and 13] were recently exposed to inappropriate images being
viewed by computer users at the Ardmore Public Library [when] their attention was drawn to two, young, unsupervised boys who were already online. 'One of the boys appeared to be 6 or 7,
and the other was a little bit older. They were giggling and
pointing to the screen,' Amon said. 'As we passed, we glanced at
the screen. They were looking at images of topless women.'
Amon said she immediately approached a library employee. 'I asked
"Don't you have filters on the computers?"' Amon said. 'I was shocked
when I was told no. The employee told me the boys would be told
to get off the site, and if they were caught a second time, their
parents would be called.' Amon said she was disturbed by the fact
the library did not provide safeguards on the computers. However, she and her friend allowed their children to get online.
But before the visit was over, Amon got another shock. 'My daughter told me she thought a man at a nearby computer was looking at things he shouldn't,' she said. The child later described seeing a naked man and woman performing a sex act on the screen. The computer user this time was an adult male. Amon said she later telephoned Ardmore Public Library director Daniel Gibbs to discuss the two incidents. 'What he said was pretty much what the other employee said, which was unless someone reported it, they didn't know. He said when it was reported, people were told to stop and if it continued, they couldn't use the computers,' Amon said. 'Now, I'm not trying to cause trouble. I think what people look at on computers in their own homes is their business. But when they do it in public places and my children are exposed, then it's my business,' she said. Amon said the experience has also caused her to be concerned that predators may be using the library's computers to prey on child victims in chat rooms or via e-mail. .... 'Even though we have never been made aware this was happening, I did go to the library and speak with Mr. Gibbs,' [Ardmore Deputy Chief Rickey D.] Lawrence said. 'There are laws that protect the public from viewing any type of indecent materials in public places. I discussed the matter with him, and he educated me on how the computer use process at the library works. It is the Ardmore Police Department's understanding that incidences of someone displaying lewd or indecent materials on Internet sites is very rare at the library, but it has happened. We then discussed the protection of children. Mr. Gibbs was very helpful, concerned and understanding.' .... City manager Dan Parrott confirmed the public library does receive a portion of local tax dollars. However, he said city commissioners do not have authority or control over library operations. 'All the commission does is make appointments to the library board. The library board has the authority to make the budget, hire and make policy,' Parrott said. The only thing the commission can do is voice their pleasure or displeasure over what happens.' Unlike most other libraries in the area, APL does not use anti-pornography blocking filters on its public-access computers. .... In Utah, city and county libraries that don't use anti-pornography filters are ineligible for state funds. Similar legislation was introduced in the Virginia General Assembly this year. .... Gibbs said the APL board has considered filtering in the past and will likely continue to study the issue. .... 'We were concerned the filtering software wasn't effective enough and would offer parents a false sense of security,' Gibbs said. We were also concerned about overblocking.' [T]he Chickasaw Regional Library System headquartered in Ardmore [has] a filtering device ... to block objectionable sites on all the libraries' computers. Adults and students conducting legitimate research can ask to have specific sites unblocked. The Plainview School District uses filtering hardware that blocks inappropriate sites on every computer in the entire network. .... The Ardmore School District uses an Internet filtering system which blocks by key words and known Web sites. .... McIntosh, who also is president of the Oklahoma Library Association, said the OLA supports local control and recommends each board should do what is best for their local library. .... I definitely recognize the threats posed by the Internet,' Gibbs said. The library has never taken that lightly.'" |
| [P2S: KIDS
GET EXPOSED TO PORN AT THE PUBLIC LIBRARY BY OTHER KIDS LOOKING AT
TOPLESS WOMEN. THEY MOVE TO ANOTHER COMPUTER. THEY THEN GET
EXPOSED TO PORN A SECOND TIME BY ANOTHER PERSON, THIS TIME LOOKING AT
INTERCOURSE! IN A PUBLIC LIBRARY! We count a
total of six kids looking at porn accidentally and/or
purposefully. Hello? Anyone home? The library
director says they are not filtered but have been thinking of it for a
long time because 1) filters are ineffective, 2) parents would get a
false sense of security, and 3) filters would overblock.
First, the ALA has directed libraries to drag out decision making as long as possible and this library is doing exactly that. As to 1) filters are very effective -- if they were not effective the US Supreme Court case of US v. ALA would be totally useless and the SCOTUS does not decide useless cases. Regarding 2) this is a false argument since the single person responsible for public libraries pushing porn into American communities admits that parents are not always in the picture: "We know that there are children out there whose parents do not take the kind of interest in their upbringing and in their existence that we would wish." And 3) the library director is either ignorant of US v. ALA or is intentionally misleading the public -- US v. ALA says where overblocking occurs, a patron need only ask to have the filter temporarily disabled. Now in the face of these erroneous arguments by the library director, the police were "educated" by the library director who was "very helpful, concerned and understanding," and the city manager says all the government can do is "voice their pleasure or displeasure over what happens." Your community needs backbone to do the right thing. First, read US v. ALA so you and your leaders will no longer be lead around by the nose by your library director. It's your public library, not the ALA's. Second, realize inappropriate materials coming in over the unfiltered Internet fall outside of your library's book collection practices, past practices, and current policies, therefore the library board is acting outside of even its broadly defined duties and the town government has every right to step in if the library refuses to act in compliance with the law of the land. Third, your children are not all angels and need protection from porn. The ALA makes fun of this argument claiming, "Only one child out of a trillion billion" might use library computers to find pornography. We guess your public library won the lottery because two boys about 6 or 7 were giggling and pointing at images of topless women. Even if your children are angels, do you want them to see porn? The little girls in this story saw intercourse on the screen. Frankly, their whole lives may be negatively impacted. Last, get motivated to protect your children from predators. Even if you trust all you children, criminals are still attracted to the unfiltered computers and rapes and molestations are happening all across the nation. This is especially bad where the law says to use filters but the ALA intentionally defies the law and advises libraries to do the same. You don't want your children to be next. What makes this case unique is that the victims moved to another computer after observing topless women only to find an adult male looking at people having intercourse. This is outrageous! These children have been doubly negatively affected and the families involved should consider suing the library, the library board, the town, and especially the ALA who is likely directly responsible -- damages could be doubled if each exposure is considered a separate offense. Get some backbone and wipe out the negative influence of the ALA before it wipes out your children!] NEW INFORMATION: LIBRARY ADDS FILTERS! THE LIBRARY DIRECTOR OVERCOMES HIS EARLIER ALA-STYLE OBJECTIONS TO PROTECT THE COMMUNITY! See this 4/13/05 article entitled "Public Library Board Votes Unanimously For Filters." |
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| 1/29/05 | College Newspaper Editor Arrested on Child Pornography Charges in Fresno | "A Fresno City College newspaper editor was arrested on federal child pornography charges after allegedly admitting he had possessed photos of girls having sex with adults. .... Federal agent Mike Prado said in an affidavit that [the editor] told him his computer use was restricted after being caught viewing incest Web sites in the school library. He said he was aroused by incest tales, ... admitted posting child porn images to a now-defunct Internet news group[, and] acknowledged an online relationship with an Ohio teenager, now age 16 or 17, Prado said. The relationship lasted about two years until the girl's mother found out." |
| 1/29/05 | Library Should Be Open Book | "[I]t's time ... for the unhappy civilian members of the Ottawa Public Library Board to remember who really is in charge of the OPL budget. It's Mayor Bob Chiarelli and the 21 city councillors who sit around the council chamber. They hold the purse strings, so you can stop trying to protect your little empire of books and work with them, instead of treating them like the enemy. .... What's the problem? Why not ... end this drama where you act like the politicians on the board are interlopers of some secret society you're desperate to protect? Remember the name, people. It's the Ottawa PUBLIC library board. And if you don't have something to hide, quit acting like you do. .... You're the library board, not the protectors of the free world. .... Just think of all those news releases you send out.... (Of course, this is the same organization which, when confronted with a flurry of negative publicity following the furor over access to the Internet -- porn and all -- adopted the Don't Talk to the Media Policy.) .... In truth, politicians ... are city councillors and they have the right and the opportunity to speak openly wherever they choose." [P2S: Library boards think they run towns, and town politicians think they have to do whatever the library boards want. They don't. Are you in a city government intimidated by some public library board? Don't be. And notice the "Don't Talk to the Media Policy" when it comes to Internet porn. As the author says, it's a "PUBLIC" library!] |
| 1/28/05 | Former MU Prof Guilty of Child Porn | "A former Millersville University professor has pleaded guilty to possessing videos depicting child pornography on a college-owned computer ... after a university employee found dozens of files, including some that contained images of children having sex with men.... .... He had been a science librarian at Millersville University for about 10 years, since 1995. He is still listed as an assistant professor at Ganser Library on the college's Web site [and] has a master's degree in ... library science, had been responsible for teaching science and English students library research skills. .... According to a police affidavit, 33 of the videos found on Studdard's computer in Ganser Library show young males involved in sexual acts with each other or an older man. One of the files showed a young girl and boy engaging in intercourse. .... [He was told] to remove the programs and files from his computer [and he] said that the files were deleted [b]ut ... the files were still on the computer, in a new file. The college reported [him] to the police." [P2S: Here's a librarian with the ALA's vaunted degree in Library Science using his ALA-approved library research skills to download child pornography on his public library computer. Filters might have prevented this. The library's first reaction was just to tell him to delete the files. The ALA will surely award this library it's highest honor for freedom of speech!] |
| 1/26/05 | No Action on Porn; Council Sees No Reason to Meddle in Library Affairs | "Hampton attended Tuesday's council meeting to request that the city send a letter to the Moffat County Library Board urging the library to install pornography filtering software. 'I don't even know why we're having this discussion,' he said. Why we have pornography displayed in a public library is beyond me.' .... Library director Donna Watkins attended the meeting to explain that a cost-effective solution to Internet filtering had been found and installed. .... The filters, Watkins said, bring the library in full compliance with state and |
