ALA and ACLU File Internet Filtering Lawsuits
Message Posted April 2, 2001
The Children's Internet Protection Act (CIPA), that will require E-rate and TLCF recipients to certify compliance with Internet policy and filtering requirements, was formally attacked as unconstitutional this week by both the American Library Association and the American Civil Liberties Union. Both suits were filed in Philadelphia, the U.S. District Court of Pennsylvania on March 20.
Although the CIPA filtering requirements apply to both public and nonpublic schools and libraries, the overwhelming thrust of both suits concerns libraries. Key points made in the suits include:
(a) Filtering software currently available to comply with the Act's requirements will inevitably block access to vast amounts of constitutionally protected speech.
(b) No matter how small a proportion of federal funds are used to purchase Internet access and internal connections services, the Act would require blocking on 100% of the facilities.
(c) The Act employs hopelessly vague terminology in defining the disabling process for "bona fide research."
Full copies of the ALA and ACLU complaints are available on the Web at:
http://www.ala.org/cipa/cipacomplaint.pdf
http://www.aclu.org/court/multnomah.pdf
The Federal Communications Commission is currently developing implementation rules regarding the federal legislation as it stands, and is required to have such rules released by April 20, 2001. We'll keep you informed as new developments arise.
-- Julie
Julie Tritt Schell
Executive Policy Specialist
Pennsylvania Department of Education
333 Market Street, 10th Floor
Harrisburg, PA 17126
(717) 705-4486
(717) 787-7222 - fax
jtritt@state.pa.us
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