Websites were chosen for the test if they "had any information that would be discussed in a school of medicine or a school of public health," Resnick explained. When the researchers set six filters at minimum restriction, and tried to reach the sites, an average of 1.3 percent were blocked.

That low number hides the fact that some topics faced much greater censorship. Even at the least restrictive setting, Resnick says, "...about 10 percent of the controversial sites were blocked," including sites related to condoms, safe s*x and gay health. At an intermediate setting, he says, 20 percent of ga*-related sites were blocked.

Those results highlight a need to recognize shades of grey in the Internet filtering debate, Resnick says. "The debate has been black-and-white -- do we want the filters or not -- but I think we have to get beyond that and discuss what sort of overrides we want, and how we choose the settings."

Where does this leave the argument?
For better or worse, filters are becoming another expense for libraries, which must either buy software (about $10 to $20 per computer per year at the Chesterfield County libraries) or forego federal money and find another way to control inappropriate use of the Internet.

Linda Mielke, a former President of the Public Library Association, a division of the American Library Association, says it's time to accept filters and move on. Mielke, who directs the Carroll County (Maryland) Public Library, explains her reasoning: "Say I didn't filter, what am I going to argue? I could say the Supreme Court is wrong; I don't think so. I could say it violates the first amendment; it didn't. I could say I don't need the money, but I'm not willing as a custodian of the public library to make any of those arguments -- I'm thinking of the long-term health of the public library system I run."

The Patriot Act allows federal investigators to see library borrowing records. Is the Children's Internet Protection Act another crack in the Bill of Rights?

Key to convincing the court, she says, was the argument that adults who dislike filters can ask a librarian to shut them off. And while many librarians argue that this is difficult or impossible on short notice, because a computer technician might be needed, Mielke insists that with the N2H2 filter at her library, it "takes 5 seconds.... If you go to a blocked site, and that's pretty hard to do, you ask the librarian to unblock it for you."

On the other hand, however, nobody seems ecstatic with the Court decision, at least according to Robert Drechsel, who follows first-amendment issues at the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Wisconsin-Madison . "Everybody seems to acknowledge, even the justices who voted for the decision, that filtering is imperfect, that there is a real risk of over-filtering or under-filtering," he says. "That's the somewhat frustrating thing, the court essentially approved a remedy that it simultaneously admits could sweep too broadly and too narrowly."

Time for a test drive: how about that Why Files filthy filter tour?

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