CIPA was passed in 2000 after the court deep-sixed two previous attempts to regulate Internet porn (To avoid being filtered ourselves, we won't spell out p*o* again). The newly upheld law essentially requires that public schools and libraries install blocking software on all computers accessible to the public -- whether or not they will be used by children under age 16 -- the wards that CIPA has taken under its wing.

Surfing - in school!
The filtering dispute exists against a background of exploding use of the Internet by young people: In 2001, almost 60 percent of kids aged 5 to 17 used the Internet, according to researcher Paul Resnick of the University of Michigan. By 2002, 76.9 percent of U.S. schools were using filters, according to Quality Education Data's Internet Usage in Teaching 2002 report.

These statistics, and the glut of *orn sites available at the click of a mouse, have fostered the federal interest in preventing kids from viewing p**n.

In schools and libraries, Internet blocking (or "filtering") software generally operates through the server or network, not in the individual computer. When the user requests a website, the software checks a list of banned sites, then displays the page or blocks it -- sometimes without any notice to the user.

Even though both the humans and the electronic robots that maintain the blocking lists are prone to error, the court held that CIPA safeguarded the first-amendment rights of library users because anyone 16 or older could simply ask a librarian to shut off the filters.

Problem solved?
The "shut-it-off" solution may sound benign, but making that request could be embarrassing, says Kristin Eschenfelder, an assistant professor in the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Library and Information Studies. "Imagine you're a 16-year-old kid in Provo, Utah, and you think you are gay, and your mom and dad know the librarians. Are you going to be comfortable asking for [the filter] to be turned off?" The victims of the new law, she says, "will be at the fringe, people who are already at risk in certain areas... the oddballs from all ends of the spectrum. Everybody has a right to use the library, but will it get back to your family that you asked for the filter to be turned off?"

The court decision alarmed many librarians, who denounced it as censorship, an infringement on the free speech that is a core value for a profession that celebrates "Banned Books Week."

Some problems start with the definition used in the law. CIPA specifies that library computers not deliver content that would be graphically obscene or "harmful to minors." Librarians insist that both standards are elusive. "Harmful to minors" is vague. And only human beings can interpret whether a graphic file is obscene.

"Any analyses that have been done pretty clearly show that the companies are not following the legal definition about what is 'harmful to minors' or obscene," says Jane Pearlmutter, associate director of the School of Library and Information Studies at UW-Madison, "so the decisions are not being made in any consistent way."

At any rate, the problem that CIPA is meant to solve is overstated, says Pearlmutter, who provides continuing education to librarians around the United States. "I've heard very few librarians saying that it's a big problem, that people are there mainly to search for por*."

No problemo?
Yet as public libraries confront a legal requirement to choose a filter or forego money, they cannot determine just how the filters operate, Pearlmutter says." The reason the ALA [American Library Association] has been so active on this issue is because the filters block so much, and they have called over and over for discussion of what sites are being blocked, who is deciding, and what criteria are being used, and that is never forthcoming [from the filtering companies]".

The ALA held that "the use of filtering software by libraries to block access to constitutionally protected speech violates the Library Bill of Rights. Note in particular paragraph III: "Libraries should challenge censorship in the fulfillment of their responsibility to provide information and enlightenment."

Pity the poor strays" This animal shelter was blocked by an Internet filter during a 2001 test. Image from Much Love

Finally, on a practical note, critics charge, blocking software both under-filters -- allows smut to reach the screen -- and over-filters -- blocks non-p*rnogra*hic stuff. You can see over-filtering in action from this test of Internet filters by Harvard law student Ben Edelman. In 2001, while preparing evidence for an American Civil Liberties Union challenge to CIPA, Edelman found that if you:

Need coping hints after an amputation, you'd have been out of luck if your public library computer was hobbled by the N2H2 filter, which cut off the site as "Adults Only, Pornography."

Want to help stray animals in Los Angeles, you'd have been impounded for surfing to this site -- from a computer leashed by Cyberpatrol or reined in by Websense.

Need to translate English into Urdu? This English-Urdu dictionary was unavailable from a Cyberpatrolled computer, which defined that titillating tome as "Adult/Sexually Explicit."

Don't try cooking up homebrew if you use Smartfilter, which blended the site into its "Mature" category.

Religion may be the opiate of the masses, but Websense swept the Agape Church into its "Adult Content" wastebasket.

Enough fun with filters. How does this software work?

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Terry Devitt, editor; Sarah Goforth, project assistant; S.V. Medaris, designer/illustrator; David Tenenbaum, feature writer; Amy Toburen, content development executive

©2003, University of Wisconsin, Board of Regents.