Cleaning out the stacks.

• Author: Rimensnyder, Sara
• Position: Citings - Internet filtering software in libraries - Brief Article

A new federal law orders libraries to install "filtering" software, to prevent kids from tapping the Internet's seamier educational offerings. The measure, part of the Children's Internet Protection Act signed last December, denies federal funding to libraries that don't set up blocking software. Meanwhile, several states--including Maine, Montana, and Arkansas--are considering their own versions of the federal mandate.

Now the American Library Association, the American Civil Liberties Union, and a growing list of additional plaintiffs are suing to stop the law. They charge that the filters block access to constitutionally protected material, a claim backed in a recent Consumer Reports study that tested six filtering programs on the market today. All of the programs blocked some child-friendly sites. (In a separate study, the program I-Gear blocked even such asexual political groups as he Electronic Frontier Foundation.)

Meanwhile, five out of...