The city attorney and library commissioner of San Jose, California just completed an investigation of a proposal to put filters on computers in the city's libraries. The report found that filters will cost the city more than $250,000 a year, not to mention the technical and legal problems the staff would be forced to deal with.
According to the
San Jose Mercury News police reported 26 complaints about people viewing pornography and engaging in lewd behavior, all coming from just one of the city's 19 libraries. 17 of those complaints led to arrests or citations. That is up from 6 cases in all the city's libraries in 2005.
Unfortunately, the only recourse the libraries or city have is to either shut off the Internet, or deploy expensive filtering programs. For San Jose, the initial filter setup costs would be $285,000 and then $265,000 annually to maintain it. Those are valuable taxpayer dollars - do we really want to have to waste them on a know failure? Filters will not keep these people (who are clearly looking for pornography) from accessing it and exposing other library users to offensive material.
If we are ever going to effectively protect unwanting Internet users from pornography we must move beyond the idea that filters are a solution. Filters are not the solution; they are speed-bumps.
The CP80 Foundation is pleased to offer free training to individuals who wish to learn more about the Internet, pornography, current laws and the CP80 Internet Channel Initiative.
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