by Etin Jul. 29, 2008, 03:57 AM

Great stuff.. Those involving in child pornography are doing an unforgivable crime and apt punishment should be handled out

by Find lawyers Jun. 16, 2008, 07:19 PM

Acceptable Use Policies like this one are a failure, and this Powhatan case is further evidence.  Criminals never care about such policies.
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I agree that such policies can fail; however, I can’t think of any reasonable alternative.  The Internet is becoming so central to life these days that ensuring public access to it at the library is essential. 

It seems that filters and suspending those who break library policy are the best we can do now.  Libraries can’t guarantee no one will abuse internet access, but they also can’t impair access to the Internet.  It’s a difficult situation for sure.

But I think as time goes on and filter technology improves, this will happen less often.  There are plenty of image recognition technologies in the works, for example, that will potentially make filters much more accurate.

by Dan Kleinman of SafeLibraries.org - Are Children Safe in Public Li Feb. 14, 2008, 07:40 AM

“Lawful use of the Internet is the individual’s responsibility. Any illegal activity involving the Internet and/or library computers shall result in suspension or loss of library privileges. Computer users, using Powhatan County Public Library’s facilities, shall agree to and abide by this policy.”

Acceptable Use Policies like this one are a failure, and this Powhatan case is further evidence.  Criminals never care about such policies.

However, I am happy to hear the library filters and that the filters are usually effective.  That jives with ACLU v. Gonzales, E.D. Pa., March 2007, where an ACLU expert and the court agreed Internet filters are about 95% effective and no longer block out breast cancer and other health-related information—so effective that another law, COPA [Children’s Online Protection Act], was found unconstitutional.

by Denise Varenhorst of Georgia Feb. 13, 2008, 04:10 PM

Denise Varenhorst
President
Family Friendly Libraries

In the Feb. 5th case, the police had the good luck to catch the alleged perpetrator in real time.
However, if they were trying to access records from days or weeks before on a known child predator, they would have reached a dead end.  Criminals appreciate librarys’ overzealous “privacy” policies very much and come to the libray to commit their crimes because they know the library will “flush evidence of their crimes” automatically. Libraries should simply post a sign on every computer stating that the library stores the Internet search data on each computer user’s Internet viewing history for 90 days and makes this available to law enforcement with a court order, search warrant or subpoena.
Right now, child pornographers prefer to use library computers because libraries systematically erase all of the user history data (usually daily) making the anonymous access to illicit websites something that attracts criminals to public libraries, the very place where young children are learning to read and law abiding parents want to feel safe.

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