Hmm is anyone else encountering problems with the images on this blog loading? I’m trying to determine if its a problem on my end or if it’s the blog. Any feed-back would be greatly appreciated.

There have been a handful of incidents over the course of 10 years, where patrons have accessed inappropriate sites, and they were immediately suspended from Internet use as per library policy.

I was very pleased to find this site.I wanted to thank you for this great read!! I definitely enjoying every little bit of it and I have you bookmarked to check out new stuff you post.

“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.

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.