SCN: Filters

[Steve]

x-no-archive: yes  

=========================  


(Carl S. Kaplan, NY Times)---In early 1997, the Minneapolis Public 
Library began giving its patrons unfettered and unlimited access to 
the Internet. The library's First Amendment-inspired policy was 
intended to provide a needed service to the community. But Wendy 
Adamson, a reference desk librarian at the library's central branch, 
said it effectively made her working life a nightmare, and federal 
officials appear poised to agree with her.   

Acting on complaints from Adamson and other librarians at the city's 
central branch library, the Equal Employment Opportunity 
Commission's Minneapolis office ruled last week that the library, by 
exposing its staff to sexually explicit images on unrestricted 
computer terminals, may have allowed for a hostile work 
environment. The blockbuster finding, issued on May 23 following 
an investigation by the agency, came in response to complaints 
filed a year ago by Adamson and 11 of her colleagues.   

Free speech advocates quickly expressed concern that the 
E.E.O.C.'s decision is a dangerous precedent that could pressure 
libraries to aggressively monitor patrons' viewing habits or install 
filtering software as a means to ward off potential discrimination 
suits. But Adamson and Bob Halagan, the lawyer for the librarians, 
hailed the commission's finding as a victory for common sense.   

Adamson said the complaints were filed only after she and other 
librarians repeatedly notified library officials about their concerns 
and detailed what they said were the new policy's negative impact 
on staff and patrons.   

"Our downtown library became a club for a large number of men who 
were viewing pornography all day," Adamson, who has been a 
librarian for over 30 years, said in an interview. "I'd see these men 
at the door at 9 a.m. and some of them would still be there at 9 at 
night."   

Adamson said that while she was sitting at her workplace and doing 
her job, she would look up and see "horrible" stuff on the screens of 
nearby terminals. "I'm talking about torture and sex with animals," 
she said. It was "really demoralizing and depressing."   

Computer printouts of sexually explicit pictures littered the library, 
Adamson said. She said she saw some men at computer terminals 
engage in what appeared to her to be masturbation and that 
computer users would verbally abuse her when she tried to enforce 
time limits.   

The worst part of her day, she said, was watching, helplessly, as 
members of the public -- including children -- encountered unwanted 
sexual images on terminals. Often, she said, a patron who wanted to 
do conventional research would approach a terminal and find that it 
was locked onto a sexually explicit site -- owing to a "quicksand" 
feature some porn sites use that prevents users from leaving the 
site. She said she repeatedly had to calm the patrons and reset the 
terminal's browser.   

"We were told [by administrators] to avert our eyes. But we were 
surrounded by it," she said, adding that library officials did not 
respond to staff complaints about the policy.   

The director of the Minneapolis Public Library, Mary L. Lawson, did 
not return telephone calls. The library's spokesperson released a 
statement, attributed to Lawson, stating that the library would not 
comment on the E.E.O.C.'s finding until it had the opportunity to 
consult with its lawyer and trustees.   

The statement noted, however, that last spring the library adopted 
revised guidelines for Internet use. Among other things, the new 
guidelines include time limits, sign-up procedures requiring 
identification, posted notices prohibiting illegal Internet activity and 
enforcement procedures.   

The E.E.O.C.'s ruling, called a "determination," is a preliminary 
conclusion by the agency that there is reason to believe 
discrimination occurred. The commission will next attempt to 
resolve the matter through mediation. Adamson said the E.E.O.C. 
had privately suggested to the library that it pay each of the 12 
employees $75,000 in damages.   

If the agency's mediation efforts fail -- if the library declines to enter 
settlement discussions or if the E.E.O.C. is unable to secure an 
acceptable settlement -- the matter may be sent to the Department of 
Justice for possible prosecution. In addition, the librarians may elect 
to directly sue the library in court.   

David Rucker, an enforcement supervisor for the E.E.O.C.'s 
Minneapolis office, declined to confirm or deny the E.E.O.C.'s 
investigation of the library, citing his office's policy of 
confidentiality.   

Jan LaRue, senior director of legal studies for the conservative 
Family Research Council, which has consistently lobbied for 
governmental regulation of Internet decency, said that the E.E.O.C.'s 
finding will make libraries across the country "sit up and take 
notice."   

"When libraries face up to the fact that they face a loss of revenues" 
from potential discrimination suits, they will begin to restrict 
patrons' access to sexually explicit material on the Internet, she 
said. LaRue said that she believed nothing less than filtering 
software will solve the problem of a library's hostile work 
environment.   

"The Minneapolis Public Library's current policy is to tell people, 
'Don't touch the paint,'" LaRue said. "But people still touch the paint. 
It's much more effective to keep [sexually explicit images] from 
coming up on the screen as much as possible."   

Eugene Volokh, a law professor at U.C.L.A. who has written 
extensively about the Internet, free speech and workplace 
harassment law, agreed that the E.E.O.C.'s finding would put 
pressure on library trustees to adopt filtering. He added, however, 
that he disagreed with the government's policy of forcing libraries, 
under the threat of discrimination law penalties, to restrict the 
freedom of library users to view legally protected but offensive 
material.   

Of course, a library that uses filtering software on all its terminals 
risks inviting -- and losing -- a First Amendment lawsuit, Volokh said, 
alluding to a 1998 federal district court decision declaring that the 
filtering policy of a public library in Loudoun County, Va., was 
unconstitutional.   

But losing a First Amendment lawsuit will subject a library to 
"nominal damages," Volokh said. Losing a Title VII discrimination 
lawsuit can result in damages "with lots of zeros in it," he said. 
Faced with the choice between two equally hazardous legal 
alternatives, library trustees will logically opt to install filters and 
ward off harassment suits with potentially massive damages, he 
said.   

Ann Beeson, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union who 
specializes in cyberlaw cases, said that a charge of sexual 
harassment is often used as a pretext to justify library filtering. The 
Loudoun County library's filtering scheme was cast in the form of 
anti-harassment policy, she said. But the judge in that case found 
that there was no hard evidence that any librarian was at substantial 
risk of harassment from viewing sexual images. Beeson said that, 
even today, millions of library patrons use unrestricted Internet 
terminals without harming librarians. In any case, she said, there 
are better ways to avoid a hostile environment for librarians than the 
use of filtering. Acceptable means include the use of blinders or 
"privacy screens" on terminals.   

A new law that requires public libraries and schools that receive 
federal telecommunications funds to install Internet blocking 
software goes into effect in July, 2002. The federal law was 
challenged on First Amendment grounds in March by the ACLU and 
the American Library Association. Still, Halagan, the librarians' 
lawyer in the Minneapolis matter, said that it is a mistake for people 
to reduce the Minneapolis controversy to a filtering vs. non-filtering 
debate. "As a matter of fact, my clients are split on the subject," he 
said.   

"What this determination will do is cause other libraries to think 
about what obligations they have [to their employees] and to 
balance that with the First Amendment," he said. "The answer could 
be separate computers for children, filtering, limiting printer access, 
posting notices or working with local police. It's a complex issue." 
Halagan said that the Minneapolis library's revised policy, which 
went into effect shortly after his clients filed their complaints, has 
resulted in a much-improved work climate, but that more needed to 
be done.   

For her part, Adamson said that she hopes the ruling will empower 
other librarians who feel harassed to speak up.   

"Our experience will be felt by other people in other libraries," she 
predicted. She said that when speaking about this subject, she could 
not help recalling an incident when she was helping 12-year old girl 
with a term paper. She said they were standing by a bookcase, their 
backs to a computer terminal. Adamson said that, when she turned 
and saw that the user of the nearby computer was looking at a 
picture of a "naked woman tied up," she thought up a ruse to escort 
the girl to another part of the library so she would not see the 
picture. "This happened all the time. It was so stressful."   


Copyright 2001 The New York Times Company  






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