New Hampshire Library Faces Suit
over Filter Policy
A free-speech group has threatened to sue the Nashua (N.H.) Public Library unless it stops using filters on all its public-access computers, the Associated Press reported June 30.
In a letter to the library’s trustees, the Nashua-based First Amendment Legal Defense Fund Citizens Against Censorship said the policy denies people access to constitutionally protected information. “The mandatory use of filtering software is simply unsuited for a system of public access to information,” the letter said.
The library has used filters on all its public computers since it began offering Internet access in 1999, Assistant Director Robert Frost said. The New Hampshire Library Association’s Intellectual Freedom Committee objected to the policy last year but received no response from library officials.
In 1998, a federal judge permanently enjoined the Loudoun County (Va.) Public Library from enforcing a similar policy. The library board responded by suspending Internet service, then revising its access policy.
Posted July 3, 2000.
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