YNOT – Public libraries that refuse to disable internet filters on request are not running afoul of Washington’s free-speech guarantees, the state’s Supreme Court ruled last week.“A public library can decide that it will not include pornography and other adult materials in its collection in accord with its mission and policies and, as explained, no unconstitutionality necessarily results,” wrote Chief Justice Barbara Madsen in the majority opinion. “It can make the same choices about internet access.”
The 6-3 decision split over whether internet content is analogous to printed matter in library collections. While the majority noted libraries may provide access to potentially offensive websites when requested by an adult, nothing in the state constitution or the U.S. First Amendment requires them to do so.
The minority, led by Justice Tom Chambers, disagreed on the grounds that blocking constitutionally protected speech represents the very definition of constitutionally prohibited censorship.
Filtering the internet “is more like refusing to circulate a book that is in the collection based on its content,” Chambers wrote in the minority opinion. The state “has no interest in protecting adults from constitutionally protected materials on the Internet. Concerns that a child might see something unfortunate on the screen must be dealt with in a less draconian manner.”
Citing First Amendment concerns already addressed in a fractured 2003 U.S. Supreme Court decision, Chambers’ opinion also noted “the library’s filtering policy is at best doubtful and, I predict, will be struck down.”
In 2003, while addressing a challenge to the 2000 Children’s Internet ProtectionAct, six of nine U.S. supremes ruled the law constitutional despite a requirement libraries block access to “material harmful to minors” or lose federal funds. Four of the majority declined to limit filtering, but two said libraries would run afoul of First Amendment protections unless they disabled filters for adults who ask.
The Washington state case, Sarah Bradburn v. North Central Regional Library District (No. 82200-0), arose in 2006 when the American Civil Liberties Union sued the North Central Regional Library District in eastern Washington over the district’s refusal to unblock sites that offer pornography or adult personal ads; information about gambling, guns and computer hacking, and several other topics considered inappropriate for minor children. The ACLU represented the pro-gun Second Amendment Foundation, a female library patron who was prevented from researching tobacco use by children, a professional photographer blocked from YouTube and researching art galleries and health information, and a man who was unable to access his blog and information about gun use related to hunting.
ACLU attorney Duncan Manville called the ruling an affront to the First Amendment.
“There’s no dispute in this case that there is a bunch of constitutionally protected speech being blocked,” he told the Associated Press.
A library district spokesman, on the other hand, praised the ruling as “an affirmation for libraries, common sense, civility and the appropriate use of public funds.”
The Washington supremes remanded the case to federal district court for decision under clarified guidelines.
