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Court Finds that a Public Library May Filter Internet Access for All Patrons
The Washington State Supreme Court has recently upheld a public library’s decision to fully filter Internet content for all patrons, holding that this did not constitute a violation of Article I, Section 5 of the Washington State Constitution.
In October 2006, the North Central Regional Library District (“NCRL”) implemented a filtering service to block access to: hacking; proxy avoidance; phishing; adult materials; gambling; nudity and risqué material; pornography; web chat; instant messaging; malware and spyware. The Plaintiffs (patrons of NCRL who use or have used computers whereby access to certain websites was blocked by NCRL’s Internet filter, and the Second Amendment Foundation, a Washington non-profit corporation dedicated to constitutional issues) brought suit against the NCRL challenging the filtering policy’s constitutionality as being so overbroad that it violates Article I, Section 5.
The Court held that Article I, Section 5 which states that “[e]very person may freely speak, write and publish on all subjects, being responsible for the abuse of that right” is subject to independent interpretation. The crux of the analysis consisted of whether the policy suffers from overbreadth, and, if so, whether the overbreadth rises to the level of a prior restraint. The Court concluded that “a library’s decision about what materials to make available to its patrons does not constitute a prior restraint. NCRL’s filtering policy does not prevent any speech and in particular it does not ban or attempt to ban online speech before it occurs. Rather, it is a standard for making determination about what will be included in the collection available to NCRL’s patrons.”
For a copy of the decision, visit:
http://tinyurl.com/26ytuxc