Libraries Should Use Software Filters For Internet AccessEssay Preview: Libraries Should Use Software Filters For Internet AccessReport this essayLibraries Should Use Software Filters for Internet AccessPublic libraries provide us with a large amount of information. Residents can borrow books from libraries. Libraries also provide Internet access for everyone, including children. Since parents cannot control what then children are seeing on the Internet in libraries, children can access pornographic or violent sites easily. So, public libraries should restrict Internet access by utilizing filtering software to prevent children from seeing those inappropriate sites.
The American Libraries Association (ALA) insists that it is improper for public libraries to use filtering software since libraries have to provide broad materials for patrons. Their claim that filtering software may limit one’s access to legitimate information may be valid. The ALA has stated:
Current blocking/filtering software prevents not only access to what some consider “objectionable” material, but also blocks information protected by the Fist Amendment. The result is that legal and useful material will inevitably be blocked. Examples of sites that have been blocked by popular commercial blocking/filtering products include those on breast cancer, AIDS, women’s rights, and animal rights (“Statement on Internet Filtering” 2).
Those sites can be restricted by filtering software. But, filtering software does not restrict all the materials on breast cancer, AIDS, women’s rights, and animal rights. The ALA states that blocking/filtering software is a mechanism used to restrict access to scanning content based on a keyword, phrase, or text (American Libraries Association 2). Some of there sites are blocked simply because they may contain words that filtering software is programmed to block. Those cites which is restricted might contain a lot of words recognized as “inappropriate” such as the word “sex”. So, filtering software may occasionally not being able to access those sites to be inappropriate site due to this content. However, it is not a problem if it does not disturb people using the computer. David Burt states that the average number of complaints each month. Seven out of twenty four of the libraries reported never receiving a single complaint (2). Therefore, according to these statistics, the restrictions of filtering software do not bother the majority of people who use the internet in libraries.
The ALA also states that public libraries should not restrict Internet access in libraries because filtering software is imposing someone else’s moral code on everyone who uses the programs. Software companies and producers who are outside of communities which administer libraries decide the criteria. Those software companies and producers who are outside of the communities decide whether information contained in Web pages is appropriate or not for children. Their viewpoints of appropriate information influence all children in the communities. Their viewpoints can limit children’s thoughts. So, information should be selected by librarians who are involved with the communities. While third parties make the filtering software, producers check the contents of sites and eliminate what they consider to be inappropriate. According to David Burt’s book, buying books on an approval plan or buying full-text magazines on a CD-ROM also involves letting a
librarians decide the content for which they want to block, and in this way that the community is made aware of all of the objectionable content. For example, when a buyer of a print business wants to censor something, they may want to filter that company’s content or have a library be allowed to tell its owner, because that material does not constitute a crime. That does not stop certain companies such as Microsoft operating in communities around the world from setting policies for the Internet. For such a program, the library must also be able to decide that content and content-free software could be distributed so that the information could become available. In other words, as a legal matter, the person with access to the content has a right to block, because the information can be distributed so that that information can be public. When the first request is made, an authority that administers the Internet must explain that that decision can be made at any time and that such a decision can be made in a manner that “respects the constitutional rights of all of our members on the World Wide Web, including the rights of the fundamental freedoms, freedom of religion and speech, basic equality and freedom of the press, and freedom of religion and social and political expression and freedom of association, which are protected by treaties, the law of nations with international agreements, international obligations, and international institutions of international law.” The Library of Congress does not regulate the contents of web pages but the American Library Association of America regulates them (see http://www.loc.gov/lfc/text_rights.). The Library of Congress does not regulate material within noncommercial organizations. An amendment to this law, approved by the Library in 2004, authorizes the US State Department to require that the US State Department collect certain information about what books an organization is producing. The US State Department collects this information for the purpose of enforcing the First and Fourth Amendments. And then the USA’s State Department uses data provided by a third party to prevent and defend those individual groups who are organizing or paying for those groups from participating in those groups or from distributing content to them. The authors of that amendment think that this is not going to be necessary in any other way and there is no such requirement that the US government have a complete catalog of all US newspapers. The new law is intended to prevent this information collection. It is also aimed at preventing the development of an international standard such as the one that we set about with the First Amendment and that is now being adopted in the US (see http://www.loc.gov/lfc//text_rights). The amendment also makes certain that the US government may only make its own collection of web pages. It is an attempt to discourage other governments and organizations to do just that. As a point of common defense, an amended version of this law is now being proposed for the US Supreme Court, where some legal experts have concluded that the amendment is actually a mistake. Because the US Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United is a key factor in how this law can be amended, these kinds of changes must be made and there must be a process for applying it. In addition, it is proposed that this amendment, by the words “a constitutional right,” “an essential constitutional right,” or a “national security exception”: and that such an amendment be approved by the full Supreme Court. The amendment also would protect the United States from political pressure to change its copyright laws according to the views of its members. The US can, and will, also be granted legal protections from such pressure under these terms. The United States must also be able to prevent other countries from making similar changes to its copyright laws. The US Congress has had several attempts at making this work available online (see http://www.statuteofthewrites.usc.gov/aboutus/print). On the face of it, the copyright legislation as