By Alexis Maislen and Adam Harrington
Special to Inside
Church groups headed by Bishop Larry D. Trotter, of the Sweet Holy Church, 944 W. 103rd St., and Pastor James T. Meeks of the Salem Baptist Church, 11813 S. Michigan Ave., protested the Chicago Public Library’s unwillingness to filter public computers in Chicago public libraries in a rally outside the downtown Harold Washington Library on Sunday, May 26.
Unfiltered computers enable children of all ages to access pornographic materials from web sites. Representatives from organizations such as the Eagles Forum of Illinois, Concerned Women for America, Radio Station AM 1160, Citizens for Better Living, the Archdiocese of Chicago, and state Sen. Patrick O’Malley, were at the protest.
“This is not just a children’s issue. Nobody should be able to see pornography in a library and that’s why they should filter the computers in public libraries,” said Meeks.
Citizens for Community Values, Inc. (CCV), a South Side religious organization which sponsored the protest, named the Chicago Public Libraries (CPL) one of the top ten most dangerous libraries for children in 1999. A flyer that CCV representatives handed out at the protest noted that 43 percent of public libraries the group surveyed had reported using filters on their computers, a jump from 31 percent in 2001 and 25 percent in 2000.
Chicago Public Library (CPL) Commissioner Mary Dempsey, supported by the American Library Association and the American Civil Liberties Union, stands behind her belief of unrestricted access to the Internet on library computers.
“In the adult areas, patrons are free to view anything, including pornographic sites. Adults have a right to look at those things,” Dempsey told the Minneapolis/St. Paul City Pages on May 17.
“In the millions of Web sites available on the Internet, there are some often loosely called pornography that parents, or adults generally, do not want children to see,” the American Library Association reports on its Web site. “ A very small fraction of those sexually explicit materials is actual obscenity or child pornography, which are not constitutionally protected. The rest, like the overwhelming majority of materials on the Internet , is protected by the First Amendment.”
A flyer the demonstrators passed out cited a 2000 study by NetValue Internet activity measurement service, which said that children spent 64.9 percent more time on pornography than on game sites in September 2000.
The CCV’s flyer said that in a 2001 study, 90 percent of public librarians said “the software serves its purpose” either “very well” or “somewhat well.”
Laura Morgan, CPL librarian for over 12 years, has been actively protesting against Dempsey’s and CPL Board President Jayne Carr Thompson’s unrestricted access Internet policy for nearly two years. Trotter, Meeks and a group of local citizens crashed the Library Board meeting on May 21 to bring up this issue.
Morgan’s concern grew after hearing from Chicago public library staff in the Central Library’s Children’s Department that children were occasionally accessing pornographic and violent web sites on the 12 new unfiltered computers donated by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
One of the most extreme examples involved a child caught viewing a downloaded porn video displaying oral sex. A nine-year-old girl commented to a librarian that it bothered her that the boys were looking at what she called “nasty pictures” on the computers.
Morgan testified about her concerns before the U.S. Congress and included these stories on April 4 when the Children’s Internet Protection Act, backed by Sen. John McCain, was being considered.
At Sunday’s protest, Morgan said, “Public libraries have never purchased commercial hard-core pornography in print like Hustler magazine because it was considered grossly inappropriate in a public setting. But now, it is available via the Internet, and Dempsey and Thompson have given the green light to anyone who wants it... Allowing Internet computers to become peep show booths makes a mockery of what a tax-supported public library was intended to be. This flies in the face of decency and common sense. Furthermore, it disgraces the name of the late Mayor Harold Washington, who this magnificent central library building was named for.”
As quoted in the Chicago Sun Times, a Library Journal survey reported that 43 percent of libraries queried now use some sort of Internet filter. Northwest suburban Bloomingdale uses Websense, the filter the Chicago Public Schools is proposing to purchase for their computers. Websense will cost Chicago taxpayers about $180,000. Schaumburg, Illinois has had filtered computers without public concern in the public library for over ten years.
David Stone, a Humanities teacher at Hirsh Metro, raised two concerns about Internet filters at the protest.
“Essentially what happens with filters is the people that run adult web sites know how to get past filters. My students see nasty things pop up on the screen without solicitation and that’s with filters. There is also the danger that with filters adults won’t watch closely. Kids aren’t really protected,” said Stone.
Important information is often blocked by filters, Stone added. He said that his 14-year-old daughter subscribes to a magazine called New Moon, which empowers young girls. “One filter we tried blocked the site. There are two ways filters work. The first is by typing in key words like ‘breast’ which could block a recipe to cook chicken and the other is web sites that the creator of the filter doesn’t like. Then, you have political bias coming in. I don’t want a software writer in California to decide if I should read one side of the debate or the other,” Stone said.
Rev. Robert Vandenbosch, executive director of the Concerned Christian Americans, said, “Friday’s Chicago Tribune had an article about a man arrested for having thousands of pornographic images of children — many boys under the age of 10 engaged in sex — downloaded on his computer. These same images are available to everyone who walks through the doors of the Chicago Public Library. Children and adults exposed to this computer material are mentally molested in the public libraries — paid for by our tax dollars!”
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