From:      "McClane, Joseph C." jmcclane@gpo.gov
To:        cipa-study@ntia.doc.gov
Date:      Mon, Jul 1, 2002  4:31 PM
Subject:   Comments on Filtering

Dear NTIA:

I would like to comment on the effectiveness on filtering in public
libraries

From my experience filtering does not work.  No filter has been shown to
effectively filter out all pornography.  Filtering gives library users a
false sense of security in that it promises to filter out all pornography
and almost never does filter out all pornographic sites.  Filters do filter
out many non-pornographic sites.  You are not even given a list of filtered
sites, so the computer user has no idea what is being filtered (such as
blocking the Knights of Columbus website).  Therefore, filters degrade the
accuracy of information obtained from filtered machines.  Filtering takes
valuable library resources and spends them on ineffectual technology.  There
have been studies that show that filtering also displays a certain cultural
and/or political bias.  Libraries have a hard time discovering this bias as
libraries are not given a list of stop words that the filter use.
As private companies do not share the stop words with libraries, the
government has effectively given the companies the ability to censor public
information.

In our country we have always strongly defended freedom of thought.  Reading
and the internet come under thought as opposed to action.  There are plenty
of laws already governing obscene behavior on the books.  Filtering is
wasteful, unworkable, and unconstitutional.  The government should be
concentrating on the behavior of library patrons not on flawed technology.


Joseph C. McClane
216 Halpine Walk Court
Rockville, Maryland 20851