RECOMMENDATION FOR CITY MANAGER

Background

By unanimous vote on Monday, August 2, the Greensboro City Council directed the City
Manager to come up with an economically viable and legal way to block access to pornography
at the public libraries.

The Greensboro Public Library (GPL) desires to protect children from viewing inappropriate
materials, but also seeks to balance that protection with the need for freedom to access
information. Since the advent of public computers in the library, GPL has used and continues to
use several different tools as part of a total computer management program:
 Education about the Internet
 Sign-on software
 A written Agreement for Acceptable Computer Use that is presented electronically during
log in
 Shaping of bandwidth (greatly slowing the download speed of inappropriate or offensive web
sites)
 Staff and security monitoring of computer screens
 Continuous evaluation of computer policies and procedures.
 Continuous monitoring of library literature, web sites and blogs, and other sources on
filtering and other library technology issues.

These management tools have resulted in a significant decrease in incidents of inappropriate

Internet use. From January through June 2010, GPL received 142 incident reports, 18 of which
concerned inappropriate Internet use. This shows a great decrease from the 89 incidents of
inappropriate Internet use received during the same period in 2009.

Council Directive

GPL has been directed to modify the computer management program by including a software
filter.

General Information on Filters

Filters are software or hardware that evaluate Internet content and control what displays on the
screen. Below is filtering information particularly applicable to GPL.
Pros:
 Filters function automatically. After filter installation, public service staff is not directly
involved.
 Filters can be structured to block according to the customers age and/or the location of the
computer.
Cons:
 Filtered web sites will need to be unblocked or unfiltered access will have to be provided
when requested by adult customers. This is necessary to comply with the U. S. Supreme
 Court’s 2003 decision on the Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA). More information
on CIPA is available in the attached memorandum dated August 9, 2010 from James A.
Dickens, Assistant City Attorney.
 Because filters are proprietary software, the library cannot be entirely certain what is being
blocked and by what criteria.
 Initial installation and maintenance of any filter requires staff time and monitoring.
Currently there is one person on GPL’s staff working directly with the network.
 Initial purchase and yearly maintenance fees for filters are an additional expense for the
library.
 No filter is 100% effective. A good filter may block up to 97% of inappropriate material, but
occasionally inappropriate materials can get through the filter.
 Filters may also err in the other direction and block web sites that are appropriate and/or
important for some library customers.
 Filters often miss inappropriate material in emails and on social networking sites. Email
providers and social site providers monitor traffic on their sites, but GPL will not have
control over this material.

Request to Council

GPL respectfully asks the Council to consider a total computer management program which will
filter Internet access for all children and for those adults who choose filtering, but will allow the
possibility of appropriate, legally-mandated access for responsible adult customers who choose
unfiltered access.

To implement the use of the filter, GPL recommends adding to its current total computer
management program (see Background above) a tiered system of access and computer zoning.
Tiered access:
 Children age 17 and under (as defined by the birthdates in the library’s customer database)
will default to filtered access.
 Parents may choose to grant unfiltered access to a child of any age through age 17.
 Adults 18 and over may choose filtered or unfiltered access.
 Tiered access will be implemented through Envisionware, our computer management (sign-
on) software.
 Every library customer age 18 and over signing on to the computer for the first time after the
filter is installed will have to make a filtering choice.
 The access granted to all children ages 17 and under will be filtered unless a parent requests
removal of restriction.
Computer zoning:
 All computers in children’s areas will be filtered.
 In new or remodeled facilities, computer screens will be placed for easier monitoring by
staff.
GPL also plans to continue the use of a bandwidth shaping product to discourage loading of
inappropriate web sites. Staff will also continue to monitor computer use while providing
customer service in library public areas.

Filter selection:
To provide the total computer management program described above, GPL has developed the
following desirable criteria to be used in selecting a filter. It is possible that some or even all
filtering software may not meet all criteria.
 Ability to filter by age of customer
 Ability to filter by location of computer (computer zoning)
 Ability for staff to unblock specific sites, if required
 Ability for staff to understand, in as much as possible with proprietary software, how the
filter works.
 Ability to produce reports, most desirably those listing blocked sites

GPL staff is investigating several filters, most of which work in similar ways: by blocking entire
groups of web sites, such as those dealing with shopping or more controversial subjects; by
blocking specific web addresses (black lists), by allowing specific web addresses (white lists), by
blocking sites containing specific key words, known images, questionable file names, etc.
Currently the following vendors are being considered. Information is obviously incomplete, and
vendors may be added or deleted from the list as the appropriateness of the software becomes
apparent. Costs range from approximately $3,000.00 to $10,000.00.

Cymphonix
 GPL is currently using for bandwidth shaping
 Recommended by GPL Local Network Administrator
 Recommended by GPL Technology Manager

Barracuda
 Recommended by City Systems Administrator

Websense
 Widely used by libraries
 Note: City Systems Administrator has concerns with the responsiveness of the vendor to
support requests

Implementation:
The software will need to be installed, tested and monitored. The filter will be put in place as
soon as software is chosen so compatibility with multiple complex processes can be evaluated.
GPL will need to develop policies and procedures for the revised computer management system.
For example, procedures will be necessary for unblocking filtered web sites when this is
requested by adult customers. Adequate evaluation and allowing for community comment will
also be required.

August 11, 2010

Office of the City Attorney
City of Greensboro

TO: Terry Wood, City Attorney

FROM: James A. Dickens, Assistant City Attorney

SUBJECT: When Providing Internet Access, Can Public Libraries Employ

Software to Block Pornographic material that may be harmful to
children?

The City’s public libraries may install software to block pornographic websites that may be
harmful to children so long as the librarian will unblock improperly filtered material upon the
request of an adult user without undue delay. The most recent U.S. Supreme Court case dealing
with this issue is United States v. American Library Association, Inc. (hereinafter, “ALA”), 539
U.S. 194, 123 S.Ct. 2297, 156 L.Ed.2d 221 (2003), decided in 2003. In ALA, a group of public
libraries, library associations, library patrons, and web site publishers challenged the
constitutionality of the federal law entitled, “Children’s Internet Protection Act” (hereinafter,
“CIPA”). Under CIPA, no public library could receive federal assistance to provide internet
access unless it installed software to block obscene or pornographic images and to prevent
minors from obtaining access to harmful material. CIPA sought to address many of the same
problems the City Council has sought to address here, such as patrons of all ages, including
minors, regularly searching for online pornography and patrons exposing others to pornographic
images by leaving them displayed on internet terminals or printed on library printers. The ALA
Court acknowledged that “a filter set to block pornography may sometimes block other sites that
present neither obscene nor pornographic material, but that nevertheless triggers the filter.”
CIPA, however, also permits a library to “disable the filter to enable access for bona fide
research or other lawful purposes.” This is very important, because only four justices would
have signed this opinion if CIPA did not allow adults to have access to this material upon
request.

The Court ruled that internet access in public libraries is neither a traditional nor designated
public forum. The Court stated that public forum analysis and heightened judicial scrutiny under
the First Amendment were incompatible with the discretion that public libraries must have to
fulfill their traditional missions. “Public libraries staffs necessarily consider content in making
collection decisions and enjoy broad discretion in making them.” The Court also held that even
though the software may erroneously block constitutionally permitted speech, “such concerns are
dispelled by the ease with which patrons may have the filtering software disabled.” When an
adult patron encounters a blocked site, he need only ask a librarian to unblock it or disable the
filter.
Applying these principles to the City’s public libraries, I conclude that the City’s public libraries
may install software on all of its computers to prevent minors from viewing obscene or
pornographic images, so long as the policy allows for an adult to have the software disabled or
the site unblocked upon the request of an adult patron for “bona fide research or other lawful
purposes.”

While the ALA Court did not state specifically whether the librarian had to unblock or disable a
properly filtered obscene or pornographic website upon the request of an adult patron, the
reasoning and analysis of the Court’s opinion suggests that the librarian does not have to do so.
First, the ALA Court upheld CIPA, which required libraries that received federal assistance to
“install software to block obscene or pornographic images and to prevent minors from accessing
material harmful to them,” as a valid exercise of Congress’s spending power. Thus, the Court
held that it was not unlawful for federal government to attach conditions, such as the requirement
of installing software blocking obscene or pornographic images, to the use of its money. Second,
the ALA Court stated that internet software that blocks obscene or pornographic images from the
internet is no different than the decisions public library staffs make everyday concerning which
books to include on its shelves. These decisions are necessarily content based, and the ALA
Court held that public forum analysis and heightened judicial scrutiny are incompatible with the
discretion that public libraries must have to fulfill their traditional missions. If a library has the
discretion to select which books it will include on its shelves, it can also decide whether to
exclude pornographic or obscene images from being viewed on its computers. Finally, CIPA
was passed to prevent minors from accessing obscene, pornographic, or other harmful material
that is accessible on the internet. One of the specific situations Congress sought to address by
passing CIPA was that “some patrons also expose[d] others to pornographic images by leaving
them displayed on internet terminals or printed at library printers.” Allowing adult patrons to
access these pornographic or obscene images where children are present and can view these
images on internet terminals or printed at library printers is contrary to one of the express
purposes of the statute. When the ALA Court emphasized that an adult patron could request that
a filter be disabled or a specific website unblocked, it was specifically addressing an argument by
the dissenting justices that the internet blocking software had a tendency to “overblock- that is to
erroneously block access to constitutionally protected speech that falls outside the categories that
software users intend to block.” The ALA Court stated that “[a]ssuming that such erroneous
blocking presents constitutional difficulties, any such concerns are dispelled by the ease with
which patrons may have the filtering software disabled.” The Court was specifically referring to
“erroneously blocked” images. It was not talking about properly blocked obscene or
pornographic images.

In sum, I conclude that the City may block obscene and pornographic images from internet
websites in the public library, and the librarian is not legally required to allow adult patrons to
view obscene or pornographic images in the public library.

JAD/