Sir:
We are shocked, baffled and acutely disappointed by your hasty and reckless directive compelling the Boston Public Library to install censorship software in all computers throughout its facilities. This maneuver reflects poorly on the level of computer literacy present in your administration, gives us a chilling demonstration of your vulnerability to politically motivated media campaigns, and presents a very bleak picture of your understanding of the First Amendment.
According to the Library Bill of Rights, the enlightened document that shapes the policies of Boston Public Library and library systems across the nation, libraries have a duty to challenge censorship and to provide access to library materials to all patrons regardless of origin, views, background, or age. It is a short step from censoring the content of the Internet for library patrons to removing books from library shelves. Will that step come next? Or, since some books contain sexually explicit material, are children now to be forbidden access to the stacks at the Boston Public Library and all its branches? Must serious adult users of library resources now be restricted to material suitable for children? Must certain books branded dangerous by someone's fiat be kept under lock and key?
Leaving concerns of access to information and free speech aside, censorship software is a deeply flawed gimmick being sold with depressing success to the gullible, the unaware, and the overheated. CyberPatrol is particularly problematic. In addition to pornographic pictures (whose availability on the Internet has been ludicrously exaggerated), it blocks scientific information about sexuality and sexually transmitted diseases; social and political sites of interest to gay men and lesbians; feminist sites; animal-rights and environmental sites; discussions of reproductive rights, contraception and abortion; the entire censorship archive of the Electronic Frontier Foundation; the Web page of the National Rifle Association; and countless other Web sites and newsgroups of legitimate interest. It is no substitute for parental supervision.
Because of its shorthand system of blocking -- abbreviating the last three characters of Internet addresses deemed undesirable -- the CyberPatrol method of censorship works like a blast of grapeshot fired into a crowd. Innocent bystanders get blown away along with offenders. As Internet experts Brock Meeks and Declan McCullagh point out in a 1996 CyberWire Dispatch, when CyberPatrol "blocks the CyberOS gay video site by banning http://www.webcom.com/~cyb, children are barred from attending the first "Cyber High School" at ~cyberhi, along with 16 other accounts that start with "cyb." We don't know who sold you on the efficacy of CyberPatrol, but you, sir, have been had.
Since the Internet access most library systems now provide has become a key propaganda tool in right-wing assaults on our public libraries, the Library Bill of Rights, and the American Library Association, it's fair to wonder just who is behind the sudden hysteria over children's use of the Boston Public Library's computers. Karen Jo Gounaud of Family Friendly Libraries (FFL), a pro-censorship organization given strong tactical support by Pat Robertson's Christian Coalition and the archconservative Family Research Council, has visited Massachusetts and gained a following in this state. Her political agenda, we assure you, goes far beyond high-minded concerns about broadly-defined "pornography." Propaganda from FFL and many like-minded groups was freely distributed this past weekend at Boston's Hynes Convention Center during Congress '97 of the Evangelical Association of New England (EANE). Judging from the groups represented in the exhibit area and much of the literature dispensed to its 8500 attendees, the EANE congress was a hotbed of political activism at which concerns about protecting children, fighting "cultural pollution," and dealing with the Internet ran high.
Reactionary pressure groups are now waging a campaign to mass- market their demonization of the Internet while legislation seeking to censor cyberspace awaits a Supreme Court ruling. Beyond that, they have discovered that promoting fear of the Internet, especially among computer-illiterate parents willing to believe that toddlers can access porn at the press of a button, is an effective means of enlarging both their membership rolls and their bank accounts.
The American Library Association confirms that your February 11 censorship directive does appear to be the first of its kind in the nation. We sincerely hope it will be the last such unconstitutional initiative from an American mayor. Please rescind this folly at once. Allow the public to debate the issue. Learn just what is at stake. Then think before you act.
Sincerely,
James D'Entremont
Director
CC: Bernard Margolis; Bonnie Isman, Massachusetts Library Association; Judith Krug, American Library Association; Bruce Rossley; National Coalition Against Censorship; David Mendoza, National Campaign for Freedom of Expression; others.