The
Council Bluffs Public Library in Iowa choose to use "protective hoods" instead of Internet filters claiming the filters do not work. Result? Children are still seeing porn on other people's computers.
Pat Trueman, former
chief obscenity prosecutor for the U.S. Department of Justice, came out swinging against the American Library Association [ALA]:
"That's a ruse that the American Library Association, which is very pro-pornography and always files lawsuits against the federal government to try to keep pornography widely available, ...put[s] forward to scare libraries out of having filters," states Trueman.
A ruse! Very pro-pornography! Scaring libraries out of having filters!! Trueman doesn't stop there. He goes after the media for misleading the public:
The station also reported that there is no law banning porn in public libraries -- another inaccurate aspect of the KMTV news report, says Trueman.
''There's a federal Children's Internet Protection Act that says if you want federal funds, you must keep pornography off the screens of your computers in the library and public school," the attorney explains.
Pat Trueman is yet another person confirming what
SafeLibraries has been saying. The ALA misleads people to get them to do as the ALA wants, the media are sometimes part of the misinformation problem, and children continue to be harmed needlessly as a result. It does me good to see someone else so unafraid of the ALA as to speak out truthfully and forcefully about the negative effects of ALA policy on local communities.
Legal porn is constitutionally protected, but that does not mean a public library must provide access to it--see
US v. ALA. And even
the ACLU nows says filters are over 95% effective and no longer block health-related web sites. I wonder what your own library laws say and whether the library is acting outside the bounds of that law, thereby allowing the government to ensure compliance.
Council Bluffs, IA, make no mistake. You are now yet another community where local control of the public library is being thwarted by the ALA, and media inaccuracies do not help.
Pat Trueman, please contact me.
Here is a link to the original article (with an embedded link to a news video) about which Pat Trueman is speaking: "
Porn at the Public Library," by
Molli Graham,
KMTV Action 3 News, August 2008.
Pat Trueman's responses, some of which are quoted above, are a direct response to the Molli Graham story and appear in "
Library Porn Report Inaccurate, Says Attorney," by
Jeff Johnson,
OneNewsNow, 13 August 2008, reprinted here for educational purposes:
A pro-family attorney is decrying a bad decision by the Council Bluffs, Iowa, library board and inaccurate reporting by a local television station -- both related to pornography in a local public library.
After a local mother complained about her 14-year-old daughter being exposed to pornography at the Council Bluffs public library, Omaha TV station KMTV sent its Action News reporter, Molli Graham, to investigate.
"That's right, a trip to the Council Bluffs public library landed Patty Lyon's daughter next to a man surfing porn," Graham reported. "Turns out in Council Bluffs, there are no protective filters. Some of those filters end up blocking out health and other useful sites, so the library board voted no."
But Pat Trueman, special counsel to the Alliance Defense Fund and former chief obscenity prosecutor for the Justice Department, says that is not accurate.
"That's a ruse that the American Library Association, which is very pro-pornography and always files lawsuits against the federal government to try to keep pornography widely available, ...put[s] forward to scare libraries out of having filters," states Trueman.
"Reality today, as people who have filters on their home computers know, is that most filters are virtually 100-percent accurate. They keep the porn out. They allow you to get to regular websites...."
The station also reported that there is no law banning porn in public libraries -- another inaccurate aspect of the KMTV news report, says Trueman.
''There's a federal Children's Internet Protection Act that says if you want federal funds, you must keep pornography off the screens of your computers in the library and public school," the attorney explains. "Council Bluffs apparently thought pornography is more important than the money."
But Trueman wonders if the taxpayers or library patrons in Council Bluffs would agree that allowing porn to be accessible is more important than having money to fund the public library system.
