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On Monday, June 23, the U.S. Supreme Court restored the Children's Internet Protection Act, which had been passed in 2000 but overturned in the appeals court. The ruling now allows the Congress to require public libraries to install software on their computers that filter out adult content in order to receive federal technology grants. The next day's edition of The Orange County Register (free registration required to read full-text) reports about the impact of this ruling on people researching about intersex issues. The paper says: "Sandie Kloszewski, 36, of Santa Ana is worried about losing access to legitimate Web sites [...] Kloszewski said she uses the Santa Ana library's adult computers ? only youth computers have filters ? to read about hermaphrodites. But she recently was denied access to similar Web sites when she logged on at the Orange Public Library."
It is inevitable that any "filtering" software is flawed, to the detriment of people who are legitimately seeking potentially life-saving information on such socially taboo subject as sexual orientation, transgender issues, abortion, safer sex, and yes, intersex. Adults and youth --including intersex youth, who are rarely told about the complete truth about who they are and what that means for them--deserve access to those valuable information on the internet at public libraries.
To read more about issues involved in internet blocking/filtering, visit Electronic Frontier Foundation's site.
Posted by Emi on Jun 30, 2003