Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA) Requires Porn in the Library? Fat Chance
The Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA) (Public Law 106-554) continues to be effective in limiting access by children to computer pornography in libraries, but the left never tires in its efforts to undermine good laws. Reportedly, legal counsel for the Sacramento, California Public Library Board has actually interpreted CIPA to require that porn be available on library computers! This is like saying that the Hyde Amendment actually requires poor people to abort.
Sen. John McCain introduced CIPA after an outraged public found itself fighting local library boards across America over the availability of pornography to children. Children and lady librarians were being harassed and molested by porn-viewing patrons. McCain’s intention was only to restrict pornography, not to expand its availability. CIPA became law on December 21, 2000. To receive support for Internet access and internal connections services from the Universal Service Fund (USF), the act requires that school and library authorities must certify that they are enforcing a policy of Internet safety that includes measures to block or filter Internet access for both minors and adults to certain visual depictions. Access to obscene material or child pornography is not allowed for anyone in libraries receiving federal funding. Children are further restricted from having access to so-called “harmful to minors” material – softcore porn.
There is not a shred of evidence in the legislative history of the act that would support the fatuous claim of the Sacramento legal counsel. I worked on the bill from start to finish and I can assure you that neither the porn industry nor the American Library Association sought to amend the bill to mandate porn on library computers. After the act was passed, the ALA hired Ropes and Gray to write an opinion interpreting the act, and the opinion makes no mention of a supposed mandate to offer porn on library computers.
Additional Resources:
Universal Service Administration Company: CIPA Information
FCC: CIPA Consumer Facts
American Library Association: CIPA Information Page
Patrick A. Trueman
Toward the end of the Administration of President Ronald Reagan in 1988 to the end of the administration of President George H.W. Bush, Patrick Trueman served in the U.S. Department of Justice as Chief of the Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section (CEOS) in the Criminal Division.