ACLU Economic Coercion

[Filtering Facts]

Some people have told me I was being "inflammatory" by suggesting that the
ACLU's behavior toward libraries amounted to economic coercion.  Doubters
should read Ann Beeson's ultimatum to Kern County at
http://www.aclu.org/issues/cyber/kerncodemand.html

  "If necessary, we
   are prepared to challenge the Kern County Internet policy
   on First Amendment grounds in federal court. As you know,
   if we prevail on our claims, Kern County would be liable
   for attorneys' fees. In order to avoid the need to resolve
   this issue through costly litigation, the County must
   remove the filters from the libraries within ten days of
   the date of this letter."

Notice this weathly national orgainization chooses to make these sorts of
threats to poorer rural counties like Kern.  They don't make them to bigger,
urban systems like Cincinnati or Boston, that can afford to absorb the cost
of an expensive lawsuit.  

And what is ALA's stance on this?

Last year, at the Texas Library Association Conference, ALA President Ann
Symons had this to say:

"Currently, there is no case in the courts involving the use of filtering
software in libraries. However, the ACLU, ALA's partner in many intellectual
freedom cases, is being vigilant in its scrutiny of libraries today
regarding First Amendment issues. It's not pleasant to think about having a
library
sued by an organization whose principles we support and which has supported
ours over many years. "

http://www.txla.org/pubs/tlj-2q97/symons.html

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David Burt, Filtering Facts, HTTP://WWW.FILTERINGFACTS.ORG
David_Burt at filteringfacts.org