[WEB4LIB] Public Browser and CIPA?

[Andrew I. Mutch]

Mike,

CIPA requires that you block pornographic images, not pornography in
general. I know, it makes no sense, that's what you get from politicians.
That means that you need a browser that supports image blocking first.
Actually, it has occured to me that the best CIPA compliant browser would
be LYNX.   

In regards to a "blacklist", CIPA spells out the material that is required
to be blocked. As these are legal definitions, they raise the possibility
that a legal challenge could be raised if the blacklist is overly broad.
Also, remember that CIPA does not authorize blocking pornographic "text"
so a blacklist that does block text could cause problems. CIPA also does
not make a distinction between public and staff computers so add that into
your deliberation.

Andrew Mutch
Library Systems Technician
Waterford Township Public Library
Waterford, MI


On Wed, 3 Apr 2002, Mike Novak wrote:

> I'm kind of surprised I haven't seen this discussed here yet, but I'm
> wondering if anyone else is considering using PWB
> (http://www.teamsoftwaresolutions.com) for CIPA compliance.  We're running
> it on our public machines now, and it would seem that with a blacklist it
> would meet CIPA requirements -- or am I missing something?  We do not
> currently do any filtering or proxying.
> 
> I've looked at the blacklist available from the squidGuard project
> (http://www.squidguard.org/blacklist/) It's quite extensive, so I don't know
> if PWB would choke on it or not.
> 
> Curiously,
> Mike Novak
> Systems Librarian
> University City Public Library
> 
>