Since you reposted here what you wrote on Mary’s blog, please allow me to repost here my answer, and thank you. (Oh, since I raise legal issues, shall we write only to Mary’s blog?):

Ah! Spirited debate! Excellent!

Sabina, have you read ACLU v. Gonzales? Filters are so effective that COPA was found unconstitutional precisely because filters are so effective. Yes, I used 95%, but I guess to make you happy I should have used a number of glowing statements made by the ACLU and the Court about the efficacy of filters.

You cited as evidence of your claim that filters are not effective a 2001 report revised in 2006 while ACLU v. Gonzales is from 2007 and is even based on recent ACLU expert testimony. Certainly one cannot argue that the ACLU is prejudiced in favor of filters; after all, the ACLU was one of the losing parties in US v. ALA. Therefore, your evidence is not persuasive and is quite literally out of date.

Oh, and your concern for overblocking is merely raising an issue already asked and answered in US v. ALA. But I suppose referring to it does confuse the average person who may not have read US v. ALA, so I can understand why the issue and others like it continue to be raised again and again by those opposing filtering.

Regarding my comments about the “Deep Web,” your response was to make a joke about it. It was a cute joke actually. Quite funny. But it did not address the issue of librarians essentially blocking access to 87% of the Internet by not providing access points.

Regarding my comments on the arrogance of some librarians, you agreed! Here, here! But you then say it was misdirected because you can’t poll the public on rights such as intellectual freedom. I agree with you completely!

However, you are guilty of your own misdirection here. Such a poll would not be on intellectual freedom. Your claiming it would be is essentially you rewording the argument in your favor. But, in reality, intellectual freedom is not the issue. The issue is the very material that the US Supreme Court says there is a “legitimate, and even compelling” interest in keeping children away from. It is totally appropriate to keep children from such material. Several SCOTUS decisions have said so. The ALA expressly disagrees with these decisions, and apparently so do you. Is the SCOTUS in violation of intellectual freedom? Is SCOTUS “arrogant”? Keeping inappropriate material as the SCOTUS cases discuss out of public libraries is not a violation of intellectual freedom.

Further, libraries are created by statute. The statues define the libraries. The statutes almost uniformly define libraries in a way that implicitly excludes inappropriate material. When libraries act outside the law of their enabling statutes to allow in inappropriate material, are their no consequences? Is intellectual freedom supposed to override those statutes so now libraries may provide inappropriate material at taxpayer expense despite the law just because some people keep shouting intellectual freedom? And, back on point, when libraries act outside their enabling statues, is there no recourse to control the libraries? Is it not allowed that citizens should be able to vote on whether libraries should use filters to stay within the enabling statutes under which the libraries were created by and on behalf of those citizens in the first place?

Thank you for commenting, Sabina. Everyone, please keep up this spirited debate.