A bit of a storm is brewing in Illinois over House Bill 1727. If passed, it would mandate that all public access computers be filtered. This would apply to library staff computers as well.

A letter from the librarians at Orland Park Public Library is doing the rounds, urging resistance from fellow librarians. To quote from the letter: "...even libraries that already offer filtering or will, in good faith, try to comply with this law will be subject to lawsuits, fines, and criminal prosecution. The restrictions set forth on librarians to sign oaths and suffer criminal prosecution for perjury are disturbing." It goes on, "Giving patrons the right to sue us for what they perceive to be obscene is unreasonable."

Disturbing indeed. Even if the librarians try and do the right thing (whatever that is), they can still get nailed because their idea of right may differ from someone else's. And it's the patrons themselves who can do the complaining.

This sounds like one of those laws that's been proposed by the legal profession because they can see fat fees paid for out of the (bottomless) public purse. Their fees would dwarf the proposed $100 daily fine for non-compliance.

Here's another goodie: if someone under 21 wants the filtering switched off, to do research perhaps, they would have to be accompanied by someone over 21. As the letter says, "We ask eighteen-year-olds to vote and serve in Iraq for their country but won't allow them the freedom to search the Internet." Quite.

What's this got to do with you? Well, where America leads, our legislators often follow. Better to be thinking about the implications now, so that any debate can be properly informed by the people who understand the issues. ie you.