BIANNUAL REPORT on INTERNET FILTERING October 8, 2008 To: Ted Strickland, Governor, State of Ohio Jon Husted, Speaker, the Ohio House of Representatives Joyce Beatty, Minority Leader, the Ohio House of Representatives Bill Harris, President, the Ohio Senate Ray Miller, Minority Leader, the Ohio Senate Stephen Hedges, Executive Director, Ohio Public Library Information Network
From:
Dear Governor Strickland, Speaker Husted, Representative Beatty, President Harris, Senator Miller: This report concerning measures to limit access to obscene or illegal Internet materials in Ohio public libraries is required by Am. Sub. H.B. 119 Section 323.10: The OPLIN Board shall research and assist or advise local libraries with regard to emerging technologies and methods that may be effective means to control access to obscene and illegal materials. The OPLIN Executive Director shall biannually provide written reports to the Governor, the Speaker and Minority Leader of the House of Representatives, and the President and Minority Leader of the Senate on any steps being taken by OPLIN and public libraries in the state to limit and control such improper usage as well as information on technological, legal, and law enforcement trends nationally and internationally affecting this area of public access and service. OPLIN provides the vital telecommunications infrastructure that allows all Ohio public libraries to provide state of the art Internet information services to every community. We also partner with the public libraries and with other state organizations -- specifically the State Library of Ohio, OhioLINK, and INFOhio -- to maintain a core collection of consumer health, business development, and education information databases for all Ohio residents (www.ohioweblibrary.org). OPLIN has been writing this biannual report since October 1999; while we do not always have new things to report within the state, we continue to monitor legal and technological developments that impact public access to information.
Research At current funding levels, the state budget sets aside $85,725 in FY 2009 "...to help local libraries purchase or maintain filters to screen out obscene and illegal internet materials." Beginning in FY 2006, these funds have been distributed as grants to individual libraries for purchasing Internet filtering hardware and/or software. Since our April 2008 report, OPLIN has been researching the possibility of using these funds to implement a central content filter available to all libraries, rather than distributing funds to local libraries. Such a central implementation would allow us to use the funds more efficiently and offer Internet content filtering to all libraries that wish to filter, rather than only the 40+ libraries that typically apply for filtering grants. Until recently, a central filter would not have allowed local libraries to control the amount and type of filtering applied to their Internet traffic, in accordance with each library board's policies. A few companies are now offering content filtering as a Web Service that could block unwanted content before it reached the library, with full control over the filtering parameters left in the library's hands. OPLIN staff have explored this new technology, and found that it is getting closer to something we could use, but still has a few technological problems. We will continue to watch developments in this field; meanwhile we have asked that the language in the FY 2010-2011 biennium budget be changed to eliminate anything that would suggest that these filtering funds must be sent to local libraries, so we can be prepared for central filtering if the technology becomes feasible in the next fiscal year. Advice OPLIN continues to recommend the www.libraryfiltering.org site to public libraries looking for information about available filtering software and hardware. In the past few months, OPLIN staff have actively worked with the maintainers of this site to make it both more useful for libraries and more user-friendly for filtering software vendors who wish to add their information to the site. Filtering Activity in Public Libraries OPLIN is currently taking applications from local libraries for Internet filtering support grants for FY 2009. These grants will be distributed to libraries around January 1, 2009. Last year we distributed the entire $100,000 set aside to forty-one applicants. As in the past, most of the requests were for maintaining current filters, rather than adding or upgrading filtering software. Currently 168 of the 251 Ohio public library systems use Internet filtering software. These 168 libraries serve 77% of the Ohio population. Public libraries continue to update their local policies on Internet access, as required by law (O.R.C. Sec. 3375.64(C)); OPLIN maintains copies of all these policies.
National and International Trends The Washington Supreme Court has received a case in which the North Central Regional Library District was sued by three individuals and the Second Amendment Foundation for refusing to turn off their Internet filter when asked to do so by the three adults. NCRL uses a filter at all times throughout the library, "...because filtering is consistent with NCRL's mission and traditional role as a public library." The plaintiffs claim the filter blocked their access to Women & Guns, an online publication of the Second Amendment Foundation. On July 22 the Third Circuit Court of Appeals issued a unanimous opinion in ACLU v. Mukasey affirming the District Court and holding that the Child Online Protection Act (COPA) is unconstitutional. The court held that COPA is vague and overbroad, and that it does not constitute the least restrictive means of protecting children. In reaching these conclusions, the court also confirmed that COPA does not apply to websites outside the U.S. Last week the U.S. Congress sent the Combating Child Exploitation Act (S.1738) to the President for signing. The bill would: ● establish a Special Counsel for Child Exploitation Prevention and Interdiction within the Office of the Deputy Attorney General; ● improve the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force; ● increase resources for regional computer forensic labs; and ● increase the ability of law enforcement agencies to investigate and prosecute predators. In June, New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo announced that Time Warner Cable, Sprint, and Verizon will take aggressive steps to limit access to child pornography over their networks. Seventeen other cable providers across the U.S. have now taken similar action. (In September, Comcast became the latest Internet service provider to join this agreement.) Critics worry that these actions are overzealous and could turn into a trend that enables governments to regulate content that is arbitrarily deemed harmful to the public good. Mr. Cuomo's office began an investigation of online child pornography early this year. Undercover agents from his office posed as subscribers and complained to Internet providers that they were allowing child pornography even though they had customer service agreements that discouraged such activity. When the providers' responses did not satisfy the AG's office, they threatened legal action. Cuomo's office uncovered 88 internet Usenet newsgroups used by child pornographers, as well as more than 11,000 "sexually lewd photos featuring prepubescent children." The agreement with broadband providers means that they will broadly curb customers' access to Usenet -- which began nearly 30 years ago and was one of the earliest ways to swap information online -- even though only a handful of the 100,000 Usenet discussion groups contain illegal material. Time Warner Cable said it will cease to offer customers access to any Usenet newsgroups, a decision that will affect customers nationwide. Sprint said it would no longer offer any of the tens of thousands of alt.* Usenet newsgroups. Verizon's plan is to eliminate some "fairly broad newsgroup areas." Comcast eliminated access to all Usenet news groups. The agreements will affect customers not only in New York but throughout the country. While government watchdog groups in other countries have succeeded in getting Internet service providers to limit the kind of traffic available on their networks, this seems to be the first significant agreement in the United States, where protected speech is an important civil liberty.
In the United Kingdom, the Council for Child Internet Safety (UKCCIS) was created in September to teach children about web dangers, target harmful net content, and establish a code of conduct for sites featuring material uploaded by users. The council, which will report to the prime minister, will have a membership of more than 100 organizations, including technology companies such as Microsoft and Google, websites such as Facebook, and mobile phone companies. Their goal is to create a child internet safety strategy that will establish a public awareness safety campaign, establish measures to protect children and young people, promote responsible advertising to children online, and establish voluntary codes of practice for web sites.
On behalf of the OPLIN Board, I am pleased to have had the opportunity to present this report to you, and I thank you for your continued support. Respectfully,
Stephen Hedges Executive Director cc: R. Steve Edmonson, CIO, Office of Information Technology