Seattle Library Lets Man Watch Porn On Computers Despite Complaints 584
The Lake City library is making news for their staunch position on the First Amendment, censorship, and the right to watch porn in the library. The problem started when library patron Julie Howe found a man watching some questionable material and asked him to move to another computer. The man refused and the librarian also refused to intervene when asked saying that the library doesn't censor content. "We're a library, so we facilitate access to constitutionally protected information. We don't tell people what they can view and check out," Seattle Public Library spokeswoman Andra Addison told Seattle PI. "Filters compromise freedom of speech protected by the First Amendment. We're not in the business of censoring information."
Why does the library need to be "family-friendly" (Score:2, Interesting)
I really don't understand why any place adults go must be "family friendly". Go to the park if you want a family picnic. To make a library "family-friendly" would mean to remove anything anyone finds objectionable*, which includes a lot of philosophy, war books, medical books, sex education, yes erotica too. You want to turn a library into the Disney channel.
*) because let's be honest, people use the "think of the children" argument a lot when they want stuff removed they personally object to. Children don't give a shit about a nipple or breasts on TV, until such time that their hormones tell them to pay attention. Young adults *want* to see naked people and aren't in the least "damaged" by it. Before you jerk your knee, not every nude image is of goatse you know.
I agree that viewing porn in a library isn't the best use of the facilities, but we have gone too far with the "let's not offend anybody" and protecting the children. We should just lock the children up in special buildings until they're 18 (or whatever age we deem them adults) and be done with it, instead of turning the entire world in a children-safe playground.
Re:Why does the library need to be "family-friendl (Score:5, Interesting)
When I lived in Switzerland I observed people, for lack of a better term, fucking at the bus stop in the middle of the day (hands down the pants, moaning, fucking). I saw lesbians fucking (the naked kind) on the public beach that was filled with everyone, including families, having their weekend fun in the sun. People just don't care. If you avoid the crazy mindfuck of creationism and the idea that we somehow aren't animals, you'll simply realize that human children have been subjected to sex and reproduction from early ages for 10,000s of years at the very least (800,000 or so, depending on what you consider human).
Libraries exist to provide information privately and equally to all people. What they are doing is pretty admirable, imo, just as admirable as refusing to remove books because of some uptight jackasses 2 decades ago.
Yes, I have kids.
Re:Provocative, but the right thing (Score:5, Interesting)
My sister was a public librarian. Mild mannered, serious, studious, introverted, and a quiet, but ardent radical when it came to access to information. It is a libraries duty to provide information, of all kinds, to anyone.* She was not atypical. Her libraries position on patrons viewing pr0n was to require them to use a privacy screen so the content was not viewable without some effort on the part of other patrons, and perhaps have them move to a more private location.
Whacking it in the library, however, was subject to arrest for indecency.
*okay, when the eight year old kid came in looking for information on leukemia, they usually would try to get a sense of why they were asking, and provide them with suggestions as to someone who could put it in context. But the high school kids looking for advice on cultivating cannabis, or bomb making? No problem. When the Patriot Act came out and said that library circulation records would be subject to search without warrant, many libraries destroyed their circulation records.
Re:First Amendment isn't relevant here (Score:5, Interesting)
Furthermore, the Library is an important place for sex ed. I read "Everything you ever wanted to know about sex (but were afraid to ask)" from cover to cover in the library, as I was afraid to try checking it out and taking it home. That book was in the children's section, by the way, and GOD BLESS the librarian who put it there.
Re:The rights of other patrons (Score:4, Interesting)
Ever heard of sexual harassment [wa.gov]? The guy watching porn was doing it.
that's because youve never worked in a library (Score:4, Interesting)
people who have actually worked in a library do not believe in this bullshit. you are NOT protecting freedom of speech - you are destroying the freedom of kids to come into the library. the only people who believe in this idiotic idea of 'freedom' are pedophiles and ignorant, narrowminded douchebags who cannot manage to place themselves into another persons shoes.
public libraries are, as they are, already a magnet for streakers, public masturbators, etc. its the unspoken secret of library work. assholes like to come into libraries and do awful stuff. i dont know what it is about libraries, but they do it.
you cannot allow some guy to come in and watch porn while kids are around. there is nothing at all about 'free speech' involved in that concept. who decides what porn is? the librarians and the users of the library.
you dont need a filter to enforce this rule, its just a tool that makes it easier and less labor intensive. because, the same fucktards who scream about 'free speech' would never in a million years attend a city council meeting to try to get more funds for the libraries, or to raise library salaries, or to help out with a library fundraiser. no, but hey, you want to kick out the convicted sex offender who jacks off in front of 5 year old kids, all of a sudden you are 'big brother' restricting freedom. its bullshit. the whole argument is bullshit.
Re:First Amendment isn't relevant here (Score:4, Interesting)
Just so we're clear on how Constitutional law is *supposed* to work: Nothing can legally 'trump' the Constitution or any of the Amendments, save an Amendment itself. All federal legislation that contradicts the Constitution and existing Amendments is, technically, not law. /rant
Yup. And the Ninth Amendment deals with unenumerated rights. The right to be free from harassment would be one of those unenumerated rights, and when combined with the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment serves as the basis for why a human rights commission can overrule the First Amendment in human rights cases. And as I said previously, the WA Human Rights Commission holds that unwanted display of pornography is sexual harassment, and falls under the jurisdiction of human rights law.
Re:Children's section? (Score:5, Interesting)
Don't most libraries already enforce age restriction and segregation
Hell no, not any library I've ever seen.
Sure most libraries have a children's section and an "adult" section, but when I was in elementary school the children's section got too damn boring after about a half hour. I spent all my time in the very same section of the library that holds the Marquis de Sade books. Several times I went to the librarian requesting assistance finding stuff from the adult section. I took out lots of books, and probably every single one came from the adult section.
Never once did any any librarian tell me I wasn't supposed to be there. They were all extremely helpful.
As long as a kid isn't running and screaming, any good librarian is pleased to see a young person with the interest and ability to utilize the adult section. I dunno, maybe your community library was different. Did you grow up in some repressive fundie backwater?
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Re:I like their position (Score:4, Interesting)
>It is a well known legal principle that you cannot yell fire in a crowded room because you feel like it.
That's because it compromises other people's safety and might cause a loss of life in a stampede, which had happened back when a theater burning down was a lot more probable than it is today with fire codes and whatnot.
Where is the threat to life and limb for someone looking at porn?
I'll wait right here.
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BMO
Re:I like their position (Score:3, Interesting)
That's a nice position. While we're at it let's just set up a bunch of new zones for all of our rights. Zone A is for religion. Zone B is for speech. Zone C is for the press. Zone D is for petition.
Slippery slope fallacy.
That's like saying, "You can't disrupt a congressional hearing. If you try to, they remove you by force. Why not just make everyone be silent everywhere and as soon as someone speaks, government jack-boots can shoot them."
The guy was looking at porn in the same place the story lady reads to kids. If you think that is OK, you seriously have problems. I'm all for free speech, but believe it or not, not everything is classified as speech. Pissing on a the water proof microfiche is not speech, even thought it might convey my views.
The sad part of this is, if I were to talk in a library, I would be shushed by a librarian. If I want to view porn, it's OK? So LOOKING at porn is SPEECH, but SPEAKING is not SPEECH. Did I get that right?
Re:I like their position (Score:4, Interesting)
Bullshit.
Drive down the Vegas strip. Do you see ads for strip clubs? Are they nude? No. Because a city ordinance prevents it. If you think that hasn't been litigated then you're smoking something.
This stupid, sanctimonious bitch wouldn't let her kids sit next to someone viewing porn, but she's perfectly willing to let someone other person's kid sit there.
Re:I like their position (Score:2, Interesting)
Wrong again, Bob. Peeking at a computer screen in use by another patron is against the Seattle Public Library's posted computer use policy. If children are looking at the porn on his screen they should be bounced from the premises.
As long as he's got the sound turned off or is using headphones he's entirely within his rights. While this may seem counter intuitive to even the most open minded in our prudish society it shouldn't take that much thought to realize that this is the way things should be in a modern, ostensibly free country.