On the Kennebec Journal Opinion Page for August 6, 2004, Christopher Coughlin of Randolph, Maine, in an essay titled “Rogue Libraries Fail to Install Porn Filters,” sounds off about certain Maine libraries not abiding by the “Children's Internet Protection Act” which “essentially requires libraries that receive federal funds as part of the federal E-rate program to install filtering software to protect children from the vile and pervasive problem of Internet smut.” He asks, “Can everybody say 'Constitutional right to equal protection?'”
Can Mr. Coughlan say, “Censorship”? Can Mr. Coughlan understand the difference between “requires libraries that receive federal funds…to install” porn filters, and “bribes libraries that receive federal funds…to install” porn filters? Does Mr. Coughlan understand that in this case there is no “requirement,” but only “bribery”? That no librarian is breaking any law if he or she says, “Thanks, but keep your federal (read 'taxpayer') bribe, we prefer to abide by the Constitution of the United States which guarantees free speech”?
Of course, it is likely if not probable that Mr. Coughlan (evidently a Republican -- he takes a passing swipe at the Maine “Democrat-controlled Legislature”) prefers to dump onto the heads of librarians the job of playing morals police, a job that properly belongs to parents, not librarians who are supposed to serve ALL the public, not just children who come in to use the library's computers. I would have thought that a true Republican would prefer that public servants stay out of people's hair as much as possible. Or is that too old-fashioned in this era of Patriot Acts, jailing American citizens without recourse to the law on charges President Bush, his Attorney General and Secretary of Defense deem well-grounded without specifying what those grounds are? On phony color-codes for levels of terror based on information three and four years old? On public give-aways to the wealthiest one percent of the population, many of whom have large libraries of pornography in their homes?
Rather than talk about the “80 percent of Maine libraries” that “did the right thing” by sinking to their knees and accepting a bribe, Coughlan ought to talk about the 53 others that acted like Citizens of the Republic by ignoring a government that wants to interfere with what a free people wishes to do as long it does no harm.
