The growing public display of pornographic content is a thorny issue for legislators, libraries and airlines.
Full article in the NYT
Edward Hopper, 11AM, 1926
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Avert Your Eyes
Library security screens only work to allow libraries to fool the public into thinking they are protecting First Amendment freedoms when instead they are denying legal rights to citizens to keep porn out of libraries.
The San Francisco libraries must rely on San Francisco people forgetting “Porn, Sex Crimes At Libraries; I-Team Investigation,” KGO, 29 Nov 2006, “[T]he Martin Luther King Library has a problem with pornography. They have no rule against viewing photographs or full-screen sex videos from Internet sites, even with children nearby. Chief librarian Jane Light says it’s a matter of free speech. …. ABC7’s Dan Noyes: ‘I’ve seen the [privacy] screens and I see how they work and the stuff is visible from behind. You can see everything.’ Jane Light…: ‘So you can avert your eyes.’ …. San Jose’s police blotter over the past year lists several arrests for child porn at the library, at least ten cases of child molestation or other sex crimes involving kids and several cases of men viewing porn and performing a lewd act, right at the terminal. …. Sgt. John Laws, San Jose library police: ‘It showed him sitting at the computer terminal and … masturbating.’ …. Marcia Stacke, Child Quest International: ‘You know, sometimes I wonder if we’re just too afraid to be, I don’t know, sued in this country. We’ve got to step out and protect our kids. Enough is enough.'” http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=i_team&id=4808374
Avert your eyes. There’s the solution. Great, right? Even the NY Times author mentions it.
But the NY Times author plays along with the game by calling it “censorship” to keep pornographic images out of public libraries. That is factually and legally false. US v. American Library Association [ALA] says, ” public libraries’ use of Internet filtering software does not violate their patrons’ First Amendment rights….” http://laws.findlaw.com/us/539/194.html
“Christi Chidester, 32, who works in communications for a federal agency in San Francisco, was in the main library here recently when she walked past someone watching hard-core pornography. She complained to the librarian and was told there was nothing that could be done.” That is plain false. The library is intentionally lying. There are both technologically sound and legally sound means for keeping pornography out of public libraries. Anyone saying otherwise is using dogma. Dean Marney is a library director who has exposed the ALA’s dogma: http://tinyurl.com/ALADogma And Ernest Istook is the author of the Children’s Internet Protection Act who says the ALA intentionally misleads a third of American communities: http://safelibraries.blogspot.com/2012/02/cipa-author-exposes-ala-deception.html
Cities have the right and duty to stop libraries from acting outside the law, and there’s no law allowing Internet porn on computers in public libraries. Contact me if anyone would like assistance in bringing suit against governments for dereliction of duty, or help with any issue related to libraries allowing porn.
Dan Kleinman http://tinyurl.com/AboutDan
You’re wrong, Dan.
You’re wrong, Dan.
Letter to the Editor
The NYT has a “Letter to the Editor” about this article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/30/opinion/pornography-in-public.html?_r=1&ref=opinion
Pornography and Pedophelia
The author of that letter assumes that people who view pornography in public are more inclined to be child rapists.
While watching porn in a public space is certainly deviant, it’s a deviancy related to exhibitionism, rather than pedophilia. The bogeyman that pornography causes sex crimes has been debunked in the literature.
Unfortunately that does not prevent the prudes and puritans from trotting out extreme acts as a justification for applying their morality. That a man who likes to watch adult, consensual sex will somehow decide to attach a child in a library washroom speaks more to the anxieties of the letter’s authors than a genuine risk of pornography.
It should not be forgotten that the same arguments were made against authors like Miller and Joyce with the written word. One man’s obscenity is another man’s art.
Pornography and Pedophelia
The author of that letter assumes that people who view pornography in public are more inclined to be child rapists.
While watching porn in a public space is certainly deviant, it’s a deviancy related to exhibitionism, rather than pedophilia. The bogeyman that pornography causes sex crimes has been debunked in the literature.
Unfortunately that does not prevent the prudes and puritans from trotting out extreme acts as a justification for applying their morality. That a man who likes to watch adult, consensual sex will somehow decide to attach a child in a library washroom speaks more to the anxieties of the letter’s authors than a genuine risk of pornography.
It should not be forgotten that the same arguments were made against authors like Miller and Joyce with the written word. One man’s obscenity is another man’s art.
It’s offensive, plain and simple
You can cite all the literature you’d like or pore over thin slices of the argument until the cows come home. Openly viewing pornography in public is just as offensive to some people as having a creche in a public park at Christmas time is to some other people.
Be that as it may, I cannot think of one instance where it’s morally, ethically or socially acceptable for anyone to openly view pornography in a public setting, especially one where children may be present. It may be legal, it may be acceptable in a strictly legal sense….if a large portion of the population (and your patron base) finds it offensive, listen to them.
BTW: I am a consumer of Internet porn. At home.
Thank you, Dan, for your
Thank you, Dan, for your honesty.
Not Dan….
…but you’re welcome. Dan seems kinda uptight, bet let’s leave him out of this.
Don’t be so modest, Dan.
Don’t be so modest, Dan.