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The Baby And The Bathwater Too: A Critique Of American Library Ass’N V. U.S., Marc H. Greenberg

Publications

In June 2003, the Supreme Court, in United States v. American Library Ass’n, sent tremors through libraries nationwide when it reversed a finding of the United States District Court (USDC) in Philadelphia that held the Child Internet Protection Act (CIPA) was facially violative of the First Amendment rights of library patrons. Under CIPA, all libraries that accepted federal funding to cover the costs of providing Internet access to their patrons were required to install filtering software programs on their computers to prevent patrons from seeing any material that was obscene or “harmful to minors.” The law was not limited to …