More than 2,000 protesters outside the Harold Washington Library Sunday called for pornography-filtering software on Chicago library computers.
Religious and civic leaders arranged the demonstration after Library Commissioner Mary Dempsey told them such software will not be installed because it won’t effectively prevent access to all pornography.
“Then get the filter that’s 98 percent effective, get the filter that’s 75 percent effective,” said Rev. James Meeks, pastor of Salem Baptist Church. “It’s just plain old common sense that we have some kind of filtering system.”
Bishop Larry Trotter of Sweet Holy Spirit Baptist Church said he became concerned about access to pornography about three months ago after a church deacon found an 8-year-old-boy viewing pornographic pictures at the Pullman Branch Library, 11001 S. Indiana Ave.
When the deacon asked a librarian to stop the child, the librarian said she couldn’t do anything about it, Trotter said.
Trotter and Meeks said meetings with Dempsey and the Library Board have failed to persuade library leaders to install the filtering software.
“Mrs. Dempsey said to me that filters don’t work,” Trotter said. “I don’t understand that. Even if it’s not 100 percent effective, at least it’s a start to save our children.”
Library spokeswoman Margot Burke said a filtering system has not been ruled out. But for now, “we don’t think filters are the answers,” Burke said.
Some systems are imperfect in screening obscene, pornographic or otherwise offensive Web sites, and others inadvertently block important information about sexuality, social issues and health topics such as breast cancer, she said.
So far, librarians have not seen a need to spend thousands of dollars to install filters, she said. “We don’t have kids running in here to look at porn,” she said.
But parents said Sunday they are unnerved by the possibility children can view pornography or that pedophiles can use publicly financed systems to look at child pornography.
“Our public tax dollars should not be used for obscene, indecent and often illegal material,” said John Naughton, 32.
Library policy states that the responsibility for use of library resources, including the Internet, rests with the parent or legal guardian. Children 7 and younger are encouraged to use the computers with an adult present.
“It’s not up to us to police,” said Burke. “That’s a parent or caregiver’s job.”
That policy is unsatisfactory, protesters said as they carried signs reading “Filters now” and “Child protection is not censorship” around the Washington Library.
David Stone, a teacher at Hirsch Metro High School, disagreed with the protesters. He held up a sign that called filters an infringement of free speech.
“The schools have installed filters and from what I can see, the filters don’t work,” Stone said.
The library should take some kind of action though, said Laura Morgan, a librarian with the Chicago Public Library and a proponent of filters.
“Public libraries have never purchased commercial hard-core pornography in print … but now it is available via the Internet, and Dempsey and [Library Board President Jayne Carr] Thompson have given a green light to anyone who wants it,” Morgan said.
