Watching Adult Material Protected under free speech in a library(In NY)

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**hotsauceman1**

Um, Wow. This is interesting. I know the story is kinda old but I doupt many people know about it

In a story today, The New York Post went looking for patrons of public libraries who watch porn at computer terminals. They found one older gentleman watching a "threesome." He wouldn't talk to the paper, but they did find plenty of people who were put off by the behavior:

Library patron Daisy Nazario, 60, said she was grossed out when she discovered she was sitting next to an elderly porn watcher in the Brooklyn Central Library recently.
The looker was using library-provided extensions on the sides of his computer to block the view of his screen — which was featuring a threesome at the time — "but I could still hear the voices," a disgusted Nazario said.
"It is very disrespectful to the children."
But the truth is that for a long time, now, New York City libraries have decided that watching pornography at public libraries is protected by the First Amendment and as such they don't do anything to stop or discourage it. The New York Press reported back in 2004 that when Congress passed the Children's Internet Protection Act (CIPA), the Brooklyn Public Library, for example, just added a filter that adults could turn off if they wanted to. The filter kept the free speech protection in place but also raised the necessary roadblocks to keep the library from losing its federal funding.

Back in 2005, The New York Times' Ethicist boiled down the issue at hand succinctly:

Libraries should provide for the free exchange of ideas — not just ideas you or I find palatable, not just ideas suitable for 5-year-olds. And librarians should not be forced to censor patrons' reading, let alone eject them for looking at disturbing images.
While it seems that most libraries have agreed with the that interpretation, the issue still keeps coming up. Earlier this month, reports LA Weekly, Los Angeles City Commissioners on the Arts, Parks, Health and Aging Committee discussed the same thing after receiving complaints from constituents that they were put off by library patrons surfing for porn. Nothing came of the meeting except some constitutional advice:

...There was a lot of talk, with UCLA constitutional law professor Eugene Volokh saying city libraries could filter porn on its public internet terminals, but only until someone asked them to stop.
"If the library says, 'No, we don't want to unblock. We don't want to subsidize this kind of material,' that's something that's not yet settled" by the U.S. Supreme Court, he told the committee.

**whembly**

Remember, they're in the public sphere... I think the libraries are more within their rights to filter pron.

**Dreadclaw69**

Either way I'm sure that "enjoying" it in public is still punishable by law

**KalashnikovMarine**

Indecent exposure if you're actively enjoying it. Not sure if there's really any way to punish someone for just watching or reading explicit material though.

**Ahtman**

Cracked.com covered this as well.

4 Constitutional Dabates the Founding Fathers Never Envisioned

A Seattle woman was harshly chastised by her local library staff after she became embroiled in an argument over watching porn on a public library computer. Oh, no, she wasn't watching porn -- she was asking the dude next to her to take that "Private Browsing" session somewhere actually private, and the librarians not-so-kindly asked her -- and her three young children, who were present -- to mind their own damn business.
You see, Seattle -- along with many other library systems across the land -- have a longstanding tradition of allowing citizens who are unable to afford a high-speed connection to come in and watch Coach, My Ass Is the Stadium: Volume 15, arguing that this isn't so much about allowing people to load up their spank bank as it is about preventing censorship.

On one hand, we understand that some people do look at porn for legitimate reasons, like if you're doing your thesis on Sasha Grey's oeuvre. On the other hand, if the legion of unemployed, bearded men all writing their dissertations on Blow-Job Deli 39 -- on computers underneath a banner of the Berenstain Bears extolling the joys of the Dewey Decimal System, no less -- represent a cross-section of the American mind, who's studying all the science and literature?

**hotsauceman1**

whembly wrote:
Remember, they're in the public sphere... I think the libraries are more within their rights to filter pron.

For kids, but it is considered censorship if they ban people from watching it.

**reds8n**

The New York Times' Ethicist boiled down the issue at hand

best choice of words !

**Dreadclaw69**

KalashnikovMarine wrote:
Indecent exposure if you're actively enjoying it. Not sure if there's really any way to punish someone for just watching or reading explicit material though.

What if there are minors in the vicinity?

**Ahtman**

Dreadclaw69 wrote:
KalashnikovMarine wrote:
Indecent exposure if you're actively enjoying it. Not sure if there's really any way to punish someone for just watching or reading explicit material though.

What if there are minors in the vicinity?

If you check the link posted in the Cracked article apparently they just tell the person with the kids complaining to mind their own business.

**SheSpits**

MURICA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

**Frazzled**

Wait they still have libraries?

Ow wow like here's a simpole solution:

1. Computer bank for under 18. Has filters. Out in the open.
2. Computer bank for over 18. No filters.

or
3. No computers. Dewey Decimel Baby!

**reds8n**

.. And best of all we also have recently learnt that if this causes you to go blind you can still get a gun permit !

**timetowaste85**

Red, you're my new hero. Well said, friend!

**Dreadclaw69**

Ahtman wrote:
Dreadclaw69 wrote:
KalashnikovMarine wrote:
Indecent exposure if you're actively enjoying it. Not sure if there's really any way to punish someone for just watching or reading explicit material though.

What if there are minors in the vicinity?

If you check the link posted in the Cracked article apparently they just tell the person with the kids complaining to mind their own business.

So is exposing minors to pornography not a crime? Lady could have phoned the cops, and also claimed that the library was aiding and abetting the person viewing the material.

**gossipmeng**

Meh young kids wouldn't be able to understand what they saw - just buy them a chocolate bar and they will go A.D.D., forgetting they ever saw anything.

Older kids.... well don't kid yourself they probably go home and watch it themselves.

They should still put filters on the library computers though which would help I'm sure.

**feeder**

Wait, so these guys are just viewing the porn? Why?

I find porn tediously unwatchable unless I am, uh, actively watching it.

**juraigamer**

Who goes to a library to watch porn? Unless it's got a really compelling story *cough* then what gives?

**Ouze**

I agree with the library's POV. I think their role is to provide information, and not be an arbiter of what that information should be, within legal limits. Otherwise that slop gets really slippery really fast.

**timetowaste85**

Watching porn is pointless unless it's "active watching". The script is...well, there is no script.

**Ouze**

juraigamer wrote:
Who goes to a library to watch porn?

Homeless people.

**Hordini**

I also agree with the library. They shouldn't be censoring anything. I wouldn't have a problem if they had a separate area for adults using computers, or requiring people to wear headphones or something, but libraries in general tend to be pretty anti-censorship, which I agree with completely.

**Frazzled**

Protip from a parent. Never leave your kids at a library. Many have semi-permanent homeless populations now.

**Hordini**

Frazzled wrote:
Protip from a parent. Never leave your kids at a library. Many have semi-permanent homeless populations now.

They have as much a right to be there as anyone else, and a library isn't a babysitter.

**hotsauceman1**

Frazzled wrote:
Protip from a parent. Never leave your kids at a library. Many have semi-permanent homeless populations now.

Homeless make great babysitter though.

**Ouze**

Frazzled wrote:
Protip from a parent. Never leave your kids at a library. Many have semi-permanent homeless populations now.

Unfortunately this is very sound advice. My mother is a librarian in NY and some of them are unfortunately flat-out dangerous for children - although I'm not saying homeless people are intrinsically dangerous; the library has certainly have had to have the police escort out sex offenders and some of the more mentally unhinged subset of that group. Definitely not a place for unsupervised minor children sadly - although few places really are unless they specifically advertise themselves as such.

**Frazzled**

Hordini wrote:
Frazzled wrote:
Protip from a parent. Never leave your kids at a library. Many have semi-permanent homeless populations now.

They have as much a right to be there as anyone else, and a library isn't a babysitter.

yes children have a right to be there.
Homeless, not so much.

**feeder**

Frazzled wrote:
Hordini wrote:
Frazzled wrote:
Protip from a parent. Never leave your kids at a library. Many have semi-permanent homeless populations now.

They have as much a right to be there as anyone else, and a library isn't a babysitter.

yes children have a right to be there.
Homeless, not so much.

Freaking seriously?

**Frazzled**

I generally take freaking very seriously.

**MrDwhitey**

Haha oh wow.

**Alfndrate**

feeder wrote:
Freaking seriously?

While libraries are public places, many homeless use them as free and easy access to the following:
1) Bathrooms
2) Warmth
3) Internet/Internet porn

While they certainly have just as much right to be in the library as anyone else, because knowledge is power and half the battle, they tend to not use libraries for their intended purpose. In Cleveland, so idk about anywhere else, many homeless spend their days in the libraries because it's less 'embarrassing' to be seen going to a homeless shelter.

Though if I was homeless, I'd volunteer at the library, taking hobo showers in the bathroom and helping out where I can, and then hit up one of the many free 'community meals' that my city puts on for people down on their luck/outright homeless.