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

Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you:

No adverts like this in the forums anymore.
Times and dates in your local timezone.
Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance.
Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely.
Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net.

If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

**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?

**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.

**Ahtman**

Frazzled wrote:
You're proceding from the assumption I think homeless have the right to live.

If that is a joke it is in incredibly poor taste. If it isn't a joke it is surprisingly cold and vicious; even Wiener Dogs don't want to be associated with that level of hatred and contempt.

**Ahtman**

Frazzled wrote:
Ahtman wrote:
Frazzled wrote:
You're proceding from the assumption I think homeless have the right to live.

If that is a joke it is in incredibly poor taste. If it isn't a joke it is surprisingly cold and vicious; even Wiener Dogs don't want to be associated with that level of hatred and contempt.

Wait, you're thinking thats biased. You forget that I'm 98% positive that 97% of the human population are a waste of skin at least 42% of the time.*

There is an extremely wide chasm of difference between "I don't like most people" and "A group of people I don't like have no right to live". The former is a pretty common feeling whereas the latter is held by some pretty marginalized and unsavory groups.

**Ahtman**

Frazzled wrote:
I love the smell of righteousness in the morning!

One need not be righteous to recognize that the idea of wishing death upon whole swaths of people is a fairly awful and problematic sentiment.