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More libraries than not have chosen to install filters. Comer (2005) surveyed the public libraries in Indiana and found that 18 per cent of the respondents had modified their computer usage policies because of CIPA. Regrettably, the city council of one major American city (“Phoenix council demands filters,” 2004) went beyond CIPA in preventing adults from choosing to disable the filter, as required by law.
Jaeger, Bertot and McClure (2004) provide an excellent analysis of the issues facing public libraries in the post-CIPA environment. Such issues include filter disabling mechanisms, staffing costs, technology costs, digital divide complications and legal challenges on the application of CIPA in individual libraries. Minow (2004) offers practical guidance to libraries trying to live within CIPA as well as detailed insights on the likelihood of as-applied challenges to CIPA and the intricacies of the disabling provision obligation for libraries.
Due to technical reasons, school media centers were not included in the American Library Association’s legal challenge to CIPA, so for them, there was no change when the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the law. The vast majority of school media centers filtered before the ruling and the vast majority of school media centers still do. However, School Library Journal (“Feds restart filter debate,” 2006) points out the ironic twist in the news report that the Department of Justice, which fought so hard in CIPA to prove that filters were effective and not overly harmful, is now arguing that filters are not effective enough to keep children safe and therefore the more extreme measures of the Child Online Protection Act (COPA) are necessary. COPA has remained stalled in federal court since its passage.
It was never the intent of this project to systematically study the effectiveness of filtering devices. However, such information provides a valuable backdrop to qualitative studies such as mine that look at the effect of filtering on student learning. Heins, Cho and Feldman (2006) provide an excellent summary of the most recent empirical studies on filtering effectiveness, updating a previous (2001) report.