Library Internet Filter Debate Sparks Conflict Between Attorney and Activist

The Montville Township Public Library Board's attorney and a retired lawyer advocating against pornography on library computers have different advice on whether public libraries must turn off Internet filters at an adult patron's request.

But a recent situation in which a man viewed pornography on a township library computer did not hinge on the filter being turned off at his request, board attorney and Parsippany resident Ann Grossi said Wednesday. He simply got around the filter that's already in place.

The Montville library board's technology committee is looking at ways to strengthen the filter as one of the ways the board may address the issue, she said.

Grossi advises that the filter be turned off if requested, and points to a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that upheld the Children's Internet Protection Act, a federal law requiring Internet filters for libraries that receive federal funding. Some justices noted the law is constitutional because the filters easily can be removed if someone asks.

Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote, "If some libraries do not have the capacity to unblock specific Web sites or to disable the filter or if it is shown that an adult user's election to view constitutionally protected Internet material is burdened in some other substantial way, that would be the subject for an as-applied challenge."

The American Library Association cites that opinion to conclude, "There is no doubt, therefore, that libraries that refuse to disable filters at the request of an adult patron or that impose substantial burdens on a patron's ability to have the filter disabled risk an individual litigation in which the library will be a defendant."

Dan Kleinman, a retired attorney who maintains the blog SafeLibraries, alleged in a blog post Grossi is "providing false legal opinions" to the Montville and Roxbury libraries, and said he mailed an ethics complaint against her for that reason.

He wrote,

 Only Ann Grossi stands in the way of legally ridding these libraries of Internet pornography.  Ann Grossi accomplishes this by providing false legal opinions and by not providing accurate information that would support the libraries ability to block porn and keep it blocked even after a request to unblock and the municipalities ability to prepare for liability that sometimes results from Internet pornography in public libraries.  Libraries and municipalities have been successfully sued for sexual harassment arising out of the failure to filter out pornography, but Ann Grossi fails to advise of this.

Grossi, also a Morris County freeholder and Republican candidate for county clerk, said the ethics complaint was lodged only to cause havoc for her campaign.

She added that as a wife and mother, she finds pornography "abhorrent" and said she doesn't want it around children or viewed in a library either.

"There is no fundamental difference between us on pornography," Grossi told Patch. "It is just issues of law that are different, and I am following the letter of the law.

"Although I commend Mr. Kleinman for wanting to fight this issue—it is a noble cause—but instead of attacking people, he should really go to the legislature and see if there is anything that can be done to set better rules," she said. "His energy is misplaced by directing his frustration toward me."