Senate Moves Ahead with Bill to Fight Online Child Porn

Last Thursday the Senate Judiciary Committee reported out the Combating Child Exploitation Act (S.1738) to the full Senate for a possible vote.

The bill would:

• establish a Special Counsel for Child Exploitation Prevention and Interdiction within the Office of the Deputy Attorney General;
• improve the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force;
• increase resources for regional computer forensic labs; and
• make other improvements to increase the ability of law enforcement agencies to investigate and prosecute predators.

The cost of these measures would be more than $1 billion over the next eight years. Among the "other improvements" would be the hiring of 250 new federal agents dedicated to child exploitation cases, mostly at the FBI, the Immigrations and Custom Enforcement Agency, and the U.S. Postal Service.

Washington state Supreme Court to hear library filtering case

A case first filed in federal court in Spokane WA in November 2006 has been referred to the Washington Supreme Court.

The North Central Regional Library District was sued by three individuals and the Second Amendment Foundation for refusing to turn off their Internet filter when asked to do so by the three adults. NCRL uses a filter at all times throughout the library, "because filtering is consistent with NCRL's mission and traditional role as a public library." The filter blocked the plaintiffs' access to Women & Guns, an online publication of the Second Amendment Foundation.

The case is moving to the Washington Supreme Court because the American Civil Liberties Union of Washington Foundation, representing the plaintiffs, contends that NCRL's filtering violates the free-speech provisions of the state constitution as well as the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

The case files can be accessed here.

Additional information (4/6/08)
A representative from NCRL informs me that they don't think Women & Guns was ever actually blocked; they checked the site the day they found out about the case and it was not blocked at that time. Also, the motion to move the case to the Washington Supreme Court was made by the North Central Regional Library, not the ACLU.