Slashdot Mirror
Seattle Library Lets Man Watch Porn On Computers Despite Complaints
The Lake City library is making news for their staunch position on the First Amendment, censorship, and the right to watch porn in the library. The problem started when library patron Julie Howe found a man watching some questionable material and asked him to move to another computer. The man refused and the librarian also refused to intervene when asked saying that the library doesn't censor content. "We're a library, so we facilitate access to constitutionally protected information. We don't tell people what they can view and check out," Seattle Public Library spokeswoman Andra Addison told Seattle PI. "Filters compromise freedom of speech protected by the First Amendment. We're not in the business of censoring information."
Unfortunately, some politician is going to smell opportunity and make them regret it.
How do you know the man in question isn't one?
Seems better than even odds to me...
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
So it would give homeless a place to watch porn.
I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
Bugger the children!!!
Why is it that most of the people that I encounter seem to have been shat from the Sphincter of Mediocrity?
No! No! Don't think of the children!
That's exactly what the library will regret: a room full of politicians
There isn't any sound precedent I'm aware of that establishes any kind of freedom from speech. There are certainly limits on what circumstances you are entitled to subject others to your speech (you are not entitled to hold an audience hostage), but there are no "free from speech zones" in public. If a person is in a public space voluntarily, they do not have the right to operate in a bubble and be shielded from speech.
That's the principle of the law. Whether watching porn is a speech act is another question, but if it is, it is absolutely protected.
The porn talks to him.