A Filter That Lets Good Information In

In an attempt to satisfy the requirements of the Children's Internet Protection Act (CIPA) without unduly restricting library users' access to online information, Kansas has accomplished something no other state has: it's created its own Internet filter. Since December 2003, about 60 of the state's 330 public libraries have used the KanGuard filter, free of charge, through a proxy server set up through the Kansas State Library, says Thomas Reddick, the automation coordinator of the North East Kansas Library System (NEKLS) and one of the creators of KanGuard.

The state's library-friendly alternative comes at a crucial time. After the Supreme Court upheld CIPA last summer, libraries that want to continue receiving e-rate funds must install software that blocks images that are obscene or "harmful to minors" by July 1 of this year.

Reddick says that unlike commercial filters, which frequently block benign Web sites, KanGuard blocks only pornography. Thus there's been little complaint about the system from library patrons. A committee of five Kansas librarians has been assembled to consider requests for additions or deletions to KanGuard's list of blocked sites, but so far there have been fewer than five such requests.

Reddick and his colleagues at NEKLS created KanGuard by customizing an existing program called SquidGuard, a filter written for the Linux operating system. SquidGuard's "open-source" programming code isn't protected by the intellectual property laws that restrict most software, and any programmer who wants to upgrade it is free to do so.

KanGuard also doesn't have a "proprietary" list of blocked sites, a standard feature of commercial filters. Instead, Redding compiles KanGuard's lists with an open-source "robot" program that scours the Web, searching for language and images that are clearly obscene or harmful to minors. That way, Redding thinks libraries can comply with CIPA—by blocking pornographic or obscene images—without restricting as many sites as commercial products do.

Will Kansas's homegrown filter satisfy the stringent requirements of CIPA? Whether any library's Internet policy meets the standard can only be determined when such a policy is challenged in court, says Melora Ranney Norman, an outreach coordinator at the Maine State Library and cochair of the Maine Library Association's Intellectual Freedom Committee. But she doubts that KanGuard would survive a court challenge. "The collective legal wisdom since the Supreme Court decision," says Norman, "seems to indicate that a library might not be considered in compliance if its chosen blocking software doesn't block as much as a standard commercial product."

So what's a conscientious librarian to do? Some library professionals who are committed to free access to the Internet for all ages say that there's no good choice a library can make under CIPA. "I don't feel that commercial products narrowly enough define what needs to be blocked for CIPA," says Lori Bowen Ayre, a consultant with the Galecia Group in California. Most commercial filters, if installed "out of the box," will block gambling sites or sites about drinking alcohol—topics she says are outside CIPA's purview. Nor does Ayre have much faith in a free Linux-based filter like KanGuard. "You can load SquidGuard with [a block list of] several hundred thousand URLs, but it's not going to block all sexually explicit content," she says.

Ayre says that if a library must filter, it should work with a vendor sensitive to the needs of a library's community, as well as the principles of intellectual freedom—and such a vendor, so far, hasn't proven easy to locate.

Reddick, however, is confident that KanGuard will stand up to a court challenge. "CIPA does not specify a specific technology to be used," he says. Reddick also thinks that since Kansas's filter is a "collaborative, community-based filter" designed with local needs in mind, it easily meets CIPA's requirements. KanGuard "represents a tremendous effort on the part of the library community," says Reddick.