San Jose City Council to reconsider porn filters at libraries Saturday, April 11, 2009 By John Woolfolk, San Jose Mercury News San Jose officials are preparing for a showdown later this month over online pornography in city libraries. City officials last considered whether to electronically filter library Internet use in 1997. At the time, they overwhelmingly concluded the technology was too primitive to snag smut without also snaring information about health topics like breast cancer. The council will revisit that decision in what is expected to be a heavily attended evening meeting April 21. Councilman Pete Constant since October 2007 has called for reconsidering that move. He has cited improvements in technology and disturbing news reports of people openly viewing hard-core porn on library computers open to children. "There have been multiple complaints of lewd acts and public indecency," Constant said in a memorandum to the council, that "are not discouraged or even addressed by the city's current computer use policy." But Constant's crusade has put him on a collision course with the city's head librarian, Jane Light, and civil libertarians who have argued filtering technology remains too crude to remove porn while allowing legitimate research to continue. In the year and a half since Constant raised the issue, he has journeyed to Arizona to test filtering software used by Phoenix libraries and hosted a public demonstration of the technology at City Hall. Cheering him on is Larry Pegram, a former San Jose cop and council member, who heads an organization called the Values Advocacy Council. The group campaigned recently against gay marriage. But Constant has found little enthusiasm among fellow council members to take on the issue anew, with many echoing the librarians' and civil libertarians' concerns about the practicality and expense of filtering and broader questions about individual freedom. Though Constant argues use of filtering will make the city eligible for federal grant money to offset the expense of filtering, Light has said that funding would not cover the full cost. With the city facing chronic budget deficits, there is little support for adding new costs. So the council will be debating two proposals that essentially start with telling patrons not to look at pornography, at least in the presence of children. Constant and Mayor Chuck Reed urge a stronger stance that would essentially mirror the policy in Santa Clara County libraries. It would start with making computer users when they log in acknowledge city policy to be mindful that children may be present and to behave accordingly. The proposal would then direct the city to install filtering technology at all branch libraries in areas designated for children and, as funding allows, to have optional filtering for other computers. It further directs the city to discuss library Internet policy with San Jose State University for the jointly run main library downtown. Council members Sam Liccardo, Ash Kalra and Judy Chirco propose that the city start with reminding users as they log on that exposing children to pornography is illegal. They propose putting off any decision on filtering that would cost more than $25,000 until the city's police crossing-guard, sexual-assault and Internet-crimes-against-children units are fully funded and library hours and staffing restored to 2001 levels. "In this budgetary climate," they wrote in their own memorandum, "every dollar diverted for filters is a minute, hour or day during which a library must shut its doors." Contact John Woolfolk at jwoolfolk@mercurynews.com or (408) 975-9346.