People for the American Way—with eight plaintiffs—launched a suit against the Loudon County Library system in December. Last weekend the American Civil Liberties Union joined the suit, which asks a federal court to state that the screening of Internet sites in public libraries is an infringement of patrons' rights of access to constitutionally protected speech, including material considered controversial.

The American Library Association itself has advised against Internet filters used in some county library systems nationwide.

Last year the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the Communications Decency Act, one which had made it a crime to make "indecent" materials available on the Net to minors. Legal battles against local library censorship—supported by the American Library Association and the ACLU—erupted thereafter in Austin, Texas, Boston, and Southern California.

Some of the plaintiffs in the Loudon County, Virginia case include the Safer Sex Page, the American Association of University Women Maryland, Rob Morse (a San Francisco Examiner columnist) and Banned Books Online. Their arguments contend that the contents of their works have social value, including scientific, medical and artistic merit.

Two of the matters which are examined in Rob Morris' Examiner columns, he says, are AIDS and homosexuality. When X-Stop attempts censorship of those columns, it refuses access to entire issues of the San Francisco Examiner. Morse says, "I write a lot about gay and lesbian issues, politics, and the huge AIDS crisis we have here. That could all be blocked."

The Loudon County library censorship policy was instituted last October when a 9-member board, representing 100,000 residents, voted 5-4 in favor of adopting the X-Stop censorship. There are 50 Net terminals, however, all of which have worked under a censorship program for nearly two years.

Ann Beeson, ACLU's national staff attorney says that "this case presents an important question about whether the government can present internet speakers from communicating constitutionally protected information online to people whose only access to the Internet may be their local public library."

The Loudon County case will be heard on February 20 in the U.S, District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia (Pat Robertson territory).

Bob Twigg, a trustee member of the Loudon County board says, "We have a right to take safeguards for children, but we can't treat adults like children." He admits that "this lawsuit is an expensive proposition to defend a lousy, lousy, lousy policy."