A year and a half of debate over filtering pornography out of San Jose public library computers came to a head late Tuesday when the City Council rejected spending money on the technology.
After a lively debate that lasted hours, the council voted 7-3 to approve a proposal by the vice mayor and two councilmen that would remind computer users of existing policies to be courteous to others. Mayor Chuck Reed and council members Pete Constant, who led the push for the filters, and Pierluigi Oliverio were opposed, favoring filters in children’s areas.
“There are a lot of different ways to protect our children,” said Councilman Sam Liccardo who sponsored the approved proposal along with Vice Mayor Judy Chirco and Councilman Ash Kalra. The proposal argued the city should first find more money to expand library hours, school crossing guards and sex-crime detectives. Liccardo compared filtering to “fighting a global naval strategy by deploying all our ships to Lake Tahoe.”
At Tuesday’s meeting, dozens of residents lined up to speak, with advocates arguing filters will protect kids from easy access to porn in the libraries. Debbie Mendez said that on a visit to her local branch library last summer, a man seated next to her and her son and daughter was viewing pornography, and the librarian said there was not much she could do about it.
“I was blown away,” Mendez said.
Council Votes Down Porn Filters in Libraries
