One of the comments, left by “Anonymous”, in regards to my comments regarding requiring a login for public WiFi access in a library was worthy of a response. Here it is:
A teenager insisting on accessing quite offensive pornography was recently a regular at the computers at one of our local libraries.
Sir (I’m assuming but could be wrong), I’m sorry to hear that you’re upset about this issue. However, since I am unaware of the actual content of the material that the “teenager” of unspecified age (as an 18-year-old is an adult but still technically a teenager) was viewing I can not judge as to the level of offensiveness of the material. Even if I could judge however, I would not as what is offensive to one individual may not be offensive to another. This is why things that are merely offensive are generally allowed under the first amendment. Even so, if that material was so patently offensive to offend even my tolerant sensibilities, the requirement of a log-in for WiFi access would neither prevent or necessarily track such usage as there are privacy issues involved and libraries rarely keep such information longer than is absolutely necessary (typically through the end of the day.) The information that is kept is generally done so to be able to track those that cause damage to their property. Since such in formation in this case would not even do that, I see even less reason to ask for the information in the first place.
Do you propose that others should be able to access and download child pornography and remain untraceable by the police by just going to the library?
This sentence has nothing to do with the first nor did I write anything thing to suggest that doing something illegal should be allowed in a library. (The afore mentioned teenager may have been doing something inappropriate yet still legal) Even if the log-in is required and kept, there are any number of ways of masking what you’re doing while logged into the library’s, or any other, network. Therefore, again, the log-in requirement is useless in preventing illegal activity rendering that defense of the policy impotent.
Surely, it’s already going to be difficult enough to fight this evil in the coming era of mobile devices with totally removable memory and storage?
The “era” of mobile devices and removable memory/storage is already here, (as I can attest to with my Treo with an SD slot,) but now I’m just arguing semantics. I disagree with your premise that a library’s job is to “fight evil” in the world. Granted, Batgirl was a librarian, but I digress. If I were to agree that one of the library’s missions was to “fight evil” I would suggest that the best way for a library to do so was to provide access to more information and remove as many barriers to information as possible. The policy at issue does nothing to accomplish either. So, if fighting evil is the goal, this policy is not the way.
