South Dakota House lawmakers are removing defense protections for librarians and educational institutions if obscene material ends up in the hands of minors.
It would expose librarians to a class one misdemeanor charge. That’s punishable by up to a year in jail and a $2,000 fine.
Representative Will Mortenson, R-Fort Pierre, said that’s wrong.
“We got to do better than this, folks,” Mortenson said. “There’s work that we can do in this policy area, but heading right to sending the librarians to jail is not cutting the mustard.”
Yeah, I don’t think that this is reasonable.
If you want to filter Internet content on library computers – which I assume is the issue here, not kids checking out Fanny Hill – then just say “libraries in South Dakota need to run filtering software package X”. It won’t be perfect, but then, hey, neither will librarians, and dumping the risks of that imperfection on them serves no purpose.
Yeah, I don’t think that this is reasonable.
If you want to filter Internet content on library computers – which I assume is the issue here, not kids checking out Fanny Hill – then just say “libraries in South Dakota need to run filtering software package X”. It won’t be perfect, but then, hey, neither will librarians, and dumping the risks of that imperfection on them serves no purpose.