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Americans searching for erotica in their public libraries might have to settle for National Geographic if a controversial Internet filtering law is upheld.

At press time, librarians were still waiting for a U.S. District Court in Philadelphia to decide whether the Children's Internet Protection Act is unconstitutional, as they argued in April. The act does not directly restrict free speech but would deny federal funding for libraries that do not impose mandatory filtering on Internet access for all patrons.

CIPA's opponents argue that mandatory filters would also block scores of nonpornographic sites, such as the women's basketball portal ChicksWithBalls.net or HumpOfTheMonth.com, which catalogs speed bumps around the world.

The decision, expected any day, won't be the end of the story, of course. No matter which way the gavel swings in Philadelphia, the losing legal team is sure to appeal to the Supreme Court immediately. And some libraries such as the San Francisco Public Library have already vowed to defy the law if it stands and forgo any federal funds attached to it.

“This is nothing new,” said Sue Vanlaanen, director of communications for the Vancouver, Wash., Regional Library District. Libraries across the country have been providing Internet access for years, administering their own policies to satisfy their own communities' wishes. But although pornophiles aren't exactly canceling their Playboy subscriptions in droves and applying for library cards, local parents have been vocally defending CIPA. A Vancouver newspaper reported CIPA supporters outnumbered their opponents by about three to one at a recent public hearing to discuss the matter.

Some CIPA supporters even recounted an infamous local anecdote of a Vancouver library patron who took his level of porn-interactivity too far, but Vanlaanen said the story is taken out of context. “I believe that was before we had Internet access,” she said, which points to a valid question: Would a future bill ban even National Geographic?

As librarians know from years of shushing, no policy can eliminate bad behavior. “Telling people they can't strip naked in the middle of the library doesn't mean that somebody might not try it,” said Larra Clark, spokesperson for the American Library Association.

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