On April 4th, NCAC is partnering with the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Center for Civic Media at MIT to bring attention to the long-standing problem of Internet censorship in public libraries and schools for 404 Day. Join us on Friday, April 4th from 3pm-4pm EST for a digital teach-in with some of the top researchers and librarians working to analyze and push back against the use of Internet filters on library computers. Mark your calendars, and check back soon for more information about how you can tune-in.

Speakers:

Deborah Caldwell-Stone, Deputy Director of the American Library Association's Office for Intellectual Freedom. She has written extensively about CIPA and blocked websites in libraries.

Chris Peterson, a research affiliate at the Center for Civic Media at the MIT Media Lab and National Coalition Against Censorship board member. He is currently working on the Mapping Information Access Project.

Sarah Houghton, Director for the San Rafael Public Library in Northern California. She has also blogged as the Librarian in Black for over a decade.

Moderator: April Glaser, activist at the Electronic Frontier Foundation

We also invite librarians and concerned bloggers across the country to blog about Internet filtering in libraries on 404 Day to raise awareness and share stories of free speech infringing censorship in schools and libraries. Want to blog about it? Write an email to [email protected] to let us know.

About Children's Internet Protection Act & Censorship in Libraries

Over 10 years ago, Congress passed the Children's Internet Protection Act (CIPA), a bill that brought new levels of Internet censorship to libraries across the country. The law is supposed to encourage public libraries and schools to filter child pornography and obscene or “harmful to minors” images from the library’s Internet connection in exchange for continued federal funding. Unfortunately, aggressive interpretations of this law have resulted in extensive and unnecessary censorship in our cherished public libraries, often because libraries go beyond the legal requirements of CIPA when implementing content filters. As a result, students and library patrons across the country are routinely and unnecessarily blocked from accessing constitutionally protected websites.