Stripped searches
Supreme Court ruling will mean local library users can peek no more
If your plans at the public library include reading an e-mail from samantha35@adultfun.com or glancing at www.cumshots.com, you could find your mission thwarted, thanks to the paternalistic justices on the Supreme Court. On June 23, in a 6-3 ruling, the Court upheld the Children’s Internet Protection Act, a Federal law that makes anti-porn filters a condition of Federal subsidies to libraries. The decision will certainly impact older library patrons as much as its younger ones. Locally, the decision likely means that an additional 45 Internet computers will get outfitted with the anti-smut devices.
“About half of our terminals are already filtered, and they have been for years,” says John Halliday, director of the Jefferson Madison Regional Library (JMRL) system, of the library’s 90 Internet computers.
The library, which maintains branches in places as far flung as Greene and Louisa counties, as well as in Charlottesville and Albemarle, currently offers patrons the option of choosing filtered or non-filtered computers, and has for some time. The Supreme Court ruling allows librarians to unblock filters at adult users’ request, but does not require librarians to do so.
“We have a board of trustees, and they decided you’d have a freedom of choice policy,” Halliday says. He hopes that policy passes Federal muster but realizes more might need to be done.
“If it turns out that we have to put filters on all of the computers,” he says, “then the library board has a decision to make: Do they want to go ahead and do that, or do they want to do it their own way?”
That way may lead the library to rely heavily on the bounties of bake and book sales. JMRL’s precarious financial situation (the State cut its budget 22 percent over two years to $650,000) likely will force it to comply with the Feds. And Halliday worries about the filters’ unintended side effects.
“Since we’ve had experience here at the library over the past few years with filters, we know that they do filter out good information, like medical information, and that they do sometimes allow in bad information like pornography,” he says.
Indeed, Halliday pinpoints what critics consider the statute’s greatest flaw, that such a broad net hobbles researchers by blocking legitimate websites. More importantly, they say, it cuts into the First Amendment.
“The court made it clear that you cannot prevent adults from having unfettered access to the Internet,” says Kent Willis, the executive director of the Virginia ACLU. “What we dislike most is that there is a chilling effect, because adults will have to ask for the filter to be turned off.”
Willis also picks up the scent of financial blackmail. “The unfortunate effect is that it’s creating a battle,” he says. “It’s drawing battle lines between public libraries and the Federal government.
“The Federal government with its large income ends up, for all practical purposes, controlling the purse strings of most public libraries.”
On a recent afternoon, patrons at the Central Library on Market Street expressed little similar anxiety, seeming either unruffled or relieved by the Court’s ruling.
“I suppose it’s vaguely worrisome, but at the same time, there are other ways to get the Internet,” said Steve Suetonius. “I understand the desire to protect children from illicit materials.”
Jalis Al-Hindi, a Park Street resident and a mother, agreed with the ruling. “One time I was upstairs with my kids, and somebody hadn’t clicked off of it [pornography], and some lady with big boobs popped up on the screen. I didn’t want my kids seeing that,” she said.—Aaron Carico
Room of her own
Four months later, homeless woman finds shelter—and unexpected compassion
Appearing on the cover of C-VILLE four months ago [“Charlottesville’s new homeless,” March 11] earned Lynn Wiber a dose of local fame. After the working college graduate told her story of going homeless in Charlottesville, she found herself confronted by strangers who recognized her from the article. Some slipped her dollar bills, some chastised her, and others wanted to save her soul. Her conclusion: Most people want to help but don’t know how.
“A lot of people approached me saying they didn’t realize this happened in Charlottesville,” Wiber says. “Homelessness is invisible. People were surprised because everything seems so nice here.”
But Charlottesville fits into a national trend: A souring economy combined with a robust housing market means that more working people, especially those with families, are living on the street.
For example, 36 percent of Charlottesville’s homeless population describe themselves as currently employed, and 51 percent have worked recently, according to a recent survey by the Thomas Jefferson Area Coalition for the Homeless. In 2002, the Coalition reported that 36 percent of the City’s homeless were families with children––this year, the number has climbed to 47 percent.
Wiber says she told her story to show people how an unwise decision can combine with bad luck to drive people into homelessness, even those who seem securely on their feet in this affluent town. The response she’s received offers insight into how Charlottesville looks upon its poor.
After the article appeared, Wiber says, “the first thing that happened was the Christians came out. Someone called me and started reading Bible passages over the phone.”
One man, she says, walked into Barnes and Noble, where she works, and confronted her. “He called me a pathetic loser,” says Wiber. “He said that I just want people to give me money and take care of me.
“He was probably a Republican.”
Wiber expected some hostility. What surprised her, she says, was the sympathy.
“A lot of people told me this had happened to them, or somebody they know,” she says. Wiber described a couple that pressed $5 into her hand, telling her they had lived in their car for six months. One woman told Wiber about her brother––a successful stockbroker cleaned out by divorce who was now living in her spare bedroom.
Wiber’s experience after going public seems to support the conclusions of a national survey released on June 13 by Charlottesville’s Pew Partnership. The survey found that the general population tends to underestimate the extent of social problems like hunger, homelessness and illiteracy in their own communities. For example, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development says that on any given day more than 3.5 million people––including 1.4 million children––are homeless, and in dozens of cities a minimum-wage worker cannot afford fair market rent for a two-bedroom apartment. Yet the Pew Partnership estimates that only 42 percent of the general public believes affordable housing is a “serious” local problem.
Some public projects currently in the works aim to address homelessness and affordable housing. The Thomas Jefferson Area Coalition for the Homeless, with a three-year, $213,000 grant from HUD, is installing a Homeless Management Information System. Scheduled to be unveiled this fall, the computer database will link regional public assistance providers, enabling them to more easily connect clients with social services and jobs.
Also, the City has formed a Housing Policy Task Force charged with addressing questions of affordable housing. The group has just begun to talk, says Task Force member and Charlottesville Police Sergeant Michael Farruggio. Some advocates have questioned whether the Task Force will look out for poor residents. Farruggio says he will encourage the City not to cluster low-income housing, as it has done previously with public housing projects.
“It does not work to corral people in lower socioeconomic levels into dense pockets,” Farruggio says. “You have increased crime in those areas, and it’s not fair to the children and families that are forced without an option to have to deal with that.”
Wiber is currently living with a disabled woman and is off the streets for the time being. Her homeless experience has been a “learning experience,” she says. One lesson? Social problems will be hard to solve until people get over their fear of the poor.
“A few people said it made them uncomfortable to read about homelessness,” Wiber says. When you’re poor, she says, “people don’t touch you. They don’t know what to do with you. That isolation has been one of the hardest things to deal with.”––John Borgmeyer
Street legal
Balloon artist has law-and-order suggestions
Carl Carter was practicing his violin 15 years ago on a Seattle street when someone threw a coin into his case. Thus began his career as a street musician. These days, his nearly 2-year-old Charlottesville act has evolved a bit—namely in the form of balloon animals, fuzzy slippers, tri-colored wigs and a rubber nose.
Kathryn E. Goodson recently sat down with Carter, the 44-year old man frequently seen on the Downtown Mall singing in falsetto while guiding a mechanical pig. Carter currently rests his head at the On Our Own drop-in center on Fourth Street. His tips average $20-$100 a day, depending on time and location. He spends the bulk of it on Greyhound bus tickets to Alexandria, to restock balloons and toys.
“The prices here are outrageous,” he says. He has a business license and a mission: to spread laughs, wisdom and goofy song lyrics. Oh, yes, and to obtain a cell phone charger.
As a street musician, why did you choose to entertain children?
Kids are pure, fun. Well, until that corrupt point comes. Ages 1 through 9, they love me. There’s a market out here for kids—just look at all the things to do down here. It’s all for adults. Maybe once a week or so, a kid can have a little fun, get their face painted? That’s not enough.
As for the costumes, the balloons, it’s just my form of free expression and fun. I’ve learned to be content with who I am.
How did you learn to play so many instruments?
I grew up in the ghettos of Chicago. I decided in high school I wanted more than the gangs and violence. I got involved in the orchestra and stuck with it all through high school. During the following years I became an honor student. I was the only one in my family to graduate from high school. My mom was an alcoholic so it wasn’t like I was going to get an enormous amount of support.
But times were different then. Kids were not like the cowards of today. Even in the ghettos we never had school shootings—kids still had respect for their parents. The standards for kids have really, really been lowered.
I’m not a huge fan of affirmative action. I am a fan of the welfare-to-work plan. And school vouchers. Trust me, it’s hard to do well in school and learn when you’re worried about being beat up when you come out of the front door.
How has your attitude of “entertaining the Downtown Mall” changed since you were recently robbed by some of the very people you’re trying to please?
The bottom line no one wants to face here is that we are not hard enough on crime, period. That’s one thing Republicans do right—they’re a lot harder on crime. The other thing? No one cares about black crime on blacks.
We desperately need a volunteer crime task force here. I’ve lived in Canada, Mexico, Florida, Alexandria—every other neighborhood and community’s got one. The police say they’ve got a shortage and can’t handle it all, we need to create a volunteer one. But when I say, “Let me volunteer, let me help,” I get no reaction at all. If it’s training I need, then give me some training. I’ve got a cell phone and all I need is a charger. I’ve been trained to use an M-16 but I cannot get a phone cord and charger?
While we were in the midst of war, I heard plenty of people saying they’d love to go defend their country. I say we need to take care of home first. More than 51 percent of these crimes are gang-related. And still, you’ve got neighborhoods that won’t speak up, people that won’t speak up. You’ve got to get to that point when you’re willing to stand up.
All I’m hoping for at this point is a phone for 9-1-1 purposes. I’m always on the Mall, I see everything that goes on down here. If we can stop some of this crime, we’ll have a much better community.