"The government is choking off the free flow of information on the internet to the library patrons who need it the most," said Ann Beeson, a member of the ACLU legal team that will be arguing the case in US District Court in Philadelphia.
The ACLU's clients include public libraries across the country; a 15-year-old girl and her aunt, both of Philadelphia, who do not have internet access at home; two candidates for Congress whose web sites were blocked; Planetout.com, a web site for gay lesbian, bisexual and transgendered persons; and the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, whose web site provides reproductive healthcare information.
CIPA requires libraries that participate in certain federal programs to install "technology protection measures" on all of their internet access terminals. The law defines such measures as "a specific technology that blocks or filters Internet access" such as the commercially available blocking programs Smartfilter, Bess, CyberPatrol, and WebSense.
The ACLU argues that CIPA violates the First Amendment because it prevents citizens from communicating and accessing constitutionally protected speech, imposes a prior restraint on speech, is not narrowly tailored to limit speech in the least restrictive way possible, and violates the right to communicate anonymously because it requires adults to prove a "bona fide research purpose" before they may access protected speech at public libraries. It also argues that web site blocking is erratic and ineffective.