In the legal challenge to the Children's Internet Protection Act (CIPA), the American Library Association (ALA) has gained a preliminary victory. The U.S. Justice Department filed a brief in the U.S. District Court in Philadelphia June 8th defending the constitutionality of CIPA. This document was in response to lawsuits filed in the U.S. District Court in Philadelphia by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and ALA in March. In a one-paragraph decision, the three-panel judge of the federal district court denied the government's motion to dismiss ALA's case and joined the ALA and ACLU actions into one lawsuit. This May 15th decision came just three days after the Philadelphia court heard oral arguments on the government's motion. The case will now proceed to the discovery phase of litigation. Initial disclosures by the parties were due August 1st, and depositions in the case will continue through December 7, 2001. The trial is set for February 14, 2002.

Public libraries win delay on filtering mandate

The deadline by which public libraries will be required to install Internet filtering software on their public access computers was also extended as part of the June 8th CIPA decision. Plaintiffs and defense attorneys negotiated a delay in CIPA's enforcement, which gives libraries until July 2002 to make a final decision whether to comply with CIPA's Internet-filtering requirements. This means that libraries can receive E-rate funds in Year Four without installing filtering or blocking software. By October 28th, libraries must certify to the SLD that they are making good faith efforts in evaluating their options. A letter from ALA's attorney on the E-rate certification requirements has been posted to ALA's CIPA website (www.ala.org/cipa/).