Research Paper on:
Controversy of Filtering Internet Access

Unformatted Sample Text from the Research Paper:
can be given in the body of the paper. FYI: an abstract merely sums up the goals and purposes of the paper, indicating general content, and major topics covered.  Introduction The Childrens Internet Protection Act (CIPA) which went into effect in April of 2001, is intended to prevent minors from accessing inappropriate material over the  Internet while using computers in public libraries. The CIPA requires that libraries receiving federally subsidized Internet access use filtering technology to block potentially offensive Web-sites from underage viewers (Keller,  2001). While on the surface this legislation sounds relatively innocuous - after all who would argue that minors should have free access to the plethora of pornography that exists on  the Net - it is not. This is made readily apparent in the fact that the American Library Association (ALA) and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)  have each filed lawsuits in US District Court to prevent the implementation of the legislation. (Keller, 2001). The federal bill ties use of federal funds for obtaining public Internet  access to a mandate that these libraries purchase filtering software for their computers. One of the principal problems with this, according to librarians and other educators is that the  filtering software does not work - that it cannot be relied on to protect minors and that it also filters out legitimate sites (Keller, 2001). With Christian groups citing  hundreds of cases where minors were exposed to inappropriate material over library Internet access and the ALA and ALCU advocates arguing that mandated filters violate the First Amendment, the battle  lines have been drawn. While certainly no rational adult would want minors to be routinely exposed to pornography, the following examination of this issue will conclusively demonstrate that software