Is The American Library Association Being Hypocritical?

The Children's Internet Protection Act ("CIPA") is a federal statute that requires public libraries to install Internet filters on computers as a pre-condition to funding. The Supreme Court has upheld CIPA despite the challenges of the American Library Association ("ALA"). The ALA's challenge to CIPA was as follows:

(Excerpt)

-local communities should decide Internet policies rather than be forced to accept a one-size federal solution;

-filters are not fool-proof;

and

-poor communities are affected disproportionately when libraries must choose between federal technology funding and censorship.

(End of Excerpt)

However, elsewhere, the ALA has taken the position that all children must be given full access to the same materials available to other users, as a "philosophical" matter.

Query: Why should localities be permitted control in this specific case, when the ALA has seemingly no interest in permitting localities to control access in others?

One should note that the challenge stated above is a distinct contradiction to the ALA's general philosophy. If the ALA truly desires local control, then local governments should also be in control of children's access to all library materials, and not just the Internet. Further, if the federal government should not impose its views on public libraries, notwithstanding the desires of localities, then neither should the ALA impose its own, one-size-fits-all beliefs regarding any so-called "right" of children to access to potentially non-age-appropriate materials. But the latter is precisely what the ALA generally sees fit to do.

I believe that the ALA has an agenda: The promotion of all information to all users regardless of age. This agenda, I would submit, colors its perceptions and in certain cases exposes its hypocrisy in regard to the right or ability of localities to control what public libraries present to children.

Source of Excerpt: Link.