Update on ACLU lawsuit against Hawaii State Library over gay sites on library computer

Debra Barayuga, the Honolulu Star-Bulletin Feb 15th gives an update on Carlos Hernandez, who claims he was banned from the Hawaii State Library because he was looking at gay-related web sites. 

• A hearing is set for March 14th in front of U.S. District Judge Helen Gillmor
• Hernandez had his no-trespass order rescinded because of a "technical error"   
• However, the ACLU says the library failed to notify Hernandez
• Deputy Attorney General Girard Lau says that the plaintiffs have not established standing and cannot proceed
• Lau says the statements given by the security guards say that Hernandez was not merely accessing gay-related sites, but "screen after screen" of frontally nude adult males
• According to the briefs filed in the case, the library policies do not prohibit accessing gay-related web sites, but prohibit "disruptive behavior" that "unduly interfere" with the enjoyment and use of the library by other patrons

and  uh-oh ...

• Examples of disruptive behaviors cited in the rules are the display of "offensive images" on Internet terminals

If the last point is actually in the library policy, I think the policy is a goner.  Who decides what's offensive and to whom?  The First Amendment protects offensive speech, not just beautiful speech....and who decides what's beautiful? As Supreme Court Justice Harlan once said, "One man's vulgarity is another's lyric."

If the guards statement is proven true, then it would make more sense to look at the sites and look at state law and see if there's a "harmful to minors" act, and if so, how such material is defined, whether display is prohibited, whether the patron was displaying such material to minors (or where minors were walking by), and what the penalties are (i.e. criminal).

Comments

Thanks for the off-topic posting.

[paul]

AS a returning student after a 25 year absence I have notice that the Administrative functions in the University have morphed in an "above the law" association. Common practices of due dilegence and full disclosure are absent
from an organization of inidividuals
whose guareteed jobs insulated them from public accountablity or redress. Hence there is none.
Does it not strike you odd that the
furor over "the poor quality of academics
in the elementary school" has had its
critisism on the teachers who teach children while there is complete silence
on those instituions and individuals
who train the teachers?
Who to date has called the Universtiy
system to account for its lack of
educating school teachers with the
proper and necessary skills to do the job at hand? People repeate what they learn.
Crummy teachers are learning crummy things
from the Universites.
The banner of "Academic Rigor" touted by the Universties is in fact Academic Rigamortis. Not because carriculum is
lax, but because its irrelevent and
a product of tenured professors
who live beyond accountabilty to
their contractual obligation to
students.

This is not an issue for teachers.
Its a "academic culture" that is
suspect. A culture that wraps its
students in an ecomomic, cultural and
intellectual Birka, is a culture
that functions outside and above the law.
Most people who've gone through graduate studies have long fogot how obscenely stupid most of the expensive "busy work"
really was. "But that's the way it is",
is the common retort. Yes it is a mess,
isn't it?
So when do the class action law suits begin?