Concerned Women for America - CWA Asks Laura Bush – Will You Help Keep Libraries Safe for our Children?

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CWA Asks Laura Bush – Will You Help Keep Libraries Safe for our Children? 2/10/2004

Until we tell perverts there’s no porn for them to see on library computers, we’re inviting them to come sit next to our kids at the library

Washington, D.C. – Concerned Women for America (CWA) called on the First Lady to take action to make libraries safe for children and pull the plug on smutty peep shows for child abusers.

Brian McCutcheon, 23, surrendered to Philadelphia police Sunday and was charged with rape, attempted murder and other crimes in the attack on an 8-year-old girl at the Free Library of Philadelphia's Independence Branch on Saturday. After raping the child, he left her for dead in a bloody heap on the library restroom floor.

This occurred in a library system, the Free Libraries of Philadelphia, which was honored by Laura Bush just last week. She recognized the library saying, “Today, we honor six exemplary learning institutions that have strengthened the foundations of their community. I commend … the Free Library of Philadelphia.”

“If President and Mrs. Bush want to strengthen today’s libraries, they will make them safe places for children by advocating filtering for library computers and strict adherence to the Child Internet Protection Act (CIPA),” said LaRue. “A library should be a place to build young minds, without polluting them with porn, not a place where porn addicts and sexual predators assault kids.

CIPA will go into effect July 1, 2004. The law requires all libraries receiving federal funds to filter Internet access.

The Free Library of Philadelphia Central Branch banned McCutcheon from the facility earlier in the year for exposing himself to a 16 year-old girl. One librarian has reported he frequently viewed pornography on library terminals.

“We’re not blaming the library for the girl’s rape,” said Jan LaRue, CWA’s chief counsel, “but library officials bear responsibility for the following:

It appears they failed to report the suspected rapist to the police after he exposed himself to a 16-year-old library volunteer a few week s ago;

allowing this offender back in the library after he did so;

allowing library users to use Internet access for porn surfing;

having a worthless “acceptable use policy.”

“Placing guards by the restroom door is only a band-aid solution,” LaRue said. “Until we tell perverts there’s no porn for them to see on library computers, we’re inviting them to come sit next to our kids at the library.”