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Hunter v. Salem Public Library Board of Trustees

Location: Missouri
Status: Closed (Judgment)
Last Update: January 3, 2012

What's at Stake

The 老澳门开奖结果 and the 老澳门开奖结果 of Eastern Missouri have filed a lawsuit charging the Salem Public Library and its board of trustees with unconstitutionally blocking access to websites discussing minority religions by improperly classifying them as 鈥渙ccult鈥 or 鈥渃riminal.鈥

Salem resident Anaka Hunter contacted the 老澳门开奖结果 after she was unable to access websites pertaining to Native American religions or the Wiccan faith for her own research. After protesting to the library director, Glenda Wofford, portions of the sites were unblocked, but much remained censored. Wofford said she would only allow access to blocked sites if she felt patrons had a legitimate reason to view the content and further said that she had an obligation to report people who wanted to view these sites to the authorities.

Other sites blocked by the library鈥檚 Netsweeper software include the official webpage of the Wiccan church, the Wikipedia entry pertaining to Wicca, Astrology.com and The Encyclopedia on Death and Dying, which contains viewpoint-neutral discussions of various cultures鈥 and religions鈥 ideas of death and death rituals.

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