92_HR0359
LRB9208986RHgc
1 HOUSE RESOLUTION
2 WHEREAS, The Illinois General Assembly has the duty and
3 responsibility to protect the public health and welfare of it
4 citizens, most particularly children in schools; and
5 WHEREAS, The Internet offers educational benefits and is
6 a useful technological tool for access to a vast selection of
7 information; and
8 WHEREAS, The Internet unfortunately contains material
9 that is not constitutionally protected and is illegal to
10 disseminate such as child pornography and obscenity; and
11 WHEREAS, Pornography is the most accessed topic on the
12 Internet according to a two-year Alexa Research study; and
13 WHEREAS, The FBI has identified the Internet as the
14 leading factor in doubling the child sex exploitation case
15 load in one year and is the primary solicitation tool used by
16 pedophiles to desensitize and entice children into improper
17 relationships; and
18 WHEREAS, Increasing incidents of inappropriate use of the
19 Internet by school employees and students are being reported;
20 and
21 WHEREAS, The health and safety of Illinois children could
22 be endangered by Internet access to obscene and/or
23 pornographic material; and
24 WHEREAS, Illinois public schools have neither the duty
25 nor the obligation to provide obscene or pornographic
26 material; and
27 WHEREAS, The U.S. Court of Appeals ruled in Urofsky v.
28 Gilmore that restricting sexually explicit material on
29 taxpayer funded computers is constitutional and consistent
30 with the First Amendment (216 F.3d 401, 4th Cir. 2000); and
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1 WHEREAS, Today's second generation filtering technology
2 allows restricting pornography sites while providing full
3 access to legitimate sites; and
4 WHEREAS, The installation of Internet filters would
5 constitute a proper use of taxpayers' funds in order to
6 protect the health and safety of Illinois public school
7 children; and
8 WHEREAS, The Children's Internet Protection Act (CIPA),
9 signed into law in December of 2000, requires recipients of
10 universal service assistance (E-rate program) to use
11 technology to filter or block material deemed to be harmful
12 of minors; and
13 WHEREAS, Almost 200 Illinois school districts do not
14 qualify for the E-rate program and therefore will not be
15 affected by the Children's Internet Protection Act; and
16 WHEREAS, Congress has granted schools and libraries
17 immunity from criminal prosecution for filtering out
18 objectionable and illegal sites in good faith, enacted as
19 part of the Telecommunications Decency Act of 1996; and
20 WHEREAS, A new study based on a sample of 1,218 schools
21 by the National Center for Education Studies finds 74% of
22 public schools are now using filtering software to block
23 objectionable material; and
24 WHEREAS, There are funds available be means of the
25 Technology Literacy Challenge Program and the Technology
26 Success Grant Program; and
27 WHEREAS, On May 16, 2001, the Chicago City Council's
28 Education Committee passed a resolution requiring all Chicago
29 Public Schools to filter Internet access; and
30 WHEREAS, The Chicago Public School spokesperson stated
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1 that acceptable use policies alone have been found to be
2 inadequate in protecting children from unwanted and/or
3 accidental exposure to obscene or pornographic material;
4 therefore, be it
5 RESOLVED, BY THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE
6 NINETY-SECOND GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, that
7 we urge the use of filtering technology on all interactive
8 computer services or the use of a filtered Internet Service
9 Provider by all Illinois public schools to prevent children's
10 access to material that is obscene or pornographic; and urge
11 all Illinois public schools to establish and maintain a
12 written policy aimed at preventing students from gaining
13 access to or being exposed to sexually explicit materials;
14 and be it further
15 RESOLVED, that a copy of the resolution be sent to the
16 State Board of Education.