Not on Uncle Sam's dime, you don't.

Given our disdain for getting entangled in politics here, I'd been pretty much ignoring the furor over the Wikileaks disclosures...until one of my periodic searches for Wi-Fi related news came across this report from Library Journal that the Library of Congress-which I didn't realize offered what is apparently free and open wireless access to its visitors- is completely blocking access to the entire Wikileaks site on that connection as well as on its own staff computers, giving this rationale on its blog.

Hmmm...interesting. Clearly the library is on solid ground as far as its own machines and staff-who, it should be remembered, are government employees-are concerned. However, a government agency's imposition of a prior restraint against published works not by preventing their publication but by prohibiting the public from reading them is somewhat troubling.

Can we expect a push in the new Congress to expand the Children's Internet Protection Act to unambiguously cover Internet access provided to patron-owned devices in public libraries receiving relevant federal funding and modify the categories of prohibited content just to handle this sort of situation? One certainly hopes not. It's bad enough that the Rehnquist Supreme Court sanctioned this kind of Chinese-style "we can't stop them from publishing it but we can stop you from reading it" form of censorship when it upheld CIPA in the first place. Granted, CIPA at present only covers (for the most part) material that doesn't enjoy First Amendment protection (I'm still not convinced that its definition of material "harmful to minors" won't eventually prove to be unconstitutionally vague). However, if we aren't careful, we could easily find ourselves on a steep and very slippery slope.

What's that, you say? Classified material, once leaked, isn't protected by the First Amendment? Well, what do you know? That's just what Rehnquist argued as an assistant attorney general when the Pentagon Papers were published. Too bad for him that the Supreme Court-then still presided over by his predecessor as Chief Justice, Warren Burger-didn't see it that way.