A few weeks ago I was on the Internet at the Vancouver Public Library. I had wanted to visit www.electronicintifada.net to gain information about Palestine from an alternative media source. To my surprise, Cyberpatrol (the Internet filtering software used by the Vancouver Public Library) classified this website as "hate speech."

I contacted the Library Association to voice my concern. I explained that in order to form a balanced opinion concerning world events, I inform myself through various (electronic) media sources, including the electronic intifada.

During our conversation, I applauded the Library Association for its support of alternative news sources, and invited them to visit the site to form their own opinion. After visiting the site, the chair of the Information Policy and the Intellectual Freedom Committees, and the Director of Systems and Directory informed me that they found the site very useful. They even promised to arrange a hot link from the History Web pages to www.electronicintifada.net They also said they would contact Cyperpatrol asking them to remove the block.

All in all, I was very encouraged by the Library Association's rapid response to my concerns. However, I learned that individual libraries set their own Internet policies and make their own decisions about filtering devices. For that reason, I decided to contact Cyberpatrol myself as well. I am happy to report that a day after contacting Cyberpatrol, they replied that they removed the block and re-categorized the website as Government/Politics.