Is Your Public Library Serving Up Porn?

This is a partial transcript from "The O'Reilly Factor," February 7, 2006, that has been edited for clarity.

BILL O'REILLY, HOST: "Back of the Book" segment tonight. More than 2,300 suspects are being sought worldwide on Internet child porn charges after a huge bust by Austrian authorities. Six hundred Americans are being sought.

Meantime, in your local library, you may have access to pornography all day long. Remember that one of the convicted killers of 10-year-old Jeffrey Curly in Massachusetts testified he accessed North American Man-Boy Love Association material in the Boston Public Library.

And in El Paso, Texas, and other places there are no restrictions at all on porn in the library.

Joining us now from Boston, attorney Jeffrey Nathan, who opposes blocking library porn, even the kid stuff.

Now, the Supreme Court ruled that the federal Children's Internet Protection Act is legal, that a library, if it wants to, can put filters in to block not only child porn but all porn. Some libraries do, and some libraries don't. But I say every public library should. Where am I going wrong?

GEOFFREY NATHAN, ATTORNEY: Just blanket censorship is a bad idea. What's it going to be next? That's my point. I don't want the government telling me what I can watch and what I can think. I don't want the government telling me where I can go and what I can say.

O'REILLY: But child porn is illegal. It's an illegal substance, if you will. So if you go to a library in El Paso right now, you can access an illegal substance. You're telling me that should be allowed?

NATHAN: Well, now wait a minute. Let's clarify one point. There is a substantial difference. I don't believe I'm on the record as saying, Bill, that I am for widespread distribution of child pornography.

O'REILLY: Go on the record and tell me how you would deal with child porn in the El Paso Library. How would you deal with it?

NATHAN: It's simple, that's illegal. That ought to be blocked.

O'REILLY: So you block that. You block that.

NATHAN: Yes, I would. Indeed.

O'REILLY: You're not totally unreasonable. Now, say I got my kid in El Paso library and other libraries who are all over the country. Because the librarian association fights against filters, as you know.

All right. Say I got my 7-year-old in there, and we're walking around looking at Bambi books or whatever. Now, there's the computer in the—and this is actually happening in the El Paso library. It's out in the middle of the public area. And some guy like you comes in and says, "I want Girls Gone Wild explicit porn at that library." And bang, there it is. And then we walk by. What say you?

NATHAN: So what? I mean...

O'REILLY: So what?

NATHAN: If they're going to see it in the library, they're going to see it somewhere else.

O'REILLY: Yes, who's going to see it somewhere else? My 7-year-old is going to see it somewhere else? No, she’s not.

NATHAN: She's going to go to her friend's house. It's all over the Internet. Well, if you're going to block it in the library, then what else are you going to block and where?

O'REILLY: You're going to block anything that is deemed harmful to anybody under the age of 18. That's what you're going to block. This library is paid for by the taxpayers. The taxpayers have a right to go into the library and not be assaulted by material that's unfit for children.

NATHAN: But the libraries and the local politicians or legislators have decided that they don't want to get involved. They don't want to issue censorship rulings, that they can't. And therefore, this stuff is out there, it's in the mainstream and the...

O'REILLY: But the Supreme Court ruled they can. They don't want to.

NATHAN: Correct. Because they just don't want to be involved in trying to enforce rules. They're not the police.

O'REILLY: They don't want to be involved in what you called censorship. So they don't want to protect any child from this kind of stuff. They don't want to. And you think that's right?

NATHAN: Whether it's right or wrong the point of it is that the resources are limited. What's it going to be next? There's a lot out there that they don't want to them to see.

O'REILLY: Look, any business, and a public library is a business, has to make decisions about decorum and what is permitted and what is not. You know that. You're not — in your law office you're not going to have your law clerk watching porn all day long. Are you?

NATHAN: But that's a business decision.

O'REILLY: This is a business decision.

NATHAN: OK. Well, then what the legislators and the communities, the local politicians have to do is to pass ordinances or bylaws. That hasn't happened.

O'REILLY: The librarian association fights this. That's what I object to. I'll give you the last word.

NATHAN: They fight it because they're for freedom of expression. And that's what this country's all about, Bill.

O'REILLY: Then you want to let your law clerk watch porn all day long in your business, because he's expressing his inner desires.

Counselor, always good to see you. Thank you.

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