VI. Conclusion; Severability
FOOTNOTES


1. Preliminary Statement

This case challenges an act of Congress that makes the use
of filtering software by public libraries a condition of the
receipt of federal funding. The Internet, as is well known, is a
vast, interactive medium based on a decentralized network of
computers around the world. Its most familiar feature is the
World Wide Web (the "Web"), a network of computers known as
servers that provide content to users. The Internet provides
easy access to anyone who wishes to provide or distribute
information to a worldwide audience; it is used by more than 143
million Americans. Indeed, much of the world's knowledge
accumulated over centuries is available to Internet users almost
instantly. Approximately 10% of the Americans who use the
Internet access it at public libraries. And approximately 95% of
all public libraries in the United States provide public access
to the Internet.


While the beneficial effect of the Internet in expanding the
amount of information available to its users is self-evident,
its low entry barriers have also led to a perverse result –
facilitation of the widespread dissemination of hardcore
pornography within the easy reach not only of adults who have
every right to access it (so long as it is not legally obscene or
child pornography), but also of children and adolescents to whom