05/06/2011
05/05/11 — A Tucson Reader Questions The "Celebration" Of Cinco De Mayo In Los Estados Unidos
Re: The Fulford File, By James Fulford, VDARE.com Censored by Corporate Software
From: Eric Kessler
This morning I was at the Lancaster branch of the Los Angeles County Public Library, and I thought I'd check out their new WiFi system.
So I connected to their WiFi system, read a message that CoLAPubLib supports our right to access all "constitutionally protected materials", that the only sites that would be blocked were pornographic sites, and was asked to agree to the terms of access. [PDF]
So I clicked "Agree" and proceeded to read a few news articles on my notebook computer before going to the VDARE.com website.
When I tried to access VDARE.com I got a message that Internet Explorer could not connect to the website.
There was no message that the site had been blocked due to offensive content, but simply a message that the site could not be accessed.
Although websites do occasionally go down, this seemed rather suspicious, so I typed the URL of a hard-core white nationalist site into my browser and got the same message.
I did not try any pornographic sites to see whether a different message would appear.
For the next two hours I tried periodically to access the VDARE.com site but always got the same message. I could access all the other news sites.
So I went to the information desk, told the person there that I could not access certain websites, and asked about their filtering software.
He said he didn’t know anything about the filtering software but asked me whether I had entered my library card number before trying to browse the Internet. I told him that I had not, as I had not been prompted to enter it. He told me that, since I had not entered my library card number, that I was given children’s access, and that was likely why the site was not accessible.
He assured me that if I entered my library card number I would get adult access, and the site would not be blocked.
I asked him where I was supposed to enter my library card number, but he told me that he didn’t know. I asked him whom I should complain to about that situation, and he told me to go to the library website.
I then went to one of the library computers, typed in my library card number, and was able to enter the VDARE.com website without any problems.
But when I went back to my notebook computer, I was unable to access the site, and I couldn’t figure out where I was supposed to enter my library card number.
From the above, it appears that the Los Angeles County Public Library does not block VDARE.com per se, but that WiFi users get children’s access by default, which does appear to block VDARE.com .And nobody knows how to get adult access over the WiFi network.
This does not matter to me personally, as I seldom use the library. However, Los Angeles County is the largest county in the United States. And, although the city of Los Angeles has a separate library system, there are millions of suburban residents of Los Angeles County who potentially use the county library from time to time. If they use the WiFi system to look up a news article, they will likely get children’s access by default and so will not have access to VDARE.com articles.
If you wish to pursue the matter, here is the library website.
If I haven’t mentioned this already, Lancaster was the first city in California to require all private employers to use E-Verify, and last year our city council passed a resolution in support of Arizona.
Our mayor, city council, and county supervisor are all very pro-enforcement. [Some Calif. cities embrace immigration scrutiny, by Elliott Spagat, AP, March 24, 2011]
The L.A County Sheriff’s Department, which provides local law enforcement here in Lancaster, cooperates with the federal government when arrested suspects are found to be in the country illegally.
Eric Kessler lives in California and formerly taught ESL in Taipei, Republic of China. He also worked as a software engineer in New York. Kessler is married to a legal immigrant from Colombia. See also Eric Kessler’s previous letters.
This is a content archive of VDARE.com, which Letitia James forced off of the Internet using lawfare.