Group charges libraries filtered out Web site

STLtoday - News - St. Louis City / County: "
The Council of Conservative Citizens, a nationwide group that has been portrayed as racist, is suing four libraries in the St. Louis area for allegedly blocking patrons from viewing its Web site.

Gordon Baum, a lawyer from St. Charles who is the group's chief executive, said the U.S. Constitution protects the public's right to see his Web site.

'We don't believe we're any more to the right than the NAACP is to the left,' he said, adding that his group does not advocate violence.

The site, cofcc.org, does not feature the racial epithets commonly used by racist groups. It does, however, provide a slate of news stories about crime by blacks or immigrants. It also offers for sale a T-shirt with the words, 'White Pride,' 'Deutschland' and 'Save Our Culture.'

The Southern Poverty Law Center says that racism 'underlies' the group and that it has long had ties to politicians the law center considers racist.

Baum filed a suit in U.S. District Court on Monday claiming the Maplewood City Library, University City Public Library, Valley Park Community Library and Festus Public Library had violated his constitutional right to free speech by blocking access to the Web site. At least two of the libraries say they now permit patrons to view the site.

Baum said the suit was filed after the group checked on local libraries and wrote letters complaining to those libraries that blocked access to the group's site.

Maplewood City Library Director Terrence Donnelly sent the group a letter replying that the Internet filter service the library uses had blocked the site after tagging it as being in 'the categories of Hate and Discrimination.'"