According to State Senator Mark Obenshain, "In Prince William County, when they audited compliance, they found that people were actually resetting the homepage so that when children sat down, in the children's section at computers, and clicked on the Internet, pornographic sites were coming up."

It's stories like that one that have prompted Obenshain to introduce a new bill, requiring all public libraries to filter their public access computers, or lose state funding. But some, like Rob Pasco of the Shenandoah County Library System, say the bill is unfair.

"To put under the banner of protecting children, mandating that we filter all adult computers, I believe violates the rights of our adult users," argues Pasco.

The six Shenandoah County libraries separate children and adult computers. The childrens’ computers are filtered. The adults' are not. It's a system Pasco says works. He says that if Obenshain's bill is passed, the added costs and responsibilities would have a major effect.

"If we had to filter, I'm very concerned that we'd lose our volunteers, have to cut back hours, perhaps even not provide Internet access at the community libraries if we couldn't do it appropriately," says Pasco.

Obenshain says that's not the bill's purpose, noting, "It's not to impose any hardships on these libraries. It's to make sure we're being good stewards."

Pasco says there's a similar bill that's been introduced in the State House that would only require the filtering on childrens' computers. He thinks that would be a better solution than the Senate bill.