A test of Internet filtering software shows how ineffective they can be, underscoring constitutional questions about requiring them in libraries and schools.

To check whether a product works the way it claims and compare it to others on the market, there's no better source than Consumer Reports. The magazine has been protecting consumers since 1936, but its latest issue serves us more broadly by also protecting the First Amendment.

Consumer Reports tested the six most popular Internet filtering software programs to determine whether they could successfully block objectionable material on the Web without also preventing access to socially relevant and responsible information. None passed. It seems filtering technology hasn't advanced much since the last time the magazine tested the programs in 1997. It is still clumsy software that doesn't do a very thorough job separating the wheat from the chaff.

The test was conducted by challenging the software programs, as well as America Online's Young Teen and Mature Teen parental control systems, to block 86 Web sites containing graphic sexual or violent content, among other things. Only AOL's Young Teen control succeeded in preventing access to all but one of those sites. All of the other programs, including such widely used filters as Cyber Patrol, Net Nanny and Cybersitter 2000, were virtual sieves. At least 20 percent of the objectionable sites were fully available despite the filters.

On the flip side, Consumer Reports used 53 Web sites that presented controversial subjects in a serious way, to see if filtering programs were overinclusive as well as underinclusive. AOL's controls blocked the most by far, preventing access to 63 percent of the legitimate sites, including Operation Rescue's anti-abortion Web site. The rest ranged from blocking only a few sites up to about one in five.

Parents may be interested in the survey as a way to gauge how much trust to put in these systems, but the magazine's work also raises important constitutional issues. Last December, Congress passed the Children's Internet Protection Act, requiring schools and libraries to install filtering software on their computers with Internet access. As a condition of receiving federal money for technology enhancements and Internet wiring, schools and libraries are required to block any material "harmful to minors." It applies to computers used by both children and adults.

But when the government uses computer programs that operate imprecisely and impose their own value judgments on what is acceptable, the First Amendment is violated.

The tests conducted by Consumer Reports confirm that filtering software is an unreliable, sloppy and overzealous substitute for attentive librarians and teachers. It is as if a private company were invited to enter schools and libraries and remove books from the shelves -- a situation that is both unwarranted and constitutionally unacceptable.

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