June 18, 2014

(Frederic J. Brown/Getty Images)

FROM: http://connecticut.cbslocal.com/


WOODBURY, Conn. (CBS Hartford) – A high school student claims that a firewall is blocking conservative websites at his school.

Andrew Lampart, a senior at Nonnewaug High School, discovered that he couldn’t get on the National Rifle Association’s website while on campus as he was doing research for a classroom debate on gun control in May.

“So, I went over to the other side,” Lampart told WTIC. “And I went over on sites such as Moms Demand Action or Newtown Action Alliance and I could get on these websites but not the others.”
The 18-year-old decided to investigate further by broadening his search terms to political parties in Connecticut.

“I immediately found out that the State Democrat website was unblocked but the State GOP website was blocked,” Lampart said.

The student took it a step further and looked at websits focusing on abortion issues and religion. He discovered that “right-to-life” groups were blocked by the firewall but that Planned Parenthood and Pro-Choice America weren’t.

Lampart even tried to explore websites like Christianity.com and the Vatican’s site but they were both blocked. However, Islam-guide.com was not blocked.

“They’re trying to, in my opinion, shelter us from what’s actually going on around the country and around the world by blocking these web sites,” Lampart explained. “It should be the other way around. The websites should be unblocked so that students can get different viewpoints from different sides of each argument.”

The superintendent of Woodbury schools was notified by Lampart, but nothing was done to fix the problem after a week. He decided to take his concerns to the Board of Education on Monday.
“It’s not a joking matter in terms of having access to both sides of an issue,” Board Chairman John Chapman told WTIC.

“The Board appreciated hearing the comments from Andrew and agree that he has raised an important issue that warrants further investigation,” Chapman explained.

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