In his  first appearance as a member of  the Loudoun County Library Board  of Trustees last spring, Richard H. "Dick" Black intended to  play  the  good  soldier.  He  would  sit  quietly  and  listen  to  more  experienced board members - a  role to which the retired Army colonel was not accustomed, having built a military career as a  prosecuting  lawyer  and  later as  head  of  the Army's criminal  law division.
      On the board's agenda that  day was a proposal from the libraries director that would allow library patrons to use the Internet without software designed to block pornography material. 
      "I sat there and kind of waited  for somebody I  could  follow to protest against it," Black recalled recently. "When they didn't, I said, 'I can't vote for this.' "
     Black, the representative from Sugarland Run, went home and sounded the '90s version  of   bugle  call   for  the  cavalry:  He  issued  a  press  release,  calling   for site-blocking software on library computers.    

       Black  enlisted  other  board  members  in  his fight, and by October, the board had adopted, 5 to 4, one of  the most restrictive Internet-use policies in the country, written by Black.   Library patrons do not have access  to  sexually explicit  material, e-mail or chat rooms, and children  younger  than 18   must have written permission from their parents or guardians to use the Internet.     

      This week, the  issue  reached  federal  court,  when  a  group  of  citizens  sued, charging that Loudoun County's Internet policy violates First Amendment rights.  "The key thing is that  we're not  necessarily  opposed  to  filters, but  if  you  have filters, adults should have the option of turning  them  off,"  said  Jeri  McGiverin, head of Mainstream Loudoun, a local civil liberties group involved in the lawsuit.  The group's concern stems from the fact that the software blocks legally protected material, as well as pornography.         

     But   Black, 53, is undaunted by the challenge. The man who flew   combat missions in Vietnam sees  Loudoun  County's approach to    the Internet as another battleground that must be taken  -  for the good of women, children and the country.
     "Most of the  obscenity  laws  in  this  country  are  based  on  a community's  standard  of decency," Black said.  "And the porn barons understand that once it's in the libraries, you can never prosecute an

obscenity case because the defense will say, 'Hey, get off my back.  It's in your own library.'  There's a very genuine risk that it will collapse standards of decency around the nation."
     Dick Black doesn't see his cause as a one-man crusade.  He says most Loudoun citizens are behind him.  But his opponents, though less  successful  than  he, have been more vocal...
     ...Supervisor  Steven D. Whitener  (R-Sugarland Run), who  appointed  Black  to the board, calls him a great leader.  "This is about public money being used to pay for pornography."
     Black, who studied  law  at  the  University  of  Florida,  believes  he  hit  on  the proper approach to the problem when he titled his legislation: "Policy on Internet Sexual Harassment."
     Without such a policy, Black said, Loudoun's library system is open to a lawsuit from women who feel intimidated  in a public environment  where  men  are  free to call up pornographic images on a computer screen.      

    "Wherever you set up a sexually hostile  environment... that   denies   women   equal  opportunities  in  the  work- place," Black said.  "If you think about a library that has the Internet,"  he  said,  " a  guy  sits  down  and  pulls  up some  really  bizarre  stuff,  and   a   woman  comes   in  at nighttime and wants to use the Internet."...  "that  woman is going to feel really tense.  And she may  feel  physically threatened."    

     Trim and  square-jawed,  Black  has  the no-nonsense bearing of a military  man, although he has been in private practice since 1995, a  partner  in  his own  Fairfax law firm.
     Born in Northern Virginia in 1944, Black grew up mostly in Miami.  The middle of  three children and  the only  son,  Black  was a  teenager  when  his  mother  was hospitalized for mental illness and his father took  a  job  in New York,  leaving  the children in Miami.
     He graduated from high school in 1962 and  spent  a  year  at  the  University  of Miami.  Then he ran short of money.  Although the country was  beginning  to take
on a rebellious air, Black was rooted in the 1950s  idealism of  family, church  and country.  He enlisted in the Marines and volunteered to serve in Vietnam.    

"I  felt  like  that  was  the  duty  of  an  American,"  he  said. 
     Black said he flew 269 combat missions.  Upon returning to the  United  States,  he  married  a  childhood  friend  and enrolled at the University of Florida, studying business and law and  serving  as  one  of  only  a  few  Republicans  in  a Democrat-dominated student government.
     Returning to  the  military  after  college -  the  Army this time - Black spent  20  years  combating  crime  on  military posts.  Black  and his wife, Barbara, have  been married  29 years and have three children...  

... "When  you  change  the  social  policy  and  release  the  anchor  of   any  moral constraints and leave  the  nation  in  a  moral drift, it  becomes  a very coarse  and harsh society,"  Black said.  "We have this evolving culture, where suddenly life is beginning to take  on less  meaning  than  it  did.   And  it's  all  interlinked,  see?"
     The Internet policy "is  not  just  a notion of  nostalgia," he continued.   "It's  a notion that if  we  want  to  keep  Loudoun  County  the  kind  of  place  where  our children and grandchildren can grow up in a safe, happy environment, we have to take action now to preserve the culture.  It depends on what we do right now."