Supreme Court to Revisit Online Porn Law

Associated Press ^ | October 14, 2003 | Anne Gearan

[AntiGuv]

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Supreme Court agreed Tuesday to revisit the thorny question of how to protect children from online smut without resorting to unconstitutional censorship.

The case asks whether, in the name of children, the law restricts too much material that adults have the right to see or buy. On a more practical level, the court will decide whether the government can require some form of adults-only screening system to ensure children cannot see material deemed harmful to them.

This is the second time in as many years that the high court has reviewed an Internet pornography law passed by Congress in 1998 but never enforced.

The American Civil Liberties Union, representing booksellers, artists, explicit Web sites and others, challenged the Child Online Protection Act as an unconstitutional damper on free speech.

The Bush administration appealed to the high court, arguing that children are "unprotected from the harmful effects of the enormous amount of pornography on the World Wide Web."

The law, known by the acronym COPA, is a reasonable solution to the proliferation of online pornography, Solicitor General Theodore Olson told the court. The law targets commercial pornographers, he said.

The ACLU replied that the law could make criminals of many people who use the Internet for legitimate, often health-related reasons. Those who operate Web sites about gynecology and safe sex could be covered, as could Mitch Tepper, who posts explicit how-to sexual advice for disabled people, the ACLU claimed.

Olson said the main target is commercial pornographers who use sexually explicit "teasers" to lure customers.

The free teasers are available to nearly anyone surfing the Internet, children and adults alike. The pictures sometimes appear even when computer users are not seeking out pornography. The teasers typically lead potential customers to a Web site that may require payment and age verification.

COPA could mean six months in jail and $50,000 in fines for first-time violators and additional fines for repeat offenders. It is on hold pending court challenges.

A federal appeals court has twice struck down the law, most recently and conclusively in March with a ruling that the law is riddled with problems that make it "constitutionally infirm."

Previously, the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had ruled the law unconstitutional on grounds that it allowed Internet content to be judged by "contemporary community standards."

The ACLU and other opponents of the law said that was a meaningless or risky standard to apply to the Internet, which is available equally to the most conservative town or household and the most liberal.

The notion of what is acceptable can shift, and would effectively give a heckler's veto to the most conservative dot on the U.S. map, the law's opponents argued.

In its first crack at COPA, the Supreme Court looked only at the standards question. In a splintered ruling last year, the high court delivered a partial victory to the government by ruling that the evaluation standard alone did not make the law unconstitutional.

The justices then sent the case back for a fuller examination of the other free speech objections raised by the ACLU.

The law, signed by former President Clinton and endorsed by President Bush, was written to replace a 1996 statute, the Communications Decency Act, that the Supreme Court unanimously struck down as unconstitutional in 1997.

That law was so broad that it covered pornographic material that adults have the right to see, as well as nonpornographic sexual material, the high court said then.

Congress tried again a year later, and civil liberties groups challenged it on the same First Amendment grounds the high court found persuasive before.

Defending COPA, the Bush administration now hopes to build on success in a similar case earlier this year. The Supreme Court upheld yet another Internet anti-pornography law against free speech challenges, ruling that the federal government can withhold money from libraries that won't install Internet blocking devices.

The case is Ashcroft v. ACLU, 03-218.

[AntiGuv]

Also Tuesday, the Supreme Court:

- Said it will decide whether adult businesses that are denied city licenses must be allowed to continue operating while they appeal. Justices will use an appeal from Littleton, Colo., to clarify how cities can regulate adult businesses without violating the Constitution. Various courts have split over what type of judicial review is required for adult businesses, fast resolution of a case or merely fast access to a judge. The case is Littleton v. Z.J. Gifts, 02-1609.

- Rejected Hustler magazine publisher Larry Flynt's appeal in a gambling dispute. Flynt had argued that California wrongly gave Indian tribes special permission to offer types of gambling that non-Indian businesses such as his Hustler Casino cannot. The case is Flynt v. California Gambling Control Commission, 03-204.

[Support Free Republic]

Don't Let Liberals Get Your Goat
	Do your part for the Best Conservative Site on the Web Or mail checks to FreeRepublic , LLC PO BOX 9771 FRESNO, CA 93794 or you can use PayPal at Jimrob@psnw.com
STOP BY AND BUMP THE FUNDRAISER THREAD- It is in the breaking news sidebar!

[Jack Black]

Why not require all porn to be hosted on domains ending with XXX. Any not on there would be subject to prosecution, any on a .xxx would be left alone (except illegal stuff). That would make it very easy to avoid.

[always vigilant]

Good idea but how would you enforce the laws in Russia?

[AntiGuv]

I did read the first Supreme Court ruling on COPA which explicitly noted that the Constitution permits the government to establish adult content "zoning" (such as, by example, adult venues or adult sections) so long as they don't inhibit adults from accessing whatever the medium. In short, the construction of COPA itself has been found as a matter of fact to inhibit adult access and impose a "chilling effect" on the provision of adult information (which is more encompassing than just 'pornography' under this Act).

I think the .xxx domain is a fine idea which would make regulation effortless, by permitting users to simply block the TLD altogether (or by discretion).