A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit in Philadelphia denied July 26 a motion by the U.S. Justice Department to dismiss a lawsuit that challenges the constitutionality of the Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA) as it affects public libraries. The same court struck down the Children’s Online Protection Act (now on the Supreme Court docket) and library provisions of the 1996 Communications Decency Act.
“The court essentially recognized that our clients—who include libraries, library patrons, and Web-site authors nationwide—have valid fears that their access to socially valuable, protected speech will be cut off under this law,” ACLU senior staff attorney Chris Hansen stated. The combined suits brought by the American Library Association and the ACLU are now scheduled to be heard concurrently by the same judges on February 14, 2002.
Asserting that CIPA only mandates that library policy reflect community standards, DoJ attorney Rupa Bhattacharyya had argued July 23, “Libraries make these kinds of decisions every day when they decide which books they put on the shelves and when they decide which books they keep on their shelves.”
Posted July 30, 2001.