Last March the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in Philadelphia found that the law, which requires commercial websites to obtain proof of age before delivering material considered harmful to minors, made it too difficult for adults to access material that was protected by the First Amendment.
The administration’s appeal claimed that other approaches to protecting children from sexually explicit materials, such as filtering software, are inadequate, the New York Times reported October 15. However, the American Civil Liberties Union—the plaintiff in the case—pointed out that the administration had championed the effectiveness of filters in its successful defense of the Children’s Internet Protection Act.
In 2000 the same Philadelphia appeals court had rejected the act, finding its “contemporary community standards” clause overly broad. The U.S. Supreme Court subsequently returned the case to the court, saying that the lower court had not sufficiently examined whether the law’s reliance on that standard violated free speech.
Passed in 1998, COPA has never been enforced due to injunctions and lower-court decisions won by the ACLU on behalf of 17 plaintiffs. The American Library Association’s Freedom to Read Foundation filed an amicus brief for the plaintiffs in September 1999. Oral arguments are expected to take place early next year, with a decision by July.
Posted October 20, 2003.