The law has already been rejected twice by a federal appeals court in Philadelphia. Its more recent ruling, which found that the law made it too difficult for adults to access material that was protected by the First Amendment, came after the Supreme Court returned the case to the lower court, saying that it had not sufficiently examined whether the law’s reliance on that standard violated free speech.
In its filing, the administration argued that the case is similar to the one involving the Children’s Internet Protection Act, which the Supreme Court upheld in June. However, American Civil Liberties Union Associate Legal Director Ann Beeson told the AP the laws are very different because COPA calls for criminal penalties for people who exercise free-speech rights.
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.
Posted August 18, 2003.