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Supreme Court Hears Administration’s COPA AppealThe Supreme Court heard oral arguments March 2 in the Bush administration’s appeal of a lower court’s ruling that the Child Online Protection Act (COPA) is unconstitutional. Solicitor General Theodore B. Olson told the justices that the law, which requires commercial websites to obtain proof of age before delivering material considered harmful to minors, was designed to address objections to the 1996 Communications Decency Act, which the Court struck down in 1997. Olson said COPA “was constructed according to this court’s guidance . . . to deal with a serious national problem,” the March 3 Washington Post reported. American Civil Liberties Union attorney Ann Beeson argued that legislative efforts to limit children’s access to online sexual material invariably restrict web publishers’ constitutional right to communicate with adults. She contended that parents have the option of using filtering software that can be configured to reflect their own values. However, the March 3 New York Times said Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Justice Antonin Scalia voiced skepticism, noting that ACLU had opposed the Children’s Internet Protection Act, which requires public libraries and schools that receive federal funds for Internet connectivity to install such filters. A decision in the case, Ashcroft v. ACLU, is expected by July. Posted March 5, 2004. |
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