From the Dow Jones Newswire
WASHINGTON -(Dow Jones)- In the latest setback to congressional efforts to police pornography on the Internet, a federal appeals court has invalidated the federal Child Online Protection Act, a law designed to keep children from viewing sexually explicit material on the Web.
The Philadelphia-based 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Tuesday that the law is too broad and intrudes on constitutionally protected speech.
The court said the law would drive protected speech from the Internet and force publishers to incur significant technological costs in trying to keep adult content away from younger viewers.
“We are quite certain that notwithstanding Congress’s laudable purpose in enacting COPA, the government has not met its burden” of defending the law’s constitutionality, the court said.
The court also said that parental use of Internet filters was a better, less restrictive way to protect children from explicit material.
“Filters are more flexible…because parents can tailor them to their own values and needs and to the age and maturity of their children,” the court said.
The law, passed in 1998, barred publishers from knowingly posting material ” that is harmful to minors” on the Internet for commercial purposes. To avoid sanctions, the law required publishers to verify the ages of viewers before allowing them to access explicit Internet content.
Violators faced fines and up to six months in prison.
The American Civil Liberties Union, which challenged the law on behalf of a coalition of bookstores, media organizations and free-speech advocates, cheered the decision.
“For years the government has been trying to thwart freedom of speech on the Internet, and for years the courts have been finding the attempts unconstitutional,” said ACLU attorney Chris Hansen. “The government has no more right to censor the Internet than it does books and magazines.”
A Justice Department spokesman said government lawyers were reviewing the ruling to determine their next move.
“Needless to say, we’re disappointed that a court of appeals struck down a congressional statute designed to protect our children from exposure to sexually explicit material on the Internet,” the spokesman said.
The case has been in litigation for a decade.
The Supreme Court blocked enforcement of the law in 2004, but did not issue a definitive ruling on its legality.
There are between 275 million and 700 million sexually explicit Web pages available on the Internet, according to the estimates of the trial judge in the case.
