PENNSYLVANIA Suit spurs change in child-porn blocking

Civil-liberties groups argue that the orders also block access to legitimate sites.
HARRISBURG (AP) -- Facing a federal lawsuit filed by two civil-liberties groups, Pennsylvania's attorney general agreed Tuesday to stop sending notices that forced Internet providers to block access to hundreds of child-porn Web sites, but vowed to use the state courts to achieve the same result.
The policy of sending the "informal" notices was "developed at the request of the Internet service providers" as an alternative to the court orders required under a unique 2002 state law that authorized the blocks, said Sean Connolly, spokesman for state Attorney General Mike Fisher.
"We are perfectly willing to obtain a court order to stop child pornography," he said after U.S. District Judge Jan E. DuBois in Philadelphia approved the agreement.
'Secret censorship'
The lawsuit filed Tuesday by the Washington-based Center for Democracy & amp; Technology and the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania contends that forcing Internet providers to block access to child-porn Web sites also cuts off access to legitimate sites for subscribers across the country. It said Fisher's notice policy constituted a "system of secret censorship" that went unchecked by state courts.
The suit also challenges the constitutionality of the law, which allows judges to issue blocking orders without giving advance notice to affected Internet providers and without ruling on whether the material in question is illegal. It imposes a first-offense fine of $5,000 for providers that do not comply.
"Child pornography has no place in a civilized society. Unfortunately, Pennsylvania's Web-blocking law does little to stop child pornography but does a great deal to violate the protections of the First Amendment," said Alan Davidson, associate director of the Center for Democracy & amp; Technology.
The civil-liberties groups and a third plaintiff -- Doylestown, Pa.-based Internet provider Plantagenet Inc. -- asked the court to declare both the notice policy and the law unconstitutional because they interfere with free speech and interstate commerce.
Impeding other access
According to the lawsuit, the only way most Internet providers can block access to a particular Web site is to block its server computer, which may be shared by many other unrelated Web sites -- preventing subscribers from viewing any of those sites.
Recent research shows that more than 85 percent of all Web addresses ending in ".com," ".net" or ".org" share computer resources with at least one other site. About two-thirds of those addresses share resources with at least 50 other sites, according to the lawsuit.
But the number of nonpornographic sites affected by Fisher's actions remains unknown.
"Our expectation is that there would be hundreds or thousands, easily," said Davidson, whose organization focuses on Internet freedoms.
A request for a list of the blocked sites, which Davidson's group filed under Pennsylvania's open-records law earlier this year, was turned down by Fisher's office on grounds that such a disclosure would itself be disseminating such pornography, which is illegal.
Connolly dismisses the argument as flimsy.
"If we were blocking access to thousands of Web sites, as they claim, we would be receiving thousands of complaints," he said. "That just isn't happening."
The lawsuit sought an immediate order barring Fisher from sending any more of the notices, which Connolly said had resulted in blocking 725 sites since April 2002. Under the agreement approved at a hearing on that motion, the attorney general's office agreed to halt the notices and to notify the plaintiffs five days before filing the first request for a court order to require an Internet provider to block a Web site.
Connolly acknowledged that Web sites may not be blocked as quickly through the courts as they were with the notices.
"It may take longer to prepare a court order," he said, "but we're willing to put in that effort because this law is too important."
Among the companies that had received the notices are some of the nation's largest Internet providers, including Comcast Communications Inc., Earthlink Inc. and Microsoft Corp. Only one -- WorldCom Inc. -- has protested the notice, and a county judge subsequently ordered it to comply.
The lawsuit contends that prosecuting the source of the pornography or the Internet provider that makes it available on the Web would be more effective than requiring providers to block Web sites.
Sources outside Pa.
Connolly acknowledged that even when a provider blocks access to a pornographic site, the site remains accessible to subscribers of other providers. He said state officials notify federal authorities about every case, but that most of the pornography originates in other states or countries.
"Obviously, if we could trace the child pornography to Pennsylvania, we would take criminal action," he said.