Judge blocks porn law
The 1998 law has never been enforced.
PHILADELPHIA (AP) -- More than a decade after Congress first tried to police the Internet for pornography, a federal judge cast doubt Thursday on whether the government can craft such a law without restricting free speech.
A federal judge in Philadelphia blocked enforcement of the Child Online Protection Act, the second attempt by lawmakers to stop online pornography at the source.
Senior U.S. District Judge Lowell Reed Jr. called the 1998 law unconstitutionally vague and said it could have a chilling effect on Web publishers.
"Perhaps we do the minors of this country harm if First Amendment protections, which they will with age inherit fully, are chipped away in the name of their protection," he wrote.
Reed said the law fails to address threats that have emerged since the law was written, including online predators on social-networking sites like News Corp.'s MySpace, because it targets only commercial Web publishers.
"Even defendant's own study shows that all but the worst performing [software] filters are far more effective than COPA would be at protecting children from sexually explicit material on the Web," said Reed, who presided over a monthlong trial in the fall.
The law has never been enforced. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld in 2004 a temporary injunction blocking the law from taking effect; Reed on Thursday issued a permanent injunction.
About the law
The law would have criminalized Web sites that allow children to access material deemed "harmful to minors" by "contemporary community standards." The sites would have been expected to require a credit card number or other proof of age. Penalties include a 50,000 fine and up to six months in prison.
Sexual health sites, the online magazine Salon.com and other Web sites backed by the American Civil Liberties Union had challenged the law on grounds it would have a chilling effect on speech.
Joan Walsh, Salon.com's editor in chief, said the law could have allowed any of the 93 U.S. attorneys to prosecute the site over photos of naked prisoners at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison.
"The burden would have been on us to prove that they weren't" harmful to minors, Walsh said.
Daniel Weiss of Focus on the Family Action, a lobbying arm of the conservative Christian group, said it would continue to press Congress for a workable law.
"The judge seems to indicate there's really no way for Congress to pass a good law to protect kids online," Weiss said. "I just think that's not a good response."
Filters
To defend the nine-year-old law, government lawyers attacked software filters as burdensome and less effective, even though they have previously defended their use in public schools and libraries. That case was over a 2000 law requiring schools and libraries to use software filters if they receive certain federal funds. The high court upheld that law in 2003.
The plaintiffs expect the Justice Department to appeal. Justice spokesman Charles Miller said the department still was reviewing the decision and has "made no determination as to what the government's next step will be."
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