The US Supreme Court has sided with a previous court
injunction against a law intended to protect children from sexually
explicit material posted online.
The Supreme Court said that the law was unconstitutional because
less restrictive ways of shielding children, such as filtering
software had emerged since the law was passed in 1998.
Opponents of the COPA argued it was overly broad and would in
essence outlaw all adult-theme materials on the internet, including
sex advice columns and sexual health-related information, as
websites attempt to avoid fines and jail time.
The Supreme Court upheld the appeals court injunction against
enforcing the Child Online Protection Act (COPA) of 1998, which
allows for a fine of $50,000 (£27,000) a day and a six-month prison
sentence for posting online materials that are "harmful to
minors".
The Supreme Court's ruling sends the case back to the lower
court to decide whether the law violates the First Amendment of the
US Constitution.
The case that challenged the law, Ashcroft versus the American
Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), pitted US attorney general John
Ashcroft against the civil liberties group, representing several
publications, including websites which include information on
sexually transmitted diseases.
Filtering software, as well as a law against misleading domain
names and a law establishing a child-safe dot-kids domain, are less
restrictive ways to protect children from sexually explicit
materials, argued Justice Anthony Kennedy. New technological
methods may have improved filtering software since the law passed
in 1998, Kennedy wrote.
"There is a serious gap in the evidence as to the effectiveness
of filtering software," Kennedy wrote. "The technology of the
internet evolves at a rapid pace."
Kennedy argued that filtering software was likely to be more
effective than COPA because COPA does not protect children against
websites published outside the US.
Civil liberties and other groups cheered the Supreme Court's
ruling, which advocated that parents voluntarily use filtering
software to protect children.
Grant Gross writes for IDG News Service