Key Internet Censorship Law Struck Down Yet Again

by via the EFF

Fri, Jul 25, 2008 7:37AM

Thursday, July 24, 2008 : The ACLU, EFF, and a coalition of plaintiffs achieved yet another victory for online free speech this week when the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit affirmed [decision, PDF] a district court's decision [decision, PDF] granting a permanent injunction against enforcement of the Child Online Protection Act of 1998 (COPA), a federal law that would violate the First Amendment by imposing civil and criminal penalties on commercial website operators that publish sexually explicit material without also using credit card authentication or other technological measures to verify viewer age and block access by minors.

COPA was passed after the Supreme Court struck down its predecessor, the Communications Decency Act of 1996 (CDA), in its landmark decision ACLU v. Reno, the first Supreme Court case to apply the First Amendment to online speech. This Tuesday's decision represents the third time the Third Circuit has held that COPA violates the First Amendment, after nearly ten years of litigation over the law's constitutionality, and as with those previous decisions, the DOJ is expected to seek review by the Supreme Court.

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For more information: http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2008/07/key-i...

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