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Ad Lib: Advocacy for Libraries

July 23, 2008

COPA Struck Down by 3rd Circuit Court

A bit of news on the internet access front today:

The Child Online Protection Act suffers from a slew of fatal flaws that render the law unconstitutional under the First Amendment, the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled.

. . .

The unanimous three-judge panel found that COPA’s criminal penalties for allowing minors to access “harmful” material on the Internet is not the “least restrictive” means of protecting children because filtering software accomplishes the same goals.

This law has been fought by the ACLU for going on ten years now, and this is not the first time it’s been struck down by the courts. Federally-mandated steps to protect (or try to protect, anyhow) children on the internet is a topic that’s long been on the radar of library associations, so this decision is being touted as a victory in many library circles.

The Law.com article linked to above has a pretty detailed history of this legislation and the court cases surrounding it, and the ALA page I linked to can give you a good sense of where they stand on the various laws on this subject. Give them a look!

posted by Alan at 2:25 pm | Comments (0)

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