Today, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Ashcroft v. ACLU, the second challenge to the Child Online Protection Act (COPA) on First Amendment grounds.
The ACLU has a comprehensive list of resources: Ashcroft v. ACLU II.
The first time the case was on appeal in 2000, the Court kept the ban in place but sent the case back for further evaluation. In March 2003, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals again ruled that the statute was unconstitutional because the statute deprives adults of protected speech on the Internet. Therefore, the statute suffers from the same constitutional flaws that had led the Supreme Court in 1997 to strike down a predecessor law in Reno v. ACLU.
Oyez: Ashcroft v. American Civil Liberties Union
Washington Post: Supreme Court Revisits Online Pornography Issue
The Bush administration’s top Supreme Court lawyer says he typed the words “free porn” into an Internet search engine on his home computer and got a list of more than 6 million Web sites. That’s proof, Solicitor General Theodore Olson told the Supreme Court on Tuesday, of the need for a law protecting children from a tide of online smut.
NY Times: Justices Hear Arguments on Internet Pornography Law
Neither side got a free ride from the justices in the discussion of the Child Online Protection Act, a 1998 law that makes it illegal for commercial Web sites to make available to children 16 and under material that is not necessarily obscene but could be considered “harmful to minors” under a complex, three-part formula in the law.
Salon.com: Don’t worry, be sexy
