Appeals Court Strikes Down Children’s Online Protection Law

Internet Law

Appeals Court Strikes Down Children’s Online Protection Law

Posted Jul 23, 2008, 07:29 am CDT
By Debra Cassens Weiss

A federal appeals court has struck down a law that imposes criminal penalties on commercial websites that allow minors to access “harmful” material on the Internet.

The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found that the law, the Child Online Protection Act, is overly broad and vague, the Associated Press reports. The court said the law is not the least restrictive way to protect children because filtering software can perform the same function, the Legal Intelligencer reports.

In its opinion (PDF), the court said the law’s definition of harmful material was faulty. "While COPA penalizes publishers for making available improper material for minors, at the same time it impermissibly burdens a wide range of speech ... otherwise protected for adults," the court said.

The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled on the law twice before. In its first decision, the court said a community standards test for judging harmful material was not so overbroad as to doom the law. In its second decision, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld an injunction issued on First Amendment grounds but ordered a trial on whether the law uses the least restrictive means to regulate access by minors.

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