Supreme Court Won’t Consider Blocked Internet Porn Law
The U.S. Supreme Court has refused the government’s request that it consider the constitutionality of an Internet pornography law blocked from taking effect because of free speech concerns.
The high court let stand a July ruling by the Philadelphia-based 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that overturned the 1998 Child Online Protection Act, report Bloomberg, Reuters and SCOTUSblog. The law sought to prevent children from accessing online pornography by requiring commercial website operators to ask for a credit card number or adult access code.
In an earlier challenge to the same law, the U.S. Supreme Court said in 2004 that COPA may hinder adult access to constitutionally protected material, according to the Bloomberg account. The 2004 decision ordered the lower courts to consider whether filtering software might be more effective in protecting children from online porn.
On remand, the 3rd Circuit concluded the law violated the First Amendment’s free speech guarantees because filtering software offered a less restrictive alternative to protect children.
