COPA imposed criminal penalties on websites which
failed to stop indecent material being viewed by children. Unless
they put in age checks – such as the requirement to input a credit
card number – site operators would have been liable for fines of up
to $50,000 per day and six months in jail.
The latest challenge to the law was brought by sexual health
websites, Salon.com and others, and was backed by the American
Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). It argued that the law is
unconstitutional because it restricts rights to free speech.
Judge Lowell Reed in the US District Court in Philadelphia ruled
in favour of the ACLU, saying that the measures demanded by the law
go too far in eroding everybody's rights to protect those of a
few.
"Perhaps we do the minors of this country harm if [free speech]
protections, which they will with age inherit fully, are chipped
away in the name of their protection," said Reed in his
judgment.
"I agree with
Congress that its goal of protecting children from sexually
explicit materials on the web deemed harmful to them is especially
crucial. This court, along with a broad spectrum of the population
across the country yearn for a solution which would protect
children from such material with 100 percent effectiveness," he
said.
"However, I am acutely aware of my charge under the law to
uphold the principles found in our nation’s Constitution and their
enforcement throughout the years by the Supreme Court. I may not
turn a blind eye to the law in order to attempt to satisfy my urge
to protect this nation’s youth by upholding a flawed statute," said
Reed.
Reed accepted the argument that software filters were now
available which allow parents to control the web surfing habits of
their children, and that such control is more appropriate than that
exercised in a blanket manner by government.
"After nearly a decade of legal proceedings, the First Amendment
has emerged victorious from the government’s illegal attempt at
online censorship," said Anthony Romero, executive director of the
ACLU. "The courts have ruled, once again, that speech on the
internet is protected."
"Technology evolves at an incredibly rapid pace, and our laws
face the challenge of trying to keep up," said ACLU senior staff
attorney Chris Hansen, who was the ACLU's lead lawyer in the case.
"Americans have the right to participate in the global conversation
that happens online every moment of every day, and Congress does
not have the right to censor that conversation."
The ACLU lodged an objection to the law the day it was signed by
former US president Bill Clinton in 1998. An injunction was
granted, was upheld in 2004, and now a permanent order has been
handed to US Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez to stop the
government enforcing the Act.
