Appeals Court Upholds COPA Decision

sconeu writes: "Wired News is reporting that the Third Circuit Court of Appeals has struck down the Child Online Protection Act (COPA). The government's next move is to either appeal to the Supremes or ask for a full trial (IANAL - I don't understand why the radically different options)." The full decision is available on PACER. The appellate court was only affirming the temporary injunction against enforcement of the law that was issued earlier by the district court, there hasn't been a full trial of the law yet. Here's the ACLU press release.

Comments

Decision recognizes Internet is international

[Seth Finkelstein]

The court displayed great perception:

Because material posted on the Web is accessible by all Internet users worldwide, and because current technology does not permit a Web publisher to restrict access to its site based on the geographic locale of each particular Internet user, COPA essentially requires that every Web publisher subject to the statute abide by the most restrictive and conservative state's community standards in order to avoid criminal liability. Thus, because the standard by which COPA gauges whether material is "harmful to minors" is based on identifying"contemporary community standards" the inability of Web publishers to restrict access to their Web sites based on the geographic locale of the site visitor, in and of itself, imposes an impermissible burden on constitutionally protected First Amendment speech.

i.e., no geographical location means no community standards.

Why the different options

[rgmoore]

The ruling today was on a ACLU request for a preliminary injunction to prevent the application of the law while waiting for it to undergo review. They won an earlier, lower court ruling for an injuction, which is what was appealed. The government now has the option of trying to appeal the preliminary injuction further or to stop fighting it and go to the full trial that would shut down COPA completely.

It's pretty clear that a preliminary injunction has to be granted in this case; the ACLU has a pretty damn strong case, and they can show a real risk of harm if the COPA is enforced. That means that an appeal to the Supreme Court on the injunction is unlikely to get anywhere, which is why Wired is reporting that the government is leaning toward going to a full trial. After all, the sooner the appeals are over, the sooner the case can be brought to a conclusion.