Supreme Court Rejects Free-Speech Challenge

zookie writes "According to this Reuters article, the U.S. Supreme Court has essentially upheld a Virginia law that says public employees can't access sexually explicit material from state computers. The challenge to the law was from several professors saying that the law prevented them from doing their research. I'm curious what Slashdot readers think about the effects of this ruling from the highest court in the land -- does this bode poorly for future challenges to laws censoring the Internet?" Keep in mind that Virginia already has the usual abilities to fire someone goofing off at work - the only thing this law affects is employees who have legitimate reasons to view sexually explicit art, poetry, etc. as a part of their job. If you have a sexual disorder and plan on going to a Virginia university hospital, perhaps you should reconsider - your doctor is barred by law from researching your disorder online. The first decision in the case, that was favorable to the ACLU et al., is available.

Comments

4th Circuit Decision text

[Brian See]

The decision that upheld the Virginia law (by the 4th Circuit) (which the Supreme Court declined to review) is available at:
http://www.law.emory.edu/4circuit/feb99/981481.p.h tml.

There, the 4th Circuit states:

"But, the Act does not prohibit all access by state employees to such materials, for a state agency head may give permission for a state employee to access such information on computers owned or leased by the Commonwealth if the agency head deems such access to be required in connection with a bona fide research project or other undertaking."

So it looks like research hospitals are still allowed to access materials, as long as they get authorization.

It boggles the mind...

[BrianHV]

From the article:

[Virginia Attorney General Mark Earley] said state employees did not have a First Amendment right to disregard the law and decide for themselves whether sexually explicit material was required for their professional, employment-related research and writing needs.

Is he saying what I think he's saying? Does it have to be enumerated in the constitution for this guy to believe that people can decide for themselves what they need to access for their work? I hope he was simply misquoted, because that statement is bad in more ways than I can count.

Re:It boggles the mind...

[donutello]

but whether this law runs afoul of the First Amendment by restricting a citizen's access to protected speech. More specifically, because this restriction of speech is not content neutral (that is, it specifically restricts certain speech based on the content of that speech

The law only restricts what you can do at work. Virginia employees are free to surf for pr0n on their free time at home, of course.

There is also a separate law that takes care of goofing off at work. Hence the law applies to the narrow classification of what employees can do as part of their job. The state has every right to tell its employees what their job is. The state also has the right to tell employees that anything involving surfing for porn is NOT part of their job unless they have specific authorization for the same from a department head.

For example, Sun could make it a policy that its employees could not use Windows machines as part of their job (say because they wanted their employees to use their own software to help provide feedback to improve it) unless their department head specifically authorized it for research use.

Supreme Court did not "uphold" the law

[Xenu]

From reading the article, it appears that the Supreme Court declined to review the case. This does not mean that the Supreme Court agrees with the lower court. The Supreme Court declines to hear (denies certiori) most of the cases that are appealed to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court can only hear a limited number of cases every year, and there are many reasons why they may decline to hear a case.

Dumb

[Hard_Code]

Melvin Urofsky of Virginia Commonwealth University said he had been unable to assign students online research assignments about federal indecency law.

How recursively ironic is that? This alone should be enough to strike down this law. I guess the defense won't be using state computers to defend their position.

One man's porn...

[beth_linker]

...is another man's research. I did read the article. Here's what it says:

"Sexually explicit is defined as any depiction or description of 'sexual excitement,' `sexual conduct,' or `a lewd exhibition of nudity.'"

I can see how that would pose problems for all sorts of people attempting to access material for legitimate academic work. Literature and art, for example, often have enough sexual content to qualify under those rules.

And then what about researching sexuality and pornography? What if one wanted to write a paper about sexuality and the Internet?

Sexuality is as legitimate a subject for academia as anything else. It's absolutely ridiculous that college professors should have to ask their department heads to sign permission slips before they read anything explicit. It's just as ridiculous that they should have to get permission before giving academic assignments which deal with sexual matters to adult students.

As a former computer lab monitor, I'm all for nobody looking at porn in the lab, but this decision goes beyond that.

Re:Scary scary scary

[ethereal]

I personally think that if evolution is taught in schools, it should be taught as a theory in an objective philosophy class as it contains an inherent world view.

I couldn't agree more. And while we're at it, maybe geometry and trig should be taught as an alternative philosophy as well - don't they depend on an inherent Euclidean world view? (well, at least in high school they do). Civics and government as well - you can bet all those wacky laws against murder in this country and that whole "We the People" thing are based on an inherent world view. "inherent world view" - wtf were you thinking!? Perhaps I've been trolled....

Everything comes from an "inherent world view", of course. The theory of evolution is currently the best way to explain the current state of life on this planet and make verifiable predictions about events. It's based on an "inherent world view" of deterministic causality, testability, and verifiability, and the value judgement that a predictable universe is better than the alternative. Unfortunately for those who are offended by the directions that science leads, the "inherent world view" of the scientific method has consistently correctly explained more and more of the world since it first began to be employed, and can reasonably be expected to continue to do so in the future. You can call it an "inherent world view" all you want, but it works better than the other current alternatives, and most people (or at least those without wacked-out "inherent world views") like what works. It is a tremendous disservice to children or any thinking being to deny them such an education, just because people (many in Kansas, apparently) feel threatened by the closest approximation of the truth we have yet been able to determine.