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COPA Suffers Yet Another Court Defeat
A US federal appeals court today struck down COPA, the Child Online Protection Act, a Clinton-era censorship law that the Justice Department has been struggling to get implemented for a decade. (The ACLU filed suit as soon as COPA was signed in 1998 and won an immediate injunction.) The battle has made it to the Supreme Court twice, and the DoJ has essentially never gotten any satisfaction out of the courts. This was the case for which the DoJ famously went trolling for search histories. In the ruling issued today, the 3rd US Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a lower-court ruling that COPA violates the First Amendment because it is not the most effective way to keep children from visiting adult Web sites. The law would require sites to check visitors' ages, e.g. by taking a credit card, if the site contained any material that is "harmful to minors," whatever that means.
But it's for the children!!!!
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Another stunning blow to the Bush administration and their complete disregard for our civil liber...
Oh. Never mind. I'll just go back to my job at the New York Times now.
Careful son, that's commie talk.
Je me fous du passé
Finally. Now my children don't have to keep bugging me for my credit card when they want to visit adult sites.
If a child is receiving pressure to have sex too early, is that a sexual harassment pander?
No mod points, no meta-moderating/Firehose/all the other free work Slashdot wants me to do.
My children ARE porn stars, you insensitive clod!
Love,
Chris Matthews
I didn't know that Michael Jackson had a slashdot account?
I was in court (defending my brother vs. an OUI or, really, just getting him a good plea bargain and a ride home) when I watched Maine's "open countainer" law get trashed. The guy defended himself and brought a beer can out of his pocket and asked the DA to read the part he'd shown him. "Maine 5c Deposit" (or something similar) was the response. He then asked the judge, "There's always a little bit left in the bottle. How are we supposed to return them to the store?" His case was dismissed as his BAC was only .02 or something when he was arrested.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."