Child Online Protection Act Appeal Rejected

TarrVetus writes "The Associated Press reports that a federal appeals court in Philadelphia has ruled that the Child Online Protection Act will not be revived, upholding a 2007 decision that the unimplemented 1998 law is unconstitutional. The law, which made it a crime for websites to allow children access to 'harmful' material, was declared a violation of the First Amendment because of existing elective filtering technologies and parental controls that are less restrictive to free speech than the 'ineffective' and 'overly broad' ban."

Comments

11 years later and still squirming/

[guruevi]

This law is 11 years old and it's still squirming through the courts. For all those that say that free speech is protected by the constitution and that certain branches will do away with unconstitutional laws: here is an example of how long you can potentially have laws affecting you while you're fighting it in court.

Of course this law is unimplemented but several other laws like DMCA and Patriot Act ARE implemented and unconstitutional. It takes longer than a 2 term presidency to do away with a dead law, how long do you think it would take to repeal a law that has been in use?

Re:11 years later and still squirming/

[Dun Malg]

(copyrights precede free speech in the constitution)

Physically preceding in the text doesn't determine precedence in law, Einstein.

Re:The System

[SBacks]

To be clear, this has nothing to do with child porn. This is a law intended to prevent children from accessing porn.

Re:No more intro pages for porn sites?

[morgan_greywolf]

Most porn sites nowadays have intro pages that ask the user to confirm if he/she is over 18. Would eliminating this law mean that those sites are no longer required to have these intro pages?

They never were required to have them, at least not by any federal statute. Porn sites did this of their own (or their lawyers') volition.

Re:The System

[Ethanol-fueled]

A law intended to prevent children from masturbating to child porn, that is.

Re:The (judicial) System

[Hatta]

If the courts worked, we wouldn't have decisions like Wickard v. Filburn, Hiibel v. 6th, Herring v. US, etc. It seems like every other month the SCOTUS is shitting on the constitution in one way or another.

Re:Adult entertainment?

[Jeff Hornby]

How do you monitor what your children do online? That is the equivalent of trying to keep track of everyone that your children associate with, everywhere that they go with their friends, everything that they say, etc. It is just not possible to do that, and it never was.

You could try raising them properly, instilling proper values, ensuring there are open lines of communication; you know, try parenting. As for specifically how to stop them from surfing porn on the internet, take the computer out of their room and put it in the living room (or whatever room you habitually hang out in). And make sure the screen is facing out into the room. That way if the little bugger is surfing porn, you can enjoy it too ;)

COPA vs. COPPA

[riceboy50]

This is not to be confused with COPPA, which is also a 1998 law protecting children online that exists and is enforced.

Hooray precedent

[RepelHistory]

This is absolutely a free speech issue, and while the government has the power to regulate speech, this generally applies to the time, place and manner of the speech rather than its content.

The Supreme Court has long held that if the government wants to regulate speech based on its content, the regulation must serve a compelling government interest, be narrowly tailored to fit that interest, and be the least restrictive means possible. This test is referred to as "strict scrutiny." ( Source)

In this case, COPA is simply way out of line. While the status of protecting minors from the horrors of breasts as a compelling government interest is debatable (I would argue that it is none of the government's beeswax), COPA is definitely not the least restrictive means possible to protect the children. Responsible parents can and should control the content that their children access through the means available to them, and thus any government regulation beyond this is by definition not the least restrictive means possible. So any government regulation to this end is unconstitutional as long as free speech is involved and parents have at the very least the opportunity to parent responsibly.

Oh, FFS - it's DEAD! (summary is wrong)

[R2.0]

Ok, isn't ANYONE going to point out that the summary is totally wrong? The *Supreme* Court declined to hear the government's appeal of the Philadelphia appellate court's decision. It's not still squirming, it is dead. Deceased. Gone to meet it's maker. It would be pushing up daisies if the editors from Slashdot even bothered to RTFA.

Is congress going to try again? Of course. But this particular law has reached the end of its non-life.