A 10-year campaign to censor the Internet ended last week when the Supreme Court refused to step in and save the Child Online Protection Act. Everyone can agree on the need to protect children from sexually explicit online material, but this misguided law tried to do it in ways that infringed on too much constitutionally protected free speech.Congress passed the Child Online Protection Act in 1998 after the Supreme Court had struck down an even broader law regulating online indecency. The 1998 act imposed civil and criminal penalties, including up to six months in prison, for offering commercial material online that was “harmful to minors.”
http://nytimes.com/2009/01/27/opinion/27tue2.html
Editorial: A Win for Free Speech Online
A 10-year campaign to censor the Internet ended last week when the Supreme Court refused to step in and save the Child Online Protection Act. Everyone can agree on the need to protect children from sexually explicit online material, but this misguided law tried to do it in ways that infringed on too much constitutionally protected free speech.