The same coalition of free speech groups that successfully fought the U.S. Communications Decency Act is reprising its role with Thursday's legal challenge against a statute the coalition says would effectively be just as harmful to online speech.
The American Civil Liberties Union, the Electronic Privacy Information Center and the Electronic Frontier Foundation said in a press conference in Philadelphia they are seeking an injunction against the Child Online Protection Act, which passed into law Wednesday along with other technology measures in the $US520 billion federal spending plan.
The lawsuit was filed in federal District Court in Philadelphia, the same court where the original CDA challenge was filed. The COPA law is set to go into effect in 30 days.
"Whether you call it the 'Communications Decency Act' or the 'Congress Doesn't Understand the Internet Act,' it is still unconstitutional and it still reduces the Internet to what is fit for a six-year-old," said Ann Beeson, an ACLU attorney, in a statement on the lawsuit.
The law's passage is proof that legislators are more than willing to "make children the excuse for ill-conceived censorship schemes," said David Sobel, legal counsel for EPIC.
Constitutional rights violated
"Congress has demonstrated that, when it comes to the Internet, it's prepared to score easy political points at the expense of constitutional rights," Sobel said in a statement on the lawsuit.
COPA would make it a crime for the operators of commercial Web sites to post material deemed "harmful to minors" under its established legal standard, which includes graphic sexual content.
Violators would be subject to up to six months in jail and fines of up to $US50,000 per offense. Sites would be exempt from prosecution if they used credit-card numbers or other age-verification schemes to block youngsters under age 17 from graphic materials.
The original CDA, struck down by the Supreme Court in a near-unanimous ruling last year, was much broader than the COPA statute.
The CDA applied to e-mail and newsgroups as well as to the World Wide Web. But COPA applies only to "commercial" sites, and replaces the terms "indecent" and "patently offensive," which the Supreme Court said were too vague, with the already-set "harmful to minors" legal definition.
Material that is "harmful to minors" is defined under the law as being "prurient" and "lacking in serious artistic, political, literary, or scientific value" specifically when viewed by minors.
A spokeswoman for COPA's sponsor, Rep. Mike Oxley (R-Ohio), told ZDNN earlier this month that the bill was carefully crafted to avoid the First Amendment violations that doomed the CDA.
"It is important to note that 'harmful to minors' material cannot be sold or shown to minors by commercial establishments in other forms, like books, movies and magazines," Oxley spokeswoman Peggy Peterson said. "COPA applies that same common sense standard to the World Wide Web."
The law has also been applauded by the anti-pornography group Enough is Enough, which was among the most vocal advocates of the CDA.
But the ACLU coalition, which also includes news organizations, academics, physicians' organizations, and gay rights groups, maintains COPA would ban "a wide range of protected expression that is provided for free on the Web by organizations and entities who also happen to be communicating on the Web for commercial purposes."
Verification schemes ineffective
Credit-card age verification schemes, according to the ACLU coalition, are unlikely to be effective in screening out youngsters, and could not realistically be used by news sites containing material that could potentially be viewed as "harmful to minors."
And since many Web sites now host online chats, bulletin boards and free e-mail services, the content in those areas could arguably come under the law, making it in effect as sweeping as the CDA, coalition officials said.
The coalition also noted that even the U.S. Justice Department has criticized the new law.
In a seven-page analysis sent to President Clinton by Justice Department officials on Oct. 5, they concluded the law had "serious constitutional problems" and could potentially draw law enforcement resources away from efforts to track down online child predators and pornographers.
Justice Department officials also said in their analysis that the law would be ineffective because minors could still access newsgroups and any Web sites generated outside the U.S.
Plea to Reno
"It is our fervent hope that Attorney General (Janet) Reno will concede that the new law is unconstitutional so we can avoid prolonged litigation," said Barry Steinhardt, president of the EFF, in a statement.
Among the members of the ACLU coalition are Time, Warner Bros. Online, CNet, the New York Times Online, OBGYN.Net, Philadelphia Gay News, Salon Magazine, the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression, MSNBC, CBS New Media, Playboy Enterprises, PlanetOut, and ZDNet, publisher of ZDNN.
