Wednesday
Jul232008
COPA Unconstitutional
Wednesday, July 23, 2008 at 10:41AM
A federal appeals court agreed Tuesday with a lower court ruling that struck down as unconstitutional a 1998 law intended to protect children from sexual material and other objectionable content
on the Internet.
The bigger issue on this story is not that the courts don't want to protect children from obscenity, but instead that the law was excessively restrictive and broad and essentially criminalized content that was legal when viewed by adults under the same community standards. COPA ( Child Online Protection Act ) has now been struck down in three successive decisions and as such should get a fitting and proper burial. While no one wants obscene or offensive material being viewed by minors, the fact is many safe guards now exist on most web sites to prevent such access or viewing.
The Legal Broadcast Network will be doing a series of podcasts and interviews on this decision in the next few weeks so be watching our front page or subscribing to our RSS feed so you can get those shows and interviews as they become available.
on the Internet. The bigger issue on this story is not that the courts don't want to protect children from obscenity, but instead that the law was excessively restrictive and broad and essentially criminalized content that was legal when viewed by adults under the same community standards. COPA ( Child Online Protection Act ) has now been struck down in three successive decisions and as such should get a fitting and proper burial. While no one wants obscene or offensive material being viewed by minors, the fact is many safe guards now exist on most web sites to prevent such access or viewing.
The Legal Broadcast Network will be doing a series of podcasts and interviews on this decision in the next few weeks so be watching our front page or subscribing to our RSS feed so you can get those shows and interviews as they become available.
The opinion...for your reading pleasure...
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