EFF sues to kill FOSTA, calling it "unconstitutional Internet censorship law"

["Dave Farber" <farber () gmail com>]

Begin forwarded message:

> From: Dewayne Hendricks <dewayne () warpspeed com>
> Date: July 2, 2018 at 6:05:26 PM GMT+9
> To: Multiple recipients of Dewayne-Net <dewayne-net () warpspeed com>
> Subject: [Dewayne-Net] EFF sues to kill FOSTA, calling it "unconstitutional Internet censorship law"
> Reply-To: dewayne-net () warpspeed com
>
> EFF sues to kill FOSTA, calling it “unconstitutional Internet censorship law”
> Sex work law prohibits speech that's protected by First Amendment, lawsuit says.
> By JON BRODKIN
> Jun 29 2018
> <https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/06/anti-sex-trafficking-law-illegally-censors-internet-lawsuit-says/>
>
> The Electronic Frontier Foundation has asked a court to invalidate a new anti-prostitution law, saying that it 
> amounts to unconstitutional censorship of the Internet.
>
> The Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act (FOSTA) was approved by Congress and signedby President Trump in April. Websites 
> responded to the new law by shutting down sex-work forums, potentially endangering sex workers who used the sites to 
> screen clients and avoid dangerous situations. 
>
> The EFF filed the lawsuit in US District Court for the District of Columbia on behalf of several plaintiffs.
>
> "In our lawsuit, two human rights organizations, an individual advocate for sex workers, a certified non-sexual 
> massage therapist, and the Internet Archive, are challenging the law as an unconstitutional violation of the First 
> and Fifth Amendments," EFF Civil Liberties Director David Greene wrote. "Although the law was passed by Congress for 
> the worthy purpose of fighting sex trafficking, its broad language makes criminals of those who advocate for and 
> provide resources to adult, consensual sex workers and actually hinders efforts to prosecute sex traffickers and aid 
> victims."
>
> Law conflates trafficking with all sex work
>
> Despite Congress's stated purpose of stopping sex trafficking, FOSTA barely distinguishes between trafficking and 
> consensual sex work.
>
> While Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act provides website operators with broad immunity for hosting 
> third-party content, FOSTA eliminates that immunity for content that promotes or facilitates prostitution. Operators 
> of websites that let sex workers interact with clients could thus face 25 years in prison under the new law.
>
> FOSTA "is the most comprehensive censorship of Internet speech in America in the last 20 years," Greene said.
>
> The complaint asks the court to declare that FOSTA is unconstitutional and to permanently enjoin the US from 
> enforcing it. The lawsuit argues:
>
> The law erroneously conflates all sex work with trafficking. By employing expansive and undefined terms to regulate 
> online speech, backed by the threat of heavy criminal penalties and civil liability, FOSTA casts a pall over any 
> online communication with even remote connections to sexual relations. It has impeded efforts to prevent trafficking 
> and rescue victims, and has only made all forms of sex work more dangerous. FOSTA has undermined protections for 
> online freedom of expression, contrary to the near unanimity of judicial decisions over the past two decades.
>
> The speech of sex worker advocates is being inhibited "even though they do not advocate for, and indeed are firmly 
> opposed to, sex trafficking," the lawsuit said. FOSTA "prohibits a substantial amount of protected expression" by 
> making it a crime to operate an "interactive computer service" with the intent to "promote" or "facilitate" 
> prostitution, the lawsuit said.
>
> FOSTA places no real limits on "what might constitute promotion or facilitation of prostitution or trafficking," 
> violating a precedent that the government must regulate speech "only with narrow specificity," the lawsuit said. If 
> the government can achieve its interests in a way that doesn't restrict speech "or that restricts less speech," it is 
> required to do so, the lawsuit said.
>
> [snip]
>
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