Judge Nixes Internet Child Porn Law in Pa.

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

___

Dave Farber  +1 412 726 9889



...... Forwarded Message .......
From: "James S. Tyre" <jstyre () jstyre com>
To: dave () farber net
Date: Fri, 10 Sep 2004 11:02:22 -0700
Subj: Judge Nixes Internet Child Porn Law in Pa.

110 pp. decision at 
http://www.cdt.org/speech/pennwebblock/20040910memorandum.pdf. 
Unconstitutional on both First Amendment and dormant commerce clause 
grounds.  On the former, the court did not decide if strict or intermediate 
scrutiny applied, as it found the statute to be unconst. under either.

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/technology/AP-Online-Porn.html?pagewanted=print&position=
September 10, 2004
Judge Nixes Internet Child Porn Law in Pa.
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Filed at 12:21 p.m. ET

PHILADELPHIA (AP) -- A federal judge threw out on Friday a Pennsylvania law 
requiring Internet service providers to block Web sites containing child 
pornography, saying the law was unconstitutional and cannot be enforced.

Enacted in 2002, the law gave Pennsylvania's attorney general the power to 
require that companies like America Online Inc. block customers from 
viewing Web sites that had been identified by the state as containing 
illegal content.

No one challenged the state's right to stop the distribution of child porn, 
which is already illegal under federal law, but lawyers for the Center for 
Democracy and Technology and the American Civil Liberties Union had argued 
that the technology used to block those Web sites was clumsy.

Over two years, the groups said, ISPs trying to obey blocking orders were 
forced to cut access to at least 1.5 million legal Web sites that had 
nothing to do with child pornography, but were part of the same Internet 
cluster as the offending sites.

Lawyers for the state said the technology exists for ISPs to block 
selectively and blamed Internet companies for not wanting to upgrade their 
systems.

U.S. District Judge Jan E. DuBois disagreed, saying current state of 
technology meant the law ``cannot be implemented without excessive blocking 
of innocent speech in violation of the First Amendment.''

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James S. Tyre                               mailto:jstyre () jstyre com
Law Offices of James S. Tyre          310-839-4114/310-839-4602(fax)
10736 Jefferson Blvd., #512               Culver City, CA 90230-4969
Co-founder, The Censorware Project             http://censorware.net


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