COPA kicked back
2002-05-13 21:45:27+00 by Shawn 0 comments
In what could have a chilling effect on free speech (an aspect that nobody except the ACLU seems to be talking much about), the Supreme Court has opinined that it is not unconstitutional to restrict internet speech to the lowest common denominator (conservative communities).
The Supremes ruled that the federal appeals court's decision that COPA's [Child Online Protection Act] "community standards" bar was too vague, and had the effect of imposing the most restrictive community's standards to the whole Internet, did not meet the requirement of being unconstitutional. Although they did imply that the law might be found unconstitutional for other reasons, and so sent it back for review.
ZDNet has a different version of the same story (as opposed to everyone else, who just slap the AP article up wholesale).