[Libs-Or] Supreme Court denies review of COPA decision

[Diedre Conkling]

I hope you have already seen this:

http://www.oif.ala.org/oif/
 Supreme Court denies review of COPA
decision<http://www.oif.ala.org/oif/?p=158>January
21st, 2009 by Deborah Caldwell-Stone

Today, the Supreme Court refused to review the July 2008 appellate court
decision that ruled the Child Online Protection Act (COPA)
unconstitutional.  The law would have barred publication of a wide range of
materials on the Internet that met the law's definition of "harmful to
minors," or required sites to use age verification and other methods to
identify users of websites.  Both the district court and appellate court
agreed that the voluntary use of filtering software by parents was a less
restrictive method of achieving the government's goal of protecting children
from exposure to sexually explicit or adult themed material.

The Justices' action came without comment and with no noted dissents
in *Mukasey
v. American Civil Liberties Union, et al. *(08-565). (h/t to the
SCOTUS blog<http://www.scotusblog.com/wp/court-wont-save-porn-law-alters-immunity-rule/#more-8560>)
The order can be found on the Supreme Court's
website<http://www.supremecourtus.gov/orders/courtorders/012109zor.pdf>;
the order is on page 10, under the heading "Certiorari Denied."

"We're delighted that the Supreme Court has upheld the Third Circuit Court
of Appeals' opinion striking down the law," said Judith Krug, Director of
the Office for Intellectual Freedom. "COPA would have restricted access to a
vast amount of Constitutionally protected material on the Internet, in
violation of the First Amendment. We agree with District Court Judge Lowell
Reed, who observed that, 'perhaps we do the minors of this country harm if
First Amendment protections, which they will with age inherit fully, are
chipped away in the name of their protection.'"

The order concludes over ten years of litigation.  The law was never
enforced.  The Freedom to Read Foundation <http://www.ftrf.org/> filed
numerous *amicus curiae* briefs in the case, arguing in favor of First
Amendment freedoms.

The New York Times has full
details.<http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/22/washington/22scotus.html?_r=1>


-- 
Diedre Conkling
diedre08 at gmail.com
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