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Communication Law Keyed to Benjamin, 2nd Ed.
Ashcroft v. American Civil Liberties Union (II)
Citation:
542 U.S. 656 (2004)Facts
After the Supreme Court struck down the Communications Decency Act in Reno v. ACLU, Congress passed COPA in 1998 to protect minors from harmful material on the Internet. COPA imposed criminal penalties of a $50,000 fine and six months in prison for knowingly posting, for commercial purposes, World Wide Web content that is “harmful to minors.” The statute defined material “harmful to minors” using a three-part test similar to the Miller obscenity standard but modified to apply to minors. COPA provided an affirmative defense for those who restricted access through age verification methods like credit cards or adult identification numbers. The ACLU and other Internet content providers challenged the constitutionality of COPA, arguing it violated the First Amendment. The District Court granted a preliminary injunction, finding that filtering software was a less restrictive alternative. After multiple appeals and a previous Supreme Court decision addressing only the “community standards” aspect of COPA, the case returned to the Supreme Court to determine whether the preliminary injunction was properly granted.
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