Supreme Court rules online porn law unconstitutional
updated 03:55 pm EST, Wed January 21, 2009
Court Rebuffs Porn Law
The US Supreme Court today rejected an appeal by the Justice Department to uphold the Communications Decency Act. The law, first put into place in 1998, was intended to force adult-oriented sites to use logins or payment to prevent unintentionally exposing children to sexual material. The Supreme Court has ruled the law unconstitutional for violating free speech rights by dictating too broadly how site owners present their content.
Imposing the restriction would affect as many as 700 million US sites and could have forced many of these owners to either pay fines up to $50,000 per day or endure six-month prison sentences, according to government lawyers criticizing the appeal.
Advocates of screening adult websites have instead suggested alternatives such as automatic but not necessarily government-backed content filters at the Internet provider level.
Woohoo!
01/21, 05:37pm reply
Fap fap fap...
Keep on free-fappin'!
Guest
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: Nov 1999
woohoo!
01/21, 05:37pm reply
Although they didn't reject it, per se, they refused to hear it. There technically is a difference (whatever it may be).
testudo
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: Aug 2001
Woot!
01/21, 06:03pm reply
Keep your stupid unenforceable church-lady-pandering laws off my innernets! Advocates of screening adult websites would do well to focus on voluntary user-installed and controlled filtering services, so parents can be empowered to protect their children without infringing on my god-given right to consume p***. Leave ISPs out of this; they're just dumb pipes, ideally completely uninvested in and impartial to the content they transmit.
WiseWeasel
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: Apr 1999
Refusing
01/21, 09:22pm reply
My refusing to hear a "case" the Supreme Court effectively is stating that there is no constitutional merit to the submission. As close as you can get to being told to FOAD. We already have enough problems with ISP's providing illegal monitoring and reporting of Internet use, God forbid we give them some legal basis for doing so.
dimmer
Mac Enthusiast
Joined: Feb 2006
ISPs
01/21, 10:51pm (1 reply) reply
Why is everyone talking about ISPs. This had NOTHING to do with ISPs, but with the p*** sites themselves (as well as some nice "Public libraries need to protect our children" c*** in there too.
testudo
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: Aug 2001
700 million?
01/22, 06:08am reply
700 million US sites? That's a lot of p*** sites for a country with only 300 million people in it.
On second thought, that sounds right...
Tralthamidor
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: Jun 2007
Because...
01/22, 02:05pm reply
"Advocates of screening adult websites have instead suggested alternatives such as automatic but not necessarily government-backed content filters at the Internet provider level"
Testy, you may want to finish reading the post before you start dishing out bullshit. In fact, that might be a good idea to make into a "habit" for you. Just a thought.
dimmer
Mac Enthusiast
Joined: Feb 2006