Sex & Society

You'd think that a law with the words "child protection" in it would have to be good thing, wouldn't you? WRONG! The Child Online Protection Act (COPA) attempts to ban from the Net  "material that is harmful to minors" that is posted "for commercial purposes." The real intent: to censor the porn we all know and love. This week a panel of the Third Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals affirmed that COPA is "impermissibly overbroad and vague" and therefore Unconstitutional.

COPA's history goes way back to 1996 when the US Congress passed the Conmmunications Decency Act, designed to ban "indecent" and "obscene" speech from the Web. Sound Unconstitutional? The Supreme Court thought so, too. Congress did not relent, and soon passed COPA, which was essentially a watered down version of the Communications  Decency Act, in 1998.

COPA has never been enforced due to a court order that allowed for the law to be challenged. It has spent the last decade wending its way through the court system and the federal government has lost at every turn.

The Justice Dept. now has the choice to continue its crusade, seeking leave to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. We hope they let COPA die as it deserved to. More at AVN.

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