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Topic: Government US

COPA is unconstitutional

Summary: The Third Circuit has upheld a lower court decision that the Child Online Protection Act is unconstitutional, AP reports.In its ruling Tuesday, the federal appeals court concluded that the Child Online Protection Act is unconstitutionally overly broad and vague.

Richard Koman

By Richard Koman for ZDNet Government |

The Third Circuit has upheld a lower court decision that the Child Online Protection Act is unconstitutional, AP reports.

In its ruling Tuesday, the federal appeals court concluded that the Child Online Protection Act is unconstitutionally overly broad and vague. The court also ruled that the law violates the First Amendment because filtering technologies and other parental control tools offer a less restrictive way to protect children from inappropriate content online.

Next stop: SCOTUS.

I'll update this shortly with a look at the the appeals court's decision.

Topics: Government US, Government

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24 comments
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  • What is surprising is that it has taken ...

    ... so long for challenges to COPA to make it to SCOTUS.

    Clearly, as long as the Internet user is anonymous, to hold the website operator responsible for knowing the age of the user is just ridiculous. Take away the anonymity and the problem just goes away!

    It also assumes that everybody's definition of what's "harmful to children" is consistent from parent to parent, let alone culture to culture.

    My sister-in-law, for instance, would maintain that TV is "harmful" to children.
    M Wagner
    Reply Vote

    • Well . . .

      "My sister-in-law, for instance, would maintain that TV is 'harmful' to children."

      Well, many people would agree. After all, we do have a rating system. In addition, I tend to agree: After all, you wouldn't want a two year old watching a violent, bloody horror show. I'd say almost everybody agrees that there are limits - it's just a matter of how loose or tight you want those limits to be.
      CobraA1
      Reply Vote

      • Right, and

        it is the parents job to screen the things their children come into contact with, not to screen what everyone comes into contact with.
        seanferd
        Reply Vote

  • government censorship

    Now that Andrew Cuomo AG NY has had most of the ISP's Eliminate ALT* Bineries newsgroups. Does this action, which is like finding a book in the library and burning down the complete facility . Eliminate Cuomo's actions and allow the ISP's to again carry ALT Bineries groups, their customers have been using for years. I beleve Cuomo had no idea that their were thousands of ALT Bineries groups people have been using well be for the internet developed to its daily usage today and his actions are unjustified. I can see deleting or asking to be deleted a news group but to arbitrarily delete the whole hierarchy is dictatorship in nature...

    .
    johncikan@...
    Reply Vote

    • It's all well and good - but...

      ...And it's a big BUT... ISPs are looking to save money. By limiting or even eliminating Usenet (newsgroups) as a free, bundled service, they're a.) freeing up bandwitdh to their servers and b.) freeing up those servers for other things.

      Those who are diehard fans of Usenet leeching will, no doubt migrate to other servers. But that's good as well - more often than not, premium usenet services offer better retention and better completion than most ISP's servers. In which case, you can almost bet the true diehards ALREADY jumped the ship and weren't using the ISPs servers.

      There will also be those who will simply give up and move onto other sources for whatever they're after - possibly freeing up even more overall bandwidth.

      Don't get me wrong - I do agree the decision was overkill. There are many groups on Usenet that have nothing to do with porn, child or otherwise, that are being discriminated against. Then again, many of those likely deal with carrying other material that other groups - namely the RIAA, MPAA and BSA would find...objectionable. alt.binaries.mp3*, alt.binaries.warez and alt.binaries.tv would be a few that come immediately to mind.
      Wolfie2K3
      Reply Vote

  • RE: COPA is unconstitutional

    You could lock in the computer number of every computer and still not know who was using it.

    The other issue is that parents don't agree. At the momment the schools where I live can only show G rated movies. Yes some movies are worth viewing. Not a lot but some.

    You want to find out if a movie is g rated? Just ask the kids. Maybe 5 to 10 percent of the kids wouldn't be allowed to see the film if you just asked the parents but because you have a small fraction that might object nobody sees it at school.

    That is just the way it is.
    deowll
    Reply Vote

  • RE: COPA is unconstitutional

    It's not my job or the government's to raise your children. If you take an honest look at how well the government has managed security, the credit industry, and energy among other things I am not so sure I would want them to be the first line of defense for my children. People need to be responsible for their own affairs.
    fredh@...
    Reply Vote

  • What happened to the Adult Verification System?

    I remember that years ago there was an online Adult Verification System. You presented some info and a credit card to one of 2 authorized online companies, and you were issued an Authorized Adult Verification user id and password. Every adult-oriented site required that user id/password combo to enter the site. That was set up in response to COPA. It seemed that when the Bush Administration took office, the Adult Verification System disappeared. Perhaps the true intent of COPA was not to protect our children, but rather control what is available on the Internet, as no site owner could possibly know the age of a visitor without some sort of verification system. As an aside, perhaps not many of your readers are aware that most of the large ISP's have removed access to Usenet binaries. That was done supposedly because Adrew Cuomo, NY Attorney General, had investigators who allegedly found child porn on 88 of the 100,000+ groups. It was another alleged attempt to protect children from being harmed by the Internet. Maybe what we really need are parents who watch over their children to prevent them from accessing questionable web sites and protect them from online predators, and to allow the FBI to do their job and go after the scum who post child porn, rather than attempt to regulate content on the Internet.
    jonnjonnzdnet
    Reply Vote

    • Clinton was still in office when AVS died

      From wikipedia "An Adult Verification System (AVS) is a computing system used by a website to confirm that the user attempting to access their website is of the age required (usually by law) to view the website's content, which could include sex, nudity, violence or profanity. The system is used to legally protect companies from punishment under laws against Disseminating pornography to a minor. These systems always use a credit card. The Adult Verification System is usually provided by a third-party company. In that way the same company can provide adult verification for multiple websites, thus becoming more user friendly. In 1999, Adult Verification Systems were at the center of a police crackdown on internet users viewing child pornography, known as Operation Ore, in which web users using an Adult Verification System were identified by their financial records when the company which stored the data, Landslide Inc., went into liquidation. Another problem with this system is that it is easy to use a fake script to defraud users into divulging their credit card number to an individual to use for their own purposes." Clearly the system was misused by cops, thus it fell into disuse.
      paullkellysr
      Reply Vote

    • Who is COPA protecting?

      The viewer or the subject being viewed?

      Mostly we are talking about legislators who have decided that adolescent boys should not be permitted to look at pictures of naked girls on the Internet - even if those girls are over 18 and consenting to have their pictures posted. (As if this is going to take adolescent boys' minds off naked girls.)

      On the other hand, child pornography is about exploitation of those who cannot legally consent to public display of their likeness. Even the age of consent changes from jurisdiction to jurisdiction.

      You can only stop it when posting such material is illegal in all jurisdictions everywhere in the world. Even then, you need to be able to determine the identity of the individual posting the prohibited material.

      Ultimately, the only reliable way of age verification is an Internet without anonymity, where every user-name can be traced back to an individual living in a particular jurisdiction and providing that information to the operator of the server posting the age-restricted material.

      I don't think very many people will support that - even if releasing that information required a search warrant.

      Even then, it would take massive cooperation for jurisdictions to be willing to extradite their citizens to a foreign nation to stand trial for something which my not be a crime in that jurisdiction.
      M Wagner
      Reply Vote

  • mind-blowing

    It continually blows my mind that to 'protect the rights' of some, that we're putting in harms way, others. Now insert 'children' into 'others'.

    We certainly don't want to protect six year old Johnny from porn because that might make it a tiny bit harder for daddy to look at it whenever he wants.

    Ludicrous.
    t0mmyt@...
    Reply Vote

    • Who's job is it to protect Johnny

      Certainly not mine - it's Johnny's father and mother. There are tools for their use, including parental vigilence, to protect Johnny. Using your logic, we should ban all alcohol and fatty foods - not realistic
      paullkellysr
      Reply Vote

      • putting words in my mouth

        I said Johnny should be protected even if it makes it a wee bit harder for his dad to indulge himself. That's a far cry from banning alcohol and fatty foods. So thanks for setting up a strawman argument.

        Now we'll use YOUR logic and we'll use it with alcohol. By YOUR logic anyone should be able to buy alcohol and it's the parents responsibility to make sure Johnny doesn't.

        I'm asking for the same protection for Johnny with porn that he already gets for alcohol.
        t0mmyt@...
        Reply Vote

        • Dreadful analogy

          First error: preventing children from getting alcohol has a simple and relatively effective mechanism in place. Card 'em. The web is anonymous. Unless you're proposing we all need to get internet ID cards? Or maybe register with the police before we're allowed to go online? Move to China, buddy, that BS won't fly in a free country.

          Second, you're comparing a physical substance that is ingested into the body with information that has no physical effects whatsoever.

          Third, I have not the slightest interest in protecting "Johnny." I don't know this kid. I have my own family to worry about, and frankly, I'm sick of nosy busybodies like you trying to strong-arm the rest of us into doing things YOUR way just to make YOUR life easier.

          If YOU want to protect your kid, do so. If you're too lazy to do the hard work involved yourself, well, then you must not care that much about little Johnny after all.
          bmerc
          Reply Vote

        • Protecting Johnny

          Yes, Johnny should be protected - by Johnny's parents, not by big governement. I used alcohol as an example because of a similarity of prohibition to this nanny State action.
          paullkellysr
          Reply Vote

    • The problem is

      it isn't just porn that will be blocked, either by dint of imperfect filtering, or by folks who want protection from ideas a, b, c,...zzzzza, zzzzzb...

      Parenting should not be done by governments.

      The other thing is the language of the COPA-type idea. Just because we don't want johnny to be able to see something doesn't necessarily mean that we are protecting him from anything. "Protect" is a bit of a push-button buzzword, the way it is used by some. So the act of not banning something does not mean that anyone is being put in harm's way.

      Let's say that you feel that it is OK for Johnny to watch That's So Raven, but you don't want him to watch Xena, Warrior Princess for whatever reason. You are entitled to guide your own child's development, nurture his mind, and encourage or discourage his viewing of certain media. Now, if he happens to see an episode of Xena somewhere, has he been put in harm's way?

      No, Xena isn't porn, but neither is a lot of what would be blocked by things like COPA. Nor would a COPA-type instrument necessarily block everything from any given subset of 'harmful content', so we'll end up having to do the filtering ourselves anyway, if we really want it. (Think spam.)

      People seem to be very fond of the "Give a man a fish.../ But teach a man to fish, and..." parable. Applied here: Hide content X from Johnny, and he won't see it for the moment. But teach Johnny to choose wisely for himself, and he's learned something valuable that can be applied throughout his entire life.
      seanferd
      Reply Vote

  • RE: COPA is unconstitutional

    This is a fine way to stop porn from children, hogwash, only simple consistent discipline for children from their parents will protect all of us from this and other bad influences we all will face in our lives, Sociopaths have taken over our legislatures in the name of liberating us from scial taboos and any form of moral decision making.
    Just because it is Legal does not make it Right,
    Just because you can does not mean you should!
    Simple adult decision making principles we all learned as children and forgot to teach the next generation,OOPS!
    morwen
    Reply Vote

  • Message has been deleted.

    rmhesche
    Reply Vote

  • RE: COPA is unconstitutional

    I don't know that COPA is/was the answer, but I do know that society (and I'm not saying government only) needs to make an effort to support the parents in their attempts to protect and raise their children. The people who have posted so far may (or may not) have children, but they apparently don't care what happens to anybody else's children. If that viewpoint is widespread, it doesn't bode well for any of us - to state what should be obvious: children are our future!
    Bob C User
    Reply Vote

    • Neighbors, friends, family

      Those are the people who are supposed to help you protect your children, not a content-filtering law and poor content-filtering methods.

      Please do not say that people don't care about anyone's children because they disagree with bad and unconstitutional legislation.
      seanferd
      Reply Vote
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