The U.S. Supreme
Court has let stand a decision that a federal law
created to keep children away from Internet pornography
violates free speech rights.
The Supreme Court
rejected an appeal from the Justice Department, handing
the victory over to those who argued that Congress's
efforts to regulate cyberspace violated free speech
rights.
The law required
that website operators use credit card numbers and
access codes to keep children away from seeing adult
content. Violators faced up to six months in prison
and fines up to $50,000 per day.
The law was
adopted in 1998 when the Supreme Court struck down another
law called the Communications Decency Act. It has never been
enforced because lower courts have repeatedly ruled it
unconstitutional.
The Justice
Department appealed to the Supreme Court after a U.S.
appeals court in Philadelphia declared the law
unconstitutional for being overly broad and too vague.
In enforced, the
law would have punished as many as 700 million websites.
The law was challenged by the American Civil Liberties
Union and a number of gay adult booksellers and
online properties, including A Different Light
Bookstores and PlanetOut Corp. (Advocate.com)