Internet Law Not COPA-cetic, Third Circuit Rules

[WSJ_law_blog]

The Third Circuit Court of Appeals struck social conservatives a blow this afternoon, agreeing with a lower court that shot down as unconstitutional COPA, or the Child Online Protection Act, a 1998 law intended to protect children from sexual material and other objectionable content on the Internet. Here’s the AP report, and here’s the opinion.

COPA provides for civil and criminal penalties — including up to six months imprisonment — for anyone who knowingly posts “material that is harmful to minors” on the Web “for commercial purposes.” The court notes:

“Material that’s harmful to minors” includes any communication that’s obscene or that: (A) the average person, applying contemporary community standards, would find, taking the material as a whole and with respect to minors, is designed to appeal to, or is designed to pander to, the prurient interest; (B) depicts, describes, or represents, in a manner patently offensive with respect to minors, an actual or simulated sexual act or sexual contact, an actual or simulated normal or perverted sexual act, or a lewd exhibition of the genitals or post-pubescent female breast; and (C) taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value for minors.

In its ruling, the Third Circuit concluded that — dust off your Con Law books! — in addition to failing the strict scrutiny test because it’s not narrowly tailored, COPA does not employ the least restrictive alternative to advance the Government’s compelling interest in its purpose — to protect children from inappropriate content online.