Wednesday January 27 12:16 AM ET
U.S. Law Seen Usurping Adult Control Over
Internet
By David Morgan
PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - The U.S. government could usurp parental
control over what children see on the Internet if a new law designed to restrain online pornography
goes into effect, companies opposed to the law told a federal court Tuesday.
In closing arguments before U.S. District Judge Lowell Reed, an attorney for 17 Internet companies
assailed the Child Online Protection Act (COPA) as a measure that violates the constitutional right to
free speech while imposing unreasonable costs on businesses that populate the World Wide Web.
American Civil Liberties Union attorney Ann Beeson said the public would be better served if
families opted for commercially available filtering software capable of stopping Web browsers on
home personal computers from visiting pornographic websites.
''It should be up to parents, and not the government, to decide what children should see,'' she told
Reed at the end of five days of hearings.
Beeson said filtering software would not only return authority over home PCs to parents but go
farther than COPA by blocking non-commercial and foreign-based websites.
Enacted by Congress and signed into law by President Clinton last year, COPA requires U.S.
commercial website operators to keep children under 18 away from material deemed harmful to
minors by employing credit-card registration or age verification systems.
The law reserves stiff criminal and civil penalties for businesses found in violation.
Plaintiffs led by the ACLU hoped to persuade Reed to impose a preliminary injunction blocking
COPA's enforcement until their legal challenge to the law reaches trial.
The case essentially is an argument over what kinds of websites COPA can be used to restrict.
The Justice Department said the law, which replaces the Communications Decency Act struck down
by the Supreme Court in 1997, is designed simply to act as an ''electronic brown bag'' by targeting
websites devoted wholly to the sale of sexually explicit material.
But critics of COPA fear the act could be used by social conservatives to attack websites that deal
with gay rights, the arts, human sexuality, abortion and other hot-button issues.
''The world the plaintiffs describe is pure fantasy imagined by those who refuse to have any
restrictions whatsoever,'' Justice Department attorney Karen Stewart said in the government's
closing argument.
''COPA is concerned with what's clearly pornographic. Those who are there to excite, entice and fill
their coffers.''
Reed was expected to rule on a preliminary injunction by Feb. 1, when a temporary restraining order
he imposed against COPA in November is set to expire.
Earlier Stories
Internet Exec Sees Anti-Porn Law As An Opportunity (January 25)
U.S. Judge Suggests Internet Firms Drop Part Of Suit (January 22)
Judge May Exclude Public From Internet Porn Hearing (January 22)
ACLU Battles U.S. Government Over Web Porn Law (January 21)
U.S. Web Porn Case Stalls On Financial Issue (January 20)
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