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To: philip trigiani who wrote (1591)	2/1/1999 10:05:00 PM
From: Gator	Respond to of 1681

Still long...FYI...Judge bars enforcement of U.S. Internet porn law. >> Monday February 1, 8:38 pm Eastern Time Judge bars enforcement of U.S. Internet porn law (Adds fresh quote from judge in paragraph 5 and background in paragraphs 14-16) PHILADELPHIA, Feb 1 (Reuters) - A federal judge on Monday imposed a preliminary injunction banning the enforcement of a U.S. law aimed at protecting children from sexually explicit material on the Internet. In a victory for the American Civil Liberties Union and a setback for the Clinton administration, U.S. District Judge Lowell Reed granted a preliminary injunction against the enforcement of the Child Online Protection Act. A temporary restraining order against enforcement of the law that the judge imposed in November had been set to expire at midnight EST (0500 GMT Tuesday) on Monday. In his ruling, Reed expressed sympathy with the law's intent to protect children under 17 from contact with material that could harm them psychologically or physically. But the judge said the law threatened constitutional free-speech rights, adding that ''the greater good'' would be served by barring enforcement of the law. ''While the public certainly has an interest in protecting its minors, the public interest is not served by the enforcement of an unconstitutional law,'' Reed wrote in his ruling. ''Indeed, perhaps we do the minors of this country harm if First Amendment protections, which they will with age inherit fully, are chipped away in the name of their protection,'' the judge added. The ruling, which followed nearly a week of hearings that ended last Wednesday, stems from a legal challenge mounted against the law by the ACLU and 17 Internet companies, booksellers, homosexual rights groups, medical professionals and the media. The Clinton Justice Department defended law. ACLU lawyer Ann Beeson, one of two plaintiffs' attorneys who argued for an injunction before Reed, said the judge determined that the current law, like its predecessor, ''is very likely to deter a very large number of adults from accessing material that is protected (by the Constitution).'' A judge's law clerk said the injunction would remain in place until the ACLU lawsuit seeking to overturn the law reaches trial. No trial date has been set. The law was passed by the Republican-controlled Congress and signed by President Clinton last October as a replacement for the Communications Decency Act, which the U.S. Supreme Court struck down in 1997 for violating the First Amendment. Unlike the earlier law, the new one was aimed solely at the operators of commercial Internet sites. The law made it a crime for Web site operators knowingly to provide minors with access to sexually explicit material. It requires Web sites to impose electronic proof-of-age barriers, including credit-card registration systems. Violators would face up to six months in prison and up to $50,000 in fines for each violation. A Justice Department spokeswoman said the administration was reviewing Reed's decision. Lawyers connected with the case said an appeal by the administration was likely. The Justice Department, describing the new law as an ''electronic brown wrapper,'' argued during hearings that the law was aimed specifically at online pornographers who post free and unguarded sexual images on their Web sites in order to entice adult customers. But the ACLU presented testimony from several plaintiffs, including online publishers CNET Inc. (Nasdaq:CNET - news) and Salon magazine, the gay retail chain A Different Light Bookstores and ArtNet Worldwide Corp., which all claimed the law could be applied to sexual material available on their Web sites. Companies, which need large numbers of anonymous Web site visitors to justify expensive rates charged to advertisers, have said they fear registration would hurt business by driving away Internet traffic. They also claimed that segregating adult material on Web pages barred to minors would be costly and technically difficult.