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Censorship The Internet United States Your Rights Online

U.S. Supreme Court to Debate COPA 29

Posted by timothy from the copa-cabana dept.
il dus writes "The Christian Science Monitor is reporting that the Child Online Protection Act (COPA), which seeks to restrict adult content on the internet, will be reviewed by the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday. This law has already been declared unconstitutional twice by federal appeals courts because it is, in their opinion, overly broad and restrictive of free speech on the Internet."
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U.S. Supreme Court to Debate COPA More

U.S. Supreme Court to Debate COPA

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  • Those evil conservatives (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 02, 2004 @09:02AM (#8439738)
    Looking at COPA, there are the names of several liberal Democrat senators involved, and one moderate Republican (McCain).

    Those evil right-wing republicans trying to censor the Internet! How terrible!

    • Re:Those evil conservatives (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Why do we have to insist on perpetuating this myth that there is any difference between libral Democrats and Conservative Republicans? Both parties are hypocritical towards their ideologies.

      Examples:

      Democrats: We want to help the unfortunate, and less advantaged with social programs.
      Result? Societal leaches hog pork barrel resources and the truly needy are still ignored or worse, outright rejected.

      Republicans: We want big government off our backs, and let capitalism decide what is best.
      Result? Corpo

    • Those evil right-wing republicans trying to censor the Internet! How terrible!

      Okay:

      Not all ... Those evil right-wing republicans trying to censor the Internet! How terrible!

  • So? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by 4of12 ( 97621 )

    Given the composition of the court, will the outcome be a surprise to anyone?

  • When is enough enough? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by H4x0r Jim Duggan ( 757476 ) on Tuesday March 02, 2004 @10:23AM (#8440490) Homepage Journal
    I remember in the mid-nineties, Marilyn Manson was almost ready to release his album "Antichrist Superstar" but there was a problem: in the inlay he had a picture of himself naked at age four - just sitting on the couch, nothing weird or interesting. I'm not sure what the point of the picture was, maybe it was to show that he came from the same start-in-life as the rest of us.

    Anyway, he was told he'd have to redo the inlay and get rid of that picture because anti-child-porn groups would string him up.

    He wasn't happy about that. It was an innocent photo (a photo of innocence?), and it was of him, and he owned the photo, and he didn't mind it being released, and...

    Well, the inlay got redone.

    Of course, I can see a counter arguement - what if poor people out of desperation started selling their childhood nude photos - but it's worth keeping in mind that the "liberals" of this issue are mostly silent, and understandibly fearful.

  • Not that it was ever any good (Score:5, Insightful)

    by nathanhart ( 754532 ) <virusfarm@gmail.com> on Tuesday March 02, 2004 @10:40AM (#8440691) Homepage
    Most implementations of the COPAA basically boiled down to a link asking if you where born after a certain date or not, if you where under 13 and clicked the appropriate link you where usually sent to a page saying the site didn't allow people at that age to register for the site with out parent permission and giving a link to a form their parent/guardian could fill out and mail in. Most of the kids two a couple extra brain cells, click back and register saying they are old enough and just never tell any one they are under age. We won't even go into how many sites have no information for parents/guardians to fill out and send in. A quick stroll though the info on the COPAA makes it seem as if it where more aimed at educating kids in technologies and the proper use of them than protecting them from inappropriate things which leads me to believe it was just one of those things that gets tagged on to a bill that was in some sort had a purpose in the start
  • Shouldn't they have made up something like the Children's Online Protection Act - Critically Auditing Both Adults aNd Arugula?

  • ob: you insensitive clod (Score:4, Insightful)

    by spikedvodka ( 188722 ) on Tuesday March 02, 2004 @12:30PM (#8441979)
    The "good-ole-U-S-of-A" doesn't own the internet, and hence can't regulate it...

    That being said, they can regulate servers based in the US, but that's about it

    maybe the supreme court will realize this... bah who am i kidding/what am I smoking

  • I don't have an idea how this would work but IMHO I suggest that a possible solution would would be for the government to develop some standards or methods to enable child monitoring software developers to identify adult websites and then mandate adult websites to implement such standards or methods That way there is no need to infringe on anybodys right to publish anything as long as you declare that you publish adult material.

    • The Internet should ban this (Score:1, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      you know don't you know that the internet and the court should get together the court should ban run on sentences they should Ban runon sentences in internet postings a good example is what you just typed in the parent click on parent to see how bad it is
    • Yes but the solution presented in your humble opinion would require some sort of definition of pornography and that is where things get really sticky. The Supreme Court has had a few flimsy definitions of profanity/adult content, some of which boil down to local standards which, in the case of the internet, would not apply. Some would argue that what the Supreme Court policy on profanity is that it is better to let a little profanity slip through the cracks than ban all questionable material.

      Also it is

  • Of course... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Tuxedo Jack ( 648130 ) on Tuesday March 02, 2004 @01:02PM (#8442361) Homepage
    What will this do, if anything, to curb spyware on childrens' computers? I remember cleaning kids' machines infested with Bonzi Buddy and crap like that meant to lure children in for marketing purposes.

    • Re:Of course... (Score:2, Informative)

      by Aerion ( 705544 )
      What will this do, if anything, to curb spyware on childrens' computers? I remember cleaning kids' machines infested with Bonzi Buddy and crap like that meant to lure children in for marketing purposes.

      Any ruling on COPA will likely have no immediate effect on this, since COPA does not attempt to regulate anything other than materials considered "obscene" or "harmful to minors," and specifically only such materials that are on the Internet for "commercial purposes."
      • so if somebody decided to put up these materials for free that anybody could view without having to pay, it would be legit?

        • Re:Of course... (Score:5, Informative)

          by Aerion ( 705544 ) on Tuesday March 02, 2004 @01:34PM (#8442715)
          so if somebody decided to put up these materials for free that anybody could view without having to pay, it would be legit?

          This is one of the key questions in front of the Court. The 3rd Circuit (from which the case was appealed to the Supreme Court) ruled that COPA's definition of "commercial purposes" was overbroad. We will see in the next few months whether or not the Supreme Court agrees.

          This is not the first time COPA has come before the Court. Two years ago, the 3rd Circuit ruled that the definition of "community standards," the standards by which the obscenity of questioned material must be judged, is overbroad. The Supreme Court agreed, but stated that this was not enough [findlaw.com] to overturn COPA by itself. It remanded the case, and now the 3rd Circuit has come up with even more reasons to overturn it.
  • Not that it really matters, but it's COPPA - Child Online Privacy Protection Act. Unless this is a different act (I know there are a lot of them :P).

    • Re:Missing letter (Score:3, Informative)

      by Aerion ( 705544 )
      Not that it really matters, but it's COPPA - Child Online Privacy Protection Act. Unless this is a different act (I know there are a lot of them :P).

      It is in fact a different act. The object of COPA is to regulate questionable and offensive materials on the Internet, while the object of COPPA is to regulate the collection of personal information from those under the age of 13 over the Internet.

      It is COPA that is being challenged by this case.

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