Word: cda
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Supreme Court has agreed that the CDA is precisely that. The court, while disagreeing about some issues in the case, unanimously concluded that reducing online communication to a safe-for-kids standard is unconstitutional. "The interest in encouraging freedom of expression in a democratic society," wrote Justice John Paul Stevens, "outweighs any theoretical but unproven benefit of censorship...
...decisive--though not unexpected--victory for civil libertarians. Opponents of the CDA, led by the American Civil Liberties Union and the American Library Association as well as dozens of other plaintiffs, including Planned Parenthood and Human Rights Watch, had argued that the statute was so vaguely worded and ill defined that discussions in online chat rooms about abortion or contraception could have attracted the vice squad. Says Ira Glasser, executive director of the A.C.L.U.: "It would have criminalized all sorts of speech that would never have been criminalized before...
...rule sometime before the court's summer recess--usually by July 4. Meantime, in the absence of any clear constitutional law in cyberspace, at least 17 states have passed or are considering their own legislation to regulate the Net. New York enacted a law last year that resembles the CDA. In Virginia it's now illegal for state employees--including state-college professors--to access "sexually explicit" materials online. That law might prevent English professors from running an online discussion of Lady Chatterley's Lover. In Georgia it's a crime for people to communicate anonymously over the Net, which...
...here's more bad news for Georgians: if the Supreme Court finds the CDA is indeed unconstitutional, the ruling would not automatically void those state laws, says Ann Beeson, a national staff attorney for the A.C.L.U. It would, however, make it easier for the courts to strike down local statutes. "Unfortunately," says Beeson, "state legislatures pass unconstitutional laws all the time, and you still have to go to court to fight them...
...course, the U.S. Congress also has a history of passing unconstitutional laws, and several conservative legislators have already promised that if the Supreme Court rules against this law, they will try again with a more carefully crafted "Son of CDA." "Some way, somehow," says Republican Senator Charles Grassley of Iowa, a fierce supporter of the CDA, "we will have to find a constitutional way of protecting kids from porn...