Administration Asks Supreme Court To Revisit Online Porn Law

from the nothing-better-to-do dept

Fresh off their win forcing libraries to censor the internet, the Justice Department is looking to have the Supreme Court review (once again) the controversial Child Online Protection Act that has been regularly shot down by the courts for violating First Amendment free speech rights. The law would require any site to first guarantee that any viewer is an adult (probably by requiring a credit card) before displaying anything that the courts deem "harmful" to them. Yes, this is an incredibly broadly worded law that is only bound to cause problems. The DoJ, which apparently has nothing better to do with the war on terrorism or various corporate scandals, says that it's the same sort of thing as the library filter law. Except that it isn't. The library filter law only applies to libraries that receive federal money and is a terrible ruling in its own way. This law would apply to any site and is worded so vaguely that any site that doesn't verify the age of its visitors first is at risk of being charged with being a pornographer and sent to jail. This is the same government that's working on ways to prevent China and Iran from censoring the internet, isn't it?

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