Internet Censorship Essay - The ACLU and the Child Online Protection Act :: Argumentative Persuasive Topics

The ACLU and the Child Online shield Act   The Child Online Protection Act (COPA) was approved by Congress on August 16, 1998. It is the intention of this essay to demonstrate how the ACLU destroyed this family-oriented act.   Immediately after COPA was signed by the President, the American Civil Liberties Union and a coalition of groups representing publishers, Internet function Providers, journalists, and the technology industry challenged the law in the United States District butterfly for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. Federal District Court Judge Lowell A. Reed, junior issued a temporary restraining order blocking the government from enforcing COPA. On January 11, 1999 some(prenominal) sides filed briefs to argue the constitutionality of the law.(ACLU)   Congresss intention in enacting COPA was to protect minor children from attack to free erotic teaser pictures available at commercial dirty word sites on the World Wide Web. In order to accomplish th is governmental interest, the law specifically requires commercial pornography sellers to take a assent card or adult PIN or bother figure of speech in order to insure that visiting children or teenagers will not be able to see graphic sex pictures on the front pages of commercial pornography WWW. sites. COPA provides punishment of up to six months in lock away and a $50,000 fine for each violation.   Plaintiffs alleged in their brief that COPA violates the low gear Amendment because (1) It creates an effective ban on constitutionally protected speech by and to adults, and is not the least restrictive means of accomplishing any governmental purpose, and indeed is substantially overbroad (2) It interferes with the rights of minors to access and view material that is not offensive to them by prohibiting the dissemination of any material with sexual content that is unwholesome to minors of any age, despite the fact that the material will not be harmful to all minors (3) It inhibits an individuals right to communicate and access information anonymously and (4) It is unconstitutionally vague.   The government argued that COPA is carefully limited in scope to deal only with the problem of teaser images that exist on the World Wide Web (meaning the law excludes other Internet, Usenet, e-mail, BBS, chat and online services) and provided the government maintained that the law is directed solely at commercial sellers of pornography which is deemed to be obscene to minors or harmful to minors(meaning all non-commercial, non-profit, educational, governmental and private communications are excluded).