Posted on: Monday, July 5, 2004

EDITORIAL
Internet law mostly chills free speech

In throwing a case back for more judicial review and a full trial, the U.S. Supreme Court last week strongly implied that the Child Online Protection Act passed by Congress is unconstitutional.

This was sensible. The issue is not protecting children from objectionable material. Rather, the issue is how best to protect children within constitutional restraints.

The online law, now under legal cloud, would have required such filters as credit card use or adult-ID verification to ensure children under 17 did not gain access to adult sites. Penalties included a $500,000 fine and up to six months in jail.

This is fine as far as it goes. But it does nothing to filter offshore sites, and it would not have covered any material dumped into computers unrequested.

The worst part of the Child Online Act were those strict penalties that could be used at least occasionally against non-pornographic sites that carry arguably "adult" material.

Justice Kennedy put it best:

"There is a potential for extraordinary harm and a serious chill upon protected speech," he said.

A better approach is to focus on children and their families. This involves education, close parental supervision and sophisticated use of filters, which have become much more effective in recent years.