'The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) Thursday welcomed a decision by a federal judge to overturn a 1998 law that made it a crime for Web sites to offer sexually explicit material that could be accessed by minors.
'"We think the court's decision reiterates that the government should not be in the business of censoring the Internet," said Aden Fine, senior staff attorney at the ACLU. "In the name of protecting children from harmful material, [the law] would have stopped adults from receiving a great deal of speech that is constitutionally protected. The court once again made it clear that Congress cannot do that."
'U.S. District Judge Lowell Reed Jr. of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania yesterday threw out the Child Online Protection Act, (COPA) on the grounds that it was "impermissibly vague and overbroad." In issuing a permanent injunction against the law's enforcement, Reed said that - despite the compelling interest by Congress in protecting children from sexually explicit material on the Web - COPA violates an person's First and Fifth Amendment rights.' (Webwereld article).
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