The ACLU Vs. Gonzales trial ended on the 20th, according to the ACLU, though a ruling is now expected for several months. The ACLU challenged the Child Online Protection Act, which was signed into law in 1998 by Bill Clinton but never enforced. The act would punish individuals, with fines up to $50,000 per day and six months of jail time, for material that is useful to adults but that could be “harmful to minors.”
As part of its defense, the government conducted a study that estimated about 1.1% of online material cataloged by search engines is sexually explicit. However, about 50% of that material is hosted outside the US and so would not be subject to US laws, whereas America Online’s filter blocked about 98% of the material.
One of the main problems with the law is that it could easily apply to websites that, though not pornographic or encouraging smoking or the like, could be deemed “harmful to minors,” such as online dictionaries that define words not suitable for young children or websites about safe sex practices, rap artists, and writers, among others.
Technorati Tags: Politics, Current Events, Bush, Current Affairs, Civil Liberties, Civil Rights, Electronic Rights, Free Speech, Child Online Protection Act, Internet Speech, Censorship
