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US Appeals Court Takes Narrow View of Jurisdiction Over Websites - A federal appeals court ruled on December 13, 2002 that a Virginia prison warden could not sue two Connecticut newspapers in Virginia court over articles about the conditions in which Connecticut inmates were being held under a contract with a Virginia prison. The articles were posted on the papers' web sites. The appeals court held that the fact that the newspapers' websites could be accessed anywhere, including Virginia, was not by itself sufficient to subject them to Virginia law. In order to be hauled into court in Virginia, the Connecticut newspapers must have had the "manifest intent of targeting Virginia readers." The US decision contrasted with the recent decision by the High Court of Australia in Gutnick v. Dow Jones, finding that the Australian courts have jurisdiction over an American publisher in large part because the publisher's website was accessible in Australia. December 11, 2002
New Study Shows Internet Filtering Blocks Valuable Sites - But Can Benefit Parents - A new study of the ways in which Internet filters may impact young people's access to online health information found that filtering software intended to protect young people from objectionable content works remarkably well at their lowest settings, blocking 87% of porn sites but only 1.4% of health-related sites. But at higher settings, filters also block many important health sites on a range of important issues, from mental health to sexually transmitted disease. December 11, 2002
Supreme Court Agrees to Hear Challenge to Filter Mandate - The Supreme Court has announced that it will hear the case brought by the American Library Association and Multnomah County Public Libraries challenging the Children's Internet Protection Act. The Court will decide if public libraries that receive federal funding can be required to install filtering software to block Web sites deemed "harmful to minors." A lower court struck down the Act, ruling that it violates the First Amendment because filters would block constitutionally protected speech, including sites on politics, health issues and science. November 14, 2002
Public Interest Groups Call On ISPs to Give Notice to Users of Subpoenas - The Center for Democracy and four other public interest
organizations call on Internet and Online Service Providers to give fair
notice to their customers if the providers receive civil subpoenas
seeking information about the customers. With notice, customers
will have an opportunity to intervene and participate in any court
proceedings about the subpoena. Leading service providers --
including America Online, Earthlink, Microsoft, and Yahoo -- already
give notice of subpoenas. CDT joins the American Civil Liberties
Union, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Electronic Privacy
Information Center, and Public Citizen in calling on all ISPs and
OSPs to provide such notice of subpoenas. July 11, 2002
Internet Legislation Advances in the House - The House Judiciary Committee on June 19 approved HR 4623, a bill by Crime Subcommittee Chmn. Lamar Smith (R-TX) to ban virtual child pornography. The goal of the bill is to reverse an April 16 U.S. Supreme Court decision held unconstitutional the 1996 law that banned computer images of children that appeared real. The committee passed an amendment by Rep. Hart (R-PA) that spelled out the information that ISPs would be required to provide under an administrative subpoena. The Committee also approved on June 18 HR 3215, a bill by Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) aimed at permitting states to regulate online gaming. June 20, 2002.
Three Judge Panel Declares Library Filtering Mandate Unconstitutional - On May 31, In another blow to content regulations on the Internet, a federal district court panel has held the library filtering requirements of the Children's Internet Protection Act, or "CIPA," unconstitutional. In a unanimous decision, the court held CIPA's mandate that libraries filter Internet access as a condition of receiving certain federal funds was "facially invalid under the First Amendment," and ordered the government not to enforce the provisions. CDT opposed passage of CIPA, arguing the law imposed a one-size-fits-all filtering approach blocking access to Constitutionally-protected content. The case, America Library Association v. U.S., will almost certainly now be appealed directly to the Supreme Court. May 31, 2002
CANSPAM Bill Passes Senate Commerce - The "Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing" Act (the "CAN-SPAM" Act or S. 630) sponsored by Senators Conrad Burns (R-MT) and Ron Wyden (D-OR) passed out of the Senate Commerce Committee on May 17. An anti-email harvesting amendment was added to the bill without objection. CDT supports the general approach of the bill, but has some concerns about the constitutional implications and effectiveness of some of its provisions. May 17, 2002
Supreme Court Retains Injunction Against COPA Net Content Restrictions, Remands DecisionThe Supreme Court issued a ruling today in Ashcroft v. ACLU, the constitutional challenge to the Child Online Protection Act (COPA), which restricts certain adult speech on the Internet. Two lower courts had ruled that COPA violated the First Amendment and enjoined its enforcement. The Supreme Court retained that injunction, but held that the "community standards" basis of the appeals court ruling must be revisited. more May 3, 2002
National Research Council Releases Report - In an important endorsement of user empowerment solutions to protect children online, the National Research Council today releases "Youth, Pornography, and the Internet." The conclusions and findings support the view that issues related to protecting children online are complex and require thoughtful response that includes a combination of technologies, public policy and education. The report confirms and echoes the conclusion of the COPA Commission that legislation is not the answer. May 2, 2002
Supreme Court Strikes Down the Child Pornography Prevention Act of 1996 - In a decision broadly supportive of free speech, the Supreme Court struck down the Child Pornography Prevention Act of 1996 (CPPA) The act aimed to prevent the production or distribution of material pandered as child pornography, but which did not involve images made using actual children. The court found that the prohibitions of the CPPA are overbroad and unconstitutional, because it bans materials that are neither obscene under current law, nor produced by exploitation of real children. April 16, 2002
Federal Court Strikes Down Junk Fax Law - In a decision with implications for legislative efforts to limit junk email, a federal court declared unconstitutional the fedral law limiting "junk faxes." Ruling on the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, 47 U.S.C. 227, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri rejected arguments that unsolicited fax advertisements cause recipients to incur substantial printing costs and that fax ads prevent businesses and consumers from receiving other faxes. The Court also found that "there is no rationality behind the government's distinction between unsolicited advertisements and other unsolicited faxes," and therefore the ban on fax advertisements does not "directly advance" its goal of saving costs and freeing fax machines. The Court found that there were other less restrictive methods of dealing with these issues than a complete ban on unsolicited fax advertisements, such as requiring that fax advertisements include a toll-free number recipients can call to have their fax numbers deleted from fax lists. April 16, 2002
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