Restrictions on Internet Speech
MAP participated as both a party and as co-counsel in Reno v. ACLU, the landmark case that has set the standard for free speech in the information age. The suit was brought by the Citizens Internet Empowerment Coalition, or “CIEC,” a large coalition of content providers, on-line services and civil liberties organizations, and it challenged the “Communications Decency Act,” or “CDA.”
The CDA imposed criminal penalties on anyone who, by means of any “telecommunications device” engaged in speech which is “lewd, lascivious, filthy or indecent with intent to annoy, abuse, threaten or harass another person.” Other provisions imposed similar penalties for transmitting indecent speech or images to anyone under 18 (even if they are not used to annoyed or threaten).
These provisions, which were part of the larger Telecommunications Act of 1996, threatened to kill the potential of the Internet as a free space for robust, if sometimes controversial, debate, instead limiting it to a place where commercialism is rampant and the speech is suitable only for children.
The CIEC’s principal argument was that an outright ban on constitutionally protected speech such as indecency is not the “least restrictive means” for facilitating parents’ choice of what their children see, and therefore violates the First Amendment. The U.S. Supreme Court agreed and struck down the CDA’s restrictions. In so doing, it reviewed a lower court’s detailed findings about how the Internet works, what it can and cannot do, and the existence of “blocking” software and other technologies to permit parental control over what their children can obtain over advanced networks.
Additional materials about the CDA litigation:
- The Center for Democracy and Technology, organizer of the coalition, maintains a comprehensive collection of materials on the CDA challenge, including court documents and briefs, transcripts, press clips, and a full text of the decision (also available in compressed .zip (PC) format).