Around March 22, 2007, Judge Lowell Reid of the
Eastern District of Pennsylvania permanently enjoined the Child Online
Protection Act of 1998, as explained in he First
Amendment Encyclopedia,
link The actual opinion is on a site called CaseText,
here.
The text of the opinion, if read carefully, seems to
imply (around page 50 ff) that 'freedom of reach' created by the Internet is
subsumed by the First Amendment.
Salon has a story on the opinion by
Joan Walsh, who testified at the COPA Trial in Philadelphia in October
2006. I attended one day of the trial in
Philadelphia, on Oct. 30, 2006. I was a subplaintiff under Electronic Frontier Foundation. I had lunch with the lawyers in a Philly
cheesesteak place near the courthouse. I
remember the day well.
Do not confuse this with COPPA, the Children's Online
Privacy Protection Act of 1998, which generated controversy at the end of 2019
with the 'made for kids' issue.
Back in March 1997 I had attended the SCOTUS hearing
on the original Communications Decency Act form the three-minute line.