If you don't think history repeats itself, go visit Philadelphia. There, the same group of organizations have mustered the same arguments in the same federal courthouse to challenge a new anti-porn law they consider to have the same unconstitutional qualities as one that was overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court last year. \n The target of the lawsuit is the Child Online Protection Act (COPA), aka CDAII, which was part of a $500 billion spending bill passed on the final day of the Congressional session. The measure, which was signed by President Clinton, requires commercial Web sites with material harmful to children to take steps to make sure kids don't see the material. This would be done by some form of age verification, such as a credit card. \n Web site operators who fail to take these measures would be subject to fines and imprisonment. \n Two years ago, Congress passed the Communications Decency Act, which banned from the Internet all indecent material that could be accessed by minors. Challenged in court, most of the law was declared an unconstitutional abridgment of First Amendment rights to free speech. \n "Like the last statute, this law attempts to apply a highly subjective standard to speech on a national basis," said David Sobel, a lawyer for the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington, one of the groups challenging the law. \n Sobel acknowledged that the Supreme Court has approved a "harmful-to-minors" standard as long as it does not prohibit material that has redeeming social, political or artistic value. But this standard has been contained only in local laws with local impact, he said. The new Internet law would allow prosecutors to apply local standards to the global reach of the Internet. \n Joining the suit on behalf of journalists, artists, musicians, booksellers, gay groups and others are the American Civil Liberties Union, the Center for Democracy and Technology and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which is based in San Francisco. \n "These bills get passed in the guise of protecting children. In fact, they censor adults," said an ACLU lawyer. "And it's not even effective because no overseas- based site has to comply with it at all." \n Mike Oxley, the Ohio Republican who spearheaded the law in the House, and Dan Coats, the Indiana Republican who did the same in the Senate, expressed confidence that the new law won't be overturned. They said they worded it in a way that was compatible with the Supreme Court's decision last year. \n In addition to exchanging the indecency standard for the harmful-to-minor approach, the new law applies only to commercial sites. Also, unlike the old law, COPA makes an exception for material that has social, political or artistic value.
All models were at least 18 years old at the time of their performance. 18 U.S.C. 2257 Record-Keeping Requirements Compliance Statement.
