Virginia calls itself the Internet capital of America, but it's being sued for Net censorship in federal court, Wired says.
The suit involves the state's law making it a crime to publish erotic commercial Web sites or send sexually-explicit e-mail. Virginia's Internet industry has joined civil liberties groups and science fiction authors in a federal lawsuit filed Wednesday.
"Virginia has made a lot of effort to be a home for the Internet and for Internet businesses," Larry Ottinger, an attorney for the liberal group People for the American Way, who is co-counsel on the case, tells Wired. "These people don't understand how the Internet works. This will harm the development and growth of Internet commerce."
The suit says the law is unconstitutional, impermissibly vague as criminal law, and violates both the First Amendment and the commerce clause of the Constitution, since it addresses Web sites outside Virginia. The law took effect on July 1, and imposes up to a year in jail and up to a $2,500 fine.
The suit also argues anyone typing in a chat room, sending a message to a mailing list, or creating a Web site is automatically displaying a note where minors can see it - something with which the Supreme Court concurred when declaring a related law unconstitutional in the Communications Decency Act case, Wired says.
Similar measures have been declared unconstitutional in New York, New Mexico, and Michigan.
