CDA |
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Recent debate about online censorship is centered on the Communications
Decency Act which was passed and signed into law as part of the 1996 Telecommunication
Act.
At least one provision of that act is clearly bad law. It extends - to on-line
communications - provisions of the 1873 Comstock Act which banned abortion
speech. The Comstock Act was subsequently ruled unconstitutional by the
Supreme Court (for distribution of information on lawful abortions). Passing
a law that the Justice Department considers unenforcable is something of
an exercise in futility. Letter
from Janet Reno announcing that the Justice department considers the
abortion provisions to be unconstitutional.
Other parts of the act are less clearly unconstitutional and are currently
being reviewed by a three judge panel in the U.S. District Court for the
Eastern District of Pennsylvania. An excellent analysis of the act appears
in a Center
for Democracy and Technology analysis of the CDA. The text
of the CDA
Whatever the findings of the Court are, the act shows the government's first
steps halting steps towards regualting content online.