Judge Puts Porn Access Burden On Parents

Tosses 1998 Federal Law That Put Onus On Web Site Operators To Keep Kids Away

(CBS/AP)  A federal judge on Thursday dealt another blow to government efforts to control Internet pornography, striking down a 1998 U.S. law that makes it a crime for commercial Web site operators to let children access "harmful" material.

In the ruling, the judge said parents can protect their children through software filters and other less restrictive means that do not limit the rights of others to free speech.

Senior U.S. District Judge Lowell Reed Jr. said the law is too broad, snagging and violating First and Fifth Amendment rights, "notwithstanding the compelling interest of Congress in protecting children from sexually explicit material," reports CBS News correspondent Barry Bagnato.

"Perhaps we do the minors of this country harm if First Amendment protections, which they will with age inherit fully, are chipped away in the name of their protection," Reed, who presided over a four-week trial last fall.

The judge said he yearns for a solution to this problem, but added, "I may not turn a blind eye to the law."

"I think the judge gets it that the law would have had a chilling effect on free speech of adults while not really protecting children," says CBSNews.com technology analyst Larry Magid. "This law could have shut down sites that are not only legal, but potentially beneficial, such as sites that promote sexual health."

The law would have criminalized Web sites that allow children to access material deemed "harmful to minors" by "contemporary community standards." The sites would have been expected to require a credit card number or other proof of age. Penalties included a $50,000 fine and up to six months in prison.

"This ruling is just the latest in a long string of judicial defeats for this law and hopefully the decision helps convince Congress and the Justice Department that it needs a fresh, new, legal and practical approach to blocking children from online pornography," says CBSNews.com legal analyst Andrew Cohen. "This ill-fated legislation just doesn't allow technology and the law to synch up and that's why it keeps losing in court."

Sexual health sites, the online magazine Salon.com and other Web sites backed by the American Civil Liberties Union challenged the law. They argued that the Child Online Protection Act was unconstitutionally vague and would have had a chilling effect on speech.

"The best way to keep kids safe is for parents to closely monitor their Internet activity and teach them, over time, to use the net responsibly," says Magid, who was an expert witness for the ACLU. "Besides, the biggest threat today isn't so much what kids see online but what they say."