Highlights from the decisions of AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION, et al., v. JANET RENO, Attorney General of the United States (No. 96-963), and AMERICAN LIBRARY ASSOCIATION, INC., et al., v. UNITED STATES DEP'T OF JUSTICE, et al. (No. 96-1458), by The United States District Court For The Eastern District Of Pennsylvania (with emphasis added by yours truly).

Plaintiffs have established a reasonable probability of eventual success in the litigation by demonstrating that 223(a)(1)(B) and 223(a)(2) of the CDA are unconstitutional on their face to the extent that they reach indecency. Sections 223(d)(1) and 223(d)(2) of the CDA are unconstitutional on their face. Accordingly, plaintiffs have shown irreparable injury, no party has any interest in the enforcement of an unconstitutional law, and therefore the public interest will be served by granting the preliminary injunction. ... The motions for preliminary injunction will therefore be granted.
--from Section III, Conclusions of Law

No long string of citations is necessary to find that the public interest weighs in favor of having access to a free flow of constitutionally protected speech.
--from Section B, Preliminary Injunction Standard, of Chief Justice Dolores K. Sloviter's supporting opinion

The CDA is patently a government-imposed content-based restriction on speech, and the speech at issue, whether denominated "indecent" or "patently offensive," is entitled to constitutional protection.
--from Section C, Applicable Standard of Review, of Sloviter's opinion

. . . we have found that no technology exists which allows those posting on the category of newsgroups, mail exploders or chat rooms to screen for age. Speakers using those forms of communication cannot control who receives the communication, and in most instances are not aware of the identity of the recipients. If it is not feasible for speakers who communicate via these forms of communication to conduct age screening, they would have to reduce the level of communication to that which is appropriate for children in order to be protected under the statute. This would effect a complete ban even for adults of some expression, albeit "indecent," to which they are constitutionally entitled, and thus would be unconstitutional under the holding in Sable, 492 U.S. at 131.
--from Section E, The Reach of the Statute, of Sloviter's opinion

. . . I believe that "indecent" and "patently offensive" are inherently vague, particularly in light of the government's inability to identify the relevant community by whose standards the material will be judged, [and] I am not persuaded by the government that the statutory defenses in 223(e) provide effective protection from the unconstitutional reach of the statute.
Minors would not be left without any protection from exposure to patently unsuitable material on the Internet should the challenged provisions of the CDA be preliminarily enjoined. Vigorous enforcement of current obscenity and child pornography laws should suffice to address the problem the government identified in court and which concerned Congress. When the CDA was under consideration by Congress, the Justice Department itself communicated its view that it was not necessary because it was prosecuting online obscenity, child pornography and child solicitation under existing laws, and would continue to do so.[2] It follows that the CDA is not narrowly tailored, and the government's attempt to defend it on that ground must fail.
--from Section F, Whether The CDA is Narrowly Tailored, of Sloviter's opinion

But the bottom line is that the First Amendment should not be interpreted to require us to entrust the protection it affords to the judgment of prosecutors. Prosecutors come and go. Even federal judges are limited to life tenure. The First Amendment remains to give protection to future generations as well. I have no hesitancy in concluding that it is likely that plaintiffs will prevail on the merits of their argument that the challenged provisions of the CDA are facially invalid under both the First and Fifth Amendments.
--from Section G, Preliminary Injunction, of Sloviter's opinion

Essentially, my concerns are these: above all, I believe that the challenged provisions are so vague as to violate both the First and Fifth Amendments . . . In addition, I believe that technology as it currently exists -- and it bears repeating that we are at the preliminary injunction phase only -- cannot provide a safe harbor for most speakers on the Internet, thus rendering the statute unconstitutional under a strict scrutiny analysis.
--from Section A of Justice Ronald L. Buckwalter's supporting opinion

The fundamental constitutional principle that concerns me is one of simple fairness, and that is absent in the CDA.
--from Section B of Buckwalter's opinion

The chilling effect on the Internet users' exercise of free speech is obvious. . . . This is precisely the vice of vagueness.
--from section B of Buckwalter's opinion

As a general rule, the Constitution forbids the Government from silencing speakers because of their particular message. . . . "Our political system and cultural life rest upon this ideal." . . . This general rule is subject only to "narrow and well-understood exceptions". . . . A law that, as here, regulates speech on the basis of its content, is "presumptively invalid".
--from Section A, Introduction, of Justice Stewart Dalzell's supporting opinion

. . . I conclude that the CDA is unconstitutional and that the First Amendment denies Congress the power to regulate protected speech on the Internet.
--from Section A, Introduction, of Dalzell's opinion

Our Findings of fact -- many of them undisputed -- express our understanding of the Internet. These Findings lead to the conclusion that Congress may not regulate indecency on the Internet at all.
--from Section A, 3., of Dalzell's opinion

It is no exaggeration to conclude that the Internet has achieved, and continues to achieve, the most participatory marketplace of mass speech that this country -- and indeed the world -- has yet seen.
--from Section A, 4., of Dalzell's opinion

The Government . . . implicitly asks this court to limit both the amount of speech on the Internet and the availability of that speech. This argument is profoundly repugnant to First Amendment principles.
My examination of the special characteristics of Internet communication, and review of the Supreme Court's medium- specific First Amendment jurisprudence, lead me to conclude that the Internet deserves the broadest possible protection from government-imposed, content-based regulation.
--from Section A, 4., of Dalzell's opinion

Any content-based regulation of the Internet, no matter how benign the purpose, could burn the global village to roast the pig.
--from Section A, 4., of Dalzell's opinion

I therefore have no doubt that a Newspaper Decency Act, passed because Congress discovered that young girls had read a front page article in the New York Times on female genital mutilation in Africa, would be unconstitutional. . . . Nor would a Novel Decency Act, adopted after legislators had seen too many pot-boilers in convenience store book racks, pass constitutional muster. . . . There is no question that a Village Green Decency Act, the fruit of a Senator's overhearing of a ribald conversation between two adolescent boys on a park bench, would be unconstitutional. . . . A Postal Decency Act, passed because of constituent complaints about unsolicited lingerie catalogues, would also be unconstitutional. . . . In these forms of communication, regulations on the basis of decency simply would not survive First Amendment scrutiny. The Internet is a far more speech-enhancing medium than print, the village green, or the mails. Because it would necessarily affect the Internet itself, the CDA would necessarily reduce the speech available for adults on the medium. This is a constitutionally intolerable result.
--from Section A, 5., of Dalzell's opinion

Cutting through the acronyms and argot that littered the hearing testimony, the Internet may fairly be regarded as a never-ending worldwide conversation. The Government may not, through the CDA, interrupt that conversation. As the most participatory form of mass speech yet developed, the Internet deserves the highest protection from governmental intrusion.
--from Section E., Conclusion, of Dalzell's opinion

Just as the strength of the Internet is chaos, so the strength of our liberty depends upon the chaos and cacophony of the unfettered speech the First Amendment protects. For these reasons, I without hesitation hold that the CDA is unconstitutional on its face.
--from Section E., Conclusion, of Dalzell's opinion

You can also view the entire decision overturning the CDA (Careful! It's 250K!).

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