US court strikes down anti-porn law

AustralianIT reports that the ruling sided with a challenge brought by the American Civil Liberties Union, which had argued that the provisions of the Child Online Protection Act were too restrictive. Judge Lowell Reed of the US District Court in Philadelphia wrote in his ruling that while he sympathised with the goal of restricting minors from seeing pornography, other means that were less restrictive of free speech, such as commercial software filters, were available to block pornographic content. InfoWorld.com says that the US Department of Justice failed to show that the Child Online Protection Act (COPA) is the \'least restrictive, most effective alternative\' available to protect children from sexual content online. COPA would require Web sites publishing adult material to restrict access to minors by taking steps such as requiring credit card information for access to that material. Penalties for not restricting access include fines of up to $50 000 per day and up to six months in prison. Full AustralianIT report Full InfoWorld.com report