Martin Walker in Washington
THE United States Supreme Court has authorised free speech on the Internet, striking down a new law that sought to bar cyberporn to children.
Internet activists hailed the court’s landmark judgment, handed down late last month, as a major victory for free speech which would keep the fast-growing global network of computer communication used by some 50-million people free from government supervision.
Given the dominance of the US market on the Internet, with more connected users than the rest of the world combined, the new US freedom is expected to become a de facto licence for the Internet worldwide.
Like it or not, South Africans are part of that.
“Notwithstanding the legitimacy and importance of the congressional goal of protecting children from harmful materials, we agree [with a lower court ruling] that the statute abridges the freedom of speech protected by the First Amendment of the Constitution,” said the court’s majority ruling.
“The breadth of the restriction is unprecedented and the burden on adult freedom is not acceptable,” the court said.
The supreme court’s decision was a stinging defeat for President Bill Clinton, who had strongly backed the 1996 Communications Decency Act as part of his “protect the family” reforms before his re-election last year.
The Act made distribution to minors of “patently offensive” materials on the Internet a criminal offence, and imposed a maximum fine of $250 000 and up to two years in prison. This law is now void.
“These old guys in the black robes may not surf the Web yet, but they get it – they really get it,” said one Net user.
Dismayed anti-pornography lobby groups said they would now draft a new law that would not offend the First Amendment.
Some major Internet servers already try to operate voluntary controls against indecency, with parental controls to block some sites. And the court ruling does not affect existing laws against child pornography.
Police now monitor the Net as a matter of course for clues to paedophile connections, electronic sexual harrassment and other crimes.
The importance of the court ruling is that the Internet itself is deemed to be an activity of publishing where the US Constitution’s absolute protection of free speech applies.
“Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press,” says the First Amendment, and it now extends to cyberspace.