Reuters: Court Bars Internet Pornography Law Enforcement

The U.S. Supreme Court again barred the 1998 Child Online Protection Act from being enforced, deeming it a violation of speech rights in its current form and sending it back again to a lower court for additional consideration. "Content-based prohibitions, enforced by severe criminal penalties, have the constant potential to be a repressive force in the lives and thoughts of a free people," wrote Justice Anthony Kennedy for the bare majority. The law would have required sites to put up credit card and other types of barriers to ensure that viewers were of a proper age to view certain forms of content. The big problem for many non-adult industry sites was a fear that many forms of content may have been deemed inappropriate, including health information and even racy advertisements for everyday products and brands.