Ascroft V. ACLU

Writing the majority opinion in this case was Justice Clarence Thomas. He defended Congress’s attempt to tone down the Communications Decency Act, which was declared unconstitutional in Reno v. American Civil Liberties

While Justices Kennedy and Stevens did not believe Hamling and Sable could be applied to the Internet, the majority opinion maintained that a separate approach should not be made concerning the constitutionality of COPA. Furthermore, Justice Thomas contends that “the publisher’s burden does not change simply because it decides to distribute its material to every community in the Nation.”

Justice Stevens also responds to the concurring opinion of Justice Breyer, who he says, “seeks to avoid the problem by effectively reading the phrase ‘contemporary national standards’ into the statue.” Stevens points out that Breyer is “contradicted by the clear text of the statute, which directs jurors to consider ‘community’ standards.” As determined in Miller, it is futile to expect jurors to act on national rather than community standards. This is due to the fact that “[a] juror is entitled to draw on his own knowledge of the view of the average person in the community or vicinage from which he comes for making the required determination” (Hamling).

The court looked at the dissenting opinion of Justice Brennen in the case Hamling v. United States where the court considered the constitutionality of a federal law prohibiting the mailing of obscene material. Brennen argued that it was unconstitutional for community standards to regulate free speech and that the result of this “would be debilitating self-censorship that abridges the First Amendment rights of the people.” The court, however, discarded this argument and turned to Sable Communications of Cal., Inc. v. FCC. Sable questioned the constitutionality of a statute that prohibited obscene phone messages. These standards thereby forced “message senders…to tailor all their messages to the least tolerant community.” In this decision, the court (while drawing on Hamling) found that “there is no constitutional barrier under Miller to prohibiting communications that are obscene in some communities under local standards even though they are not obscene in others.” Thomas emphasizes the next point when he italicizes; “If Sable’s audience is comprised of different communities with different local standards, Sable ultimately bears the burden of complying with the prohibition on obscene messages.”

Since Congress has limited the material that will fall under the scope of COPA to that which is regarded obscenity under Miller, Thomas believes it does not pose a constitutional problem. “We do not express any view as to whether COPA suffers from substantial overbreadth for other reasons, whether the statute is unconstitutionally vague, or whether the District Court correctly concluded that the statute likely will not survive strict scrutiny analysis once adjudication of the case is completed below,” concluded Justice Thomas. For these reasons, the court vacated the Court of Appeal’s judgement and upheld the constitutionality of COPA.

Considering regulation of Internet content as a whole, I feel that it is the parent’s duty and obligation to censor the Web for their children. Whether it be through software that restricts potentially offensive sites or actual monitoring of their children while “surfing the web,” parents are ultimately responsible for what their children access. Community standards notwithstanding, relying on laws to r

Some topics in this essay:
Court Appeals, Miller California, Justice Stevens, Jenkins Georgia, Representatives Report, FCC Sable, Justice Thomas, Stevens Breyer, Supreme Court, Hamling Sable, community standards, justice thomas, opinion justice, national standard, court appeals, concurring opinion, hamling sable, restrict access, justice stevens, contemporary community, civil liberties union, appeals third circuit, american civil liberties, world wide web, material world wide,