Online Child Protection Act Not Revived By Court

On Wednesday, the government lost its final attempt to revive a federal law intended to protect children from sexual material and other objectionable content on the Internet.

The Supreme Court ruled that they will not consider reviving the Child Online Protection Act. This law has been conflicted in court challenges since it passed in 1998 and never took effect, while lower federal courts struck down this act as unconstitutional. 

This law would have kept Web sites from making harmful content available to minors over the Internet. 

In Philadelphia, a federal appeals court ruled that it would violate the First Amendment, because parental control tools and other filtering technologies are a less restrictive way to protect children from inappropriate content online.

The Child Online Protection Act was passed the year after the Supreme Court ruled that the Communications Decency Act that was intended to protect children from explicit material online was considered unconstitutional.

The Bush Administration pressed the justices to take the case.  There was no comment on their decision to reject the government’s appeal.

There were five justices who ruled against the Internet blocking law in 2004, and they still remain on the court.