Panel rejects Communications Decency Act

E-mail away without concern -- three federal judges ruled last Wednesday that the Communications Decency Act violated the First Amendment. The preliminary victory was celebrated everywhere from University chat rooms to electronic bulletin boards, which sported cyber-fireworks. The panel of judges in Philadelphia struck down the CDA as unconstitutional and overly broad. The panel members issued a 175-page injunction was issued, thereby keeping the Justice Department from enforcing the law. The proposed act was designed, in theory, to protect children from indecent material on the worldwide computer network by banning anything "patently offensive" and imposing fines of up to $250,000 and prison terms of up to two years for those putting sexually explicit material on computer networks. "The Internet is a far more speech-enhancing medium than print, the village green, or the mails," a statement issued by the panel read. "Because it would necessarily affect the Internet itself, the CDA would necessarily reduce the speech available for adults on the medium. This is a constitutionally intolerable result." The University has opposed the law for similar reasons -- the restriction of the free flow of ideas and information on the Internet is "critical to Penn's mission of teaching and research," Provost Stanley Chodorow said yesterday. Last year, a group of University students united to fight limitations of free speech. One of the initial targets of the newly formed First Amendment Task Force was the CDA. The chairperson of FATS, Wharton senior Allison Miller, said the group vocalized against the law because it severely impaired first amendment rights. Members of FATS protested the CDA when Vice-President Al Gore visited the campus. The group also organized a forum on free speech last March. "The CDA affects Penn because, if upheld, the University would be held responsible for the homepages and e-mails of all students," Miller said. "Penn would not be able to continue to support our Internet use." Miller said that the group will continue to follow any appeals to the CDA. The Justice Department has until July 2 to decide whether to appeal to the Supreme Court. The department has given no indication of how it will proceed, but many legal scholars seem united in predicting that the Supreme Court will affirm the ruling if it hears an appeal. "It is contrary to the principle of free inquiry to restrict the use of the electronic media of communication, and that principle is the cornerstone of academic work," Chodorow said. "We will continue to work for a definitive judgement that the law is unconstitutional because it contains freedom of speech, is vague, and is impossible to enforce." Miller believes that there are two possibilities for the future of the Internet -- "everything will just go on as usual" or all use will be shutdown. She said the Internet should not be perceived as a broadcast medium, but rather as an opportunity for one person to communicate with another person. Immediately following the ruling, the decision was widely available on the Internet. "It is great that the CDA was struck down," Miller said. "But it will blow up again."