High Court Strikes Down Federal Dial-a-Porn Ban : Freedom of Speech Cited in 9-0 Vote

The Supreme Court today struck down part of a federal law banning all sexually explicit telephone message services on the ground that the dial-a-porn measure went too far in restricting free-speech rights.

The year-old law designed to shield minors from pornography banned any “obscene or indecent communication for commercial purposes” over interstate telephone lines at any time of the day.

The high court voted 9 to 0 in ruling that indecent, sexually explicit messages enjoyed constitutional free-speech protections and could not be banned, but at the same time ruled by a 6-3 vote that obscene calls could be prohibited.

Can Remain in Business

Since the law had called for a total ban, the ruling means the dial-a-porn industry--which started in 1983 and generates an estimated $2 billion a year--can remain in business.

In fact, the 1988 law’s total ban was never imposed because U.S. District Judge A. Wallace Tashima in Los Angeles ruled it could be applied only to obscene--not merely indecent--phone messages.

Sable Communications, a California-based dial-a-porn company, had challenged the law.

The Supreme Court in its opinion, and Congress when it passed the law, did not define what constituted indecent or obscene telephone messages.

Callers of the dial-a-porn numbers hear a short taped, or sometimes a live, sexually explicit message at a cost of several dollars a call.

The decision represented the second controversial high court ruling this week that pitted an emotionally charged social issue against the freedom of speech protections under the First Amendment.

Flag Ruling

The Supreme Court on Wednesday overturned the conviction of a political protester for burning the American flag during the 1984 Republican convention, saying such activity was protected by the Constitution. The decision sparked a storm of protest in Congress and criticism from President Bush.

The pornography law, which had been strongly supported by the Reagan and Bush Administrations, provides for up to two years in prison and $500,000 in fines for obscene messages and six months in prison and $50,000 in fines for indecent messages.

“The ban on indecent telephone messages violates the First Amendment since the law’s denial of adult access to such messages far exceeds that which is necessary to serve the compelling interest of preventing minors from being exposed to the messages,” Justice Byron R. White wrote for the court.

‘Fail-Safe Method’

“It may well be that there is no fail-safe method of guaranteeing that never will a minor be able to access the dial-a-porn system,” he said in the 15-page opinion.

“For all we know from the record, the (government’s) technological approach to restricting dial-a-porn messages to adults who seek them would be extremely effective, and only a few of the most enterprising and disobedient young people will manage to secure access to such messages,” he said.