U.S. Says New Internet Law Should Be Upheld

The Clinton administration argued in a brief filed in U.S. District Court on Wednesday that a new ban on making indecent material available to minors over computer networks is constitutional and should be upheld.

“The court should not enjoin a provision of law which would obligate those who place indecent pornographic images and textual materials online to take reasonable steps to block access by minors,” the Justice Department said in its response to a suit by free-speech groups to immediately block the provisions from taking effect.

The filing came on the day Vice President Al Gore hailed the information superhighway, and the government’s role in bringing it about, at a Philadelphia celebration commemorating the 50th anniversary of the first computer.

A ruling by U.S. District Judge Ronald Blackwater on the request for a temporary restraining order was not expected until today at the earliest.

The American Civil Liberties Union, one of the groups suing to block the Communications Decency Act, also asked the court in a separate filing to appoint a three-judge panel to hear the case after the ruling on the restraining order.

Under expedited provisions written into the act, a three-judge panel with one U.S. Appeals Court judge can hear the case on an expedited basis, which would enable any subsequent appeal to be made directly to the U.S. Supreme Court.

President Clinton signed the legislation last week as part of a larger telecommunications reform bill.

The ACLU and other groups contend the provisions would unfairly hamper free expression over mushrooming computer networks by penalizing a potentially wide variety of sexual-related information.

But the Justice Department filing said the act was clearly worded to apply only to “patently offensive” material and aimed only to keep it inaccessible to children. It said such provisions are constitutionally valid.

Philadelphia ACLU legal director Stefan Presser said he views it as significant that the Justice Department did not seek in its filing to deny ACLU claims that groups promoting AIDS information or other sexually explicit material in political, scientific or medical discussions could be liable to punishment under the act.

Many computer users have protested the act, blackening their screens on the Internet’s World Wide Web and posting blue ribbons on their Web pages as signs of opposition.