About | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline
LOG IN
LOG IN

13 Berkeley Tech. L.J. 371 (1998)
Reno v. ACLU

handle is hein.journals/berktech13 and id is 381 raw text is: INDECENCY RENO v. ACLU By David K Djavaherian Increasingly, the American legal system's ability to adapt to techno- logical changes is strained the dynamic nature of technology. When faced with rapid development, lawmakers find themselves struggling to keep up with the pace of innovation. In the ambit of this struggle, Reno v. ACLU,' which marks the United States Supreme Court's first brush with regulation of the Internet, should be considered a legal milestone. In Reno, the Court was called upon to apply the First Amendment to this new medium of communications-to decide how much leeway the government has in regulating on-line content. The case pitted an amalgam of free speech ac- 2 tivists against the Communications Decency Act of 1996 (CDA). Even before the CDA became law, it was widely suspected that it would be struck down on First Amendment grounds if enacted.3 The Court in Reno confirmed these suspicions by holding the CDA unconstitutional.4 In the process, the Court issued an important statement on the Internet as a me- dium of communications: expressive content on the Internet is entitled to the full protection of the First Amendment-the same degree of protection as that afforded to print. But this mandate gives little indication as to how to solve the problem that led to enactment of the CDA: protecting children from on-line smut. Thus, in addition to examining and explaining the Court's First Amendment argument, this comment discusses the various. methods of Internet content regulation that are presently available. I. LEGISLATIVE BACKGROUND Senator James Exon (D-Neb.) introduced the CDA on February 1, 1995.5 Senator Exon drummed up support for the CDA by passing around © 1998 Berkeley Technology Law Journal & Berkeley Center for Law and Technology. 1. - U.S. _, 117 S. Ct. 2329 (1997). 2. 47 U.S.C.A. § 223 (West Supp. 1997). 3. See, e.g., Robert Cannon, The Legislative History of Senator Exon's Communi- cations Decency Act: Regulating Barbarians on the Information Superhighway, 49 FED. COMM. L.J. 51, 67 (1996) (quoting Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, who argued that the CDA is clearly a violation of free speech .... I don't think it is a serious way to dis- cuss a serious issue, which is, how do you maintain the right of free speech for adults while also protecting children in a medium which is available to both?). 4. Reno, 117 S. Ct. at 2351. 5. See Cannon, supra note 3, at 52, 57.

What Is HeinOnline?

HeinOnline is a subscription-based resource containing thousands of academic and legal journals from inception; complete coverage of government documents such as U.S. Statutes at Large, U.S. Code, Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, U.S. Reports, and much more. Documents are image-based, fully searchable PDFs with the authority of print combined with the accessibility of a user-friendly and powerful database. For more information, request a quote or trial for your organization below.



Short-term subscription options include 24 hours, 48 hours, or 1 week to HeinOnline.

Purchase Access

Contact us for annual subscription options:

Contact Us

Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?

Log In

profiles profiles most