High Court Troubled By Cyberporn Agree Children Need Protection, But Internet Hard To Control

In the Supreme Court’s first venture into cyberspace, the justices seemed receptive Wednesday to the idea that the government should help shield children from sexually indecent materials on the Internet. But they nonetheless were skeptical about whether a broad new federal law aimed at limiting computer pornography unfairly censors users of the network that connects millions of people worldwide.

During a vigorous 70-minute session with two premier legal advocates, the justices expressed uncertainty about how to deal with the emerging technology and concern about how much control Congress should have as it attempts to regulate a growing sphere of public conversation.

The case, one of the most closely watched disputes this term, immerses the high court in a complex and unexplored area of free speech with potential implications for lawmakers and parents, librarians and educators, and a multitude of online businesses. While a capacity crowd filled the stately courtroom Wednesday, free speech activists and anti-pornography advocates gathered in the rain and snow outside.

At issue is a law passed last year that makes it illegal to transmit sexually explicit material to anyone under age 18. The law excludes from prosecution those who make a “reasonable, effective and appropriate” attempt to keep indecent material out of the hands of minors.

While some justices suggested Wednesday that Congress was stifling constitutionally protected conversations between adults, it seems unlikely the high court will rule with the unanimity of the special three-judge panel that resoundingly struck down the law last summer. Although the high court could ultimately find that the Communications Decency Act violates the First Amendment, the justices Wednesday seemed sharply divided in both inclination and legal approach. A decision in Reno vs. American Civil Liberties Union may occur by July.

Some justices were clearly troubled by how freely minors can get access through their computers to pornography, which they cannot get in bookstores or adult theaters. But they also questioned the practicality of enforcing the law: How, for example, could someone sending sexually explicit material be expected to screen out children yet still communicate with adults?

Justice Sandra Day O’Connor described the Internet as “a public place … much like a street corner or a park.” But reflecting some of her ambivalence as well as that of others on the bench, she later suggested that Congress may have authority to restrict a narrow category of “patently offensive” materials.

Arguing in defense of the federal law, Deputy Solicitor General Seth P. Waxman said that an unregulated Internet “threatens to give every child with access to a computer a free pass to the equivalent of every adult bookstore and theater in the country.”

He also asserted that “it is technically feasible to screen for age.”