Child Online Protection Act Struck Down

A federal judge has struck down the Child Online Protection Act. The judge said that parents can protect their children through software filters and other less restrictive means that do not limit others’ rights to free speech. This is the law that required all commercial distributors of “material harmful to minors” to restrict their sites from access by minors.

Many online distributors of user-generated content, such as bulletin boards, forums, and chat channels, have been scared into restricting access to non-minors. With this law being struck down, the responsibility for monitoring America’s children no longer lies with an international group of site owners, bur rather with their parents, where it rightly belongs.

“Perhaps we do the minors of this country harm if First Amendment protections, which they will with age inherit fully, are chipped away in the name of their protection.”

The US has caught up to the rest of the interwebs.

COPA is dead. Long live Freedom.