Injunction Against New Mexico
Cybersmut Ban Upheld
On November 2, a federal appeals court upheld a June 22, 1998, injunction against a New Mexico law that criminalizes the online dissemination to minors of materials that “in whole or in part depicts actual or simulated nudity, sexual conduct, or sadomasochistic abuse, and that is harmful to minors.” The American Civil Liberties Union argued the case on behalf of 20 plaintiffs, including ALA’s Freedom to Read Foundation and the New Mexico Library Association.
In its decision, the three-judge panel affirmed the lower-court’s reasoning that the law chilled adults’ free-speech rights by not being limited to the deliberate transmission of harmful matter to one specific minor. The panel also ruled that the law violated the Commerce Clause by attempting to regulate activity outside New Mexico state lines.
Coincidentally, two days after the ruling the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in Philadelphia was scheduled to hear oral arguments about the constitutionality of the Child Online Protection Act, whose provisions the ACLU likens to the New Mexico statute.
Posted November 8, 1999.
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