ACLJ Calls On Supreme Court To Protect Children In Porn Case
May 21, 2001
(Washington, DC) – The American Center for Law and Justice, an international public interest law firm, said today the decision by the U.S. Supreme Court to hear a case involving the Congressional authority to limit children’s access to online pornography is “an important opportunity to protect children†and the ACLJ announced it will file a friend-of-the-court brief with the Supreme Court representing a coalition of Congressional members in the case.
“This is an important opportunity for the Supreme Court to protect children in the ongoing battle against online porn,†said Jay Sekulow, Chief Counsel of the ACLJ, which is involved in numerous court cases battling pornography. “This measure passed by Congress is a constitutionally sound protection to ensure that pornographers don’t commercially profit from making pornography available to children. The First Amendment protects free speech – but was never intended to permit the sale or distribution of porn to children on the Internet or anywhere else.â€
In today’s decision, the Supreme Court has agreed to hear Ashcroft v. ACLU – a case that involves a 1998 law – the Child Online Protection Act – a law that makes it a crime to knowingly place objectionable material where a child could find it on the Internet. The 1998 law was passed by Congress to constitutionally address the issue of protecting children from commercial online porn sites after the Supreme Court ruled in 1997 that a key provision of the Communications Decency Act – designed to address the online porn issue – was unconstitutional.
Sekulow said the ACLJ will file a friend-of-the-court brief in the case of Ashcroft v. ACLU defending the constitutionality of the 1998 law. Sekulow said the ACLJ would represent a coalition of Congressional members in its brief.
In March, the American Center for Law and Justice announced that it would work to defend the Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA) – a new federal law that requires public libraries to use computer software to block porn – from a legal challenge by the ACLU.
At the same time, the ACLJ has filed a brief with the U.S. Supreme Court representing 18 members of Congress in another porn case before the Court. In Ashcroft v. The Free Speech Coalition, the ACLJ has asked the Court to uphold a law that bans virtual child porn – computer-altered pictures that appear to show minors involved in sexual activity. The Supreme Court announced in January that it would hear that case next term.