Janet Reno, Attorney General of the United States, et al. v. American Civil Liberties Union et al. (521 U.S. 844)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided June 26, 1997 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 521 U.S. 844 · 117 S. Ct. 2329
- Decided
- June 26, 1997
- Term
- October Term 1996
- Vote
- 9–0
- Majority author
- Justice Stevens
- Issue area
- First Amendment
- Disposition
- Affirmed
- Outcome
- Petitioning party lost
- Ideological direction
- Liberal
- Constitutional ruling
- Federal law held unconstitutional
Opinion excerpt
Justice Stevens delivered the opinion of the Court. At issue is the constitutionality of two statutory provisions enacted to protect minors from “indecent” and “patently offensive” communications on the Internet. Notwithstanding the legitimacy and importance of the congressional goal of protecting children from harmful materials, we agree with the three-judge District Court that the statute abridges “the freedom of speech” protected by the First Amendment. b — Regardless of whether the CDA is so vague that it violates the Fifth Amendment, the many ambiguities concerning the scope of its coverage render it problematic for purposes of the First Amendment. For instance, each of the two parts of the CDA uses a different linguistic form. The first uses the word “indecent,” 47 U. S. C. § 223(a) (1994 ed., Supp. II), while the second speaks of material that “in context, depicts or describes, in terms patently offensive as measured by contemporary community standards, sexual or excretory activities or organs,” § 223(d). Given the absence of a definition of either term, this difference in language will provoke uncertainty among speakers about how the two standards relate to each other and just what they mean. Could a speaker confidently assume that a serious discussion about birth control practices, homosexuality, the First Amendment issues raised by the Appendix to our Pacifica…
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