MattBrady
11-14-2002, 10:30 AM
Press Release
<blockquote>The CBLDF has joined five other artists and First Amendment groups in challenging the State of South Carolina’s “harmful to minors” Internet statute. The law “imposes severe content-based restrictions on the availability, display, and dissemination of constitutionally protected speech on the Internet by making it a crime to ‘sell, furnish, present, distribute, or allow review or perusal’ of a variety of materials in the form of ‘digital electronic files’ that are ‘harmful to minors.’ Under the Act, “harmful to minors means that quality of any material or performance that depicts sexually explicit nudity or sexual activity.”
The Fund joins the Southeast Booksellers Association; Print Studio South, Inc.; American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression; Association of American Publishers; and Families Against Internet Censorship in the complaint against Charlie Condon in his official capacity as Attorney General of South Carolina and other officials in their capacities as South Carolina Circuit Solicitors.
The Act criminalizes any work communicated on the Internet that is accessible in South Carolina and contains a depiction of nudity or sexual conduct deemed “harmful to minors.” The law may have a chilling effect on protected speech including legitimate artistic, scientific, and educational material disseminated online, because it effectively prohibits distribution to adults of material deemed unsuitable for the youngest Internet users.
The Act also violates the Commerce Clause of the United States Constitution because it regulates commerce occurring wholly outside of the State of South Carolina, imposes an impermissible burden on interstate and foreign commerce, subjects interstate use of the Internet to inconsistent state regulations, and imposes burdens on interstate commerce that far exceed any intra-state benefits in the nature of protection of minors against exposure to harmful materials.
An Internet user cannot realistically know whether a user in South Carolina might download content posted on the Internet, nor can he prevent posted material from being accessed on the Internet by minors in South Carolina. Consequently, Internet users outside of South Carolina must comply with the state’s law or risk criminal prosecution.
The CBLDF and its co-plaintiffs seek to have the Act declared unconstitutional and void and to have the State permanently enjoined from enforcing the act, by reason of the First and Fourteenth Amendments to, and the Commerce Clause of, the U.S. Constitution.</blockquote>
The full text of the complaint can be found <a href="http://www.cbldf.org/pr/archives/000061.shtml" target="_blank"> here</a>.
<blockquote>The CBLDF has joined five other artists and First Amendment groups in challenging the State of South Carolina’s “harmful to minors” Internet statute. The law “imposes severe content-based restrictions on the availability, display, and dissemination of constitutionally protected speech on the Internet by making it a crime to ‘sell, furnish, present, distribute, or allow review or perusal’ of a variety of materials in the form of ‘digital electronic files’ that are ‘harmful to minors.’ Under the Act, “harmful to minors means that quality of any material or performance that depicts sexually explicit nudity or sexual activity.”
The Fund joins the Southeast Booksellers Association; Print Studio South, Inc.; American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression; Association of American Publishers; and Families Against Internet Censorship in the complaint against Charlie Condon in his official capacity as Attorney General of South Carolina and other officials in their capacities as South Carolina Circuit Solicitors.
The Act criminalizes any work communicated on the Internet that is accessible in South Carolina and contains a depiction of nudity or sexual conduct deemed “harmful to minors.” The law may have a chilling effect on protected speech including legitimate artistic, scientific, and educational material disseminated online, because it effectively prohibits distribution to adults of material deemed unsuitable for the youngest Internet users.
The Act also violates the Commerce Clause of the United States Constitution because it regulates commerce occurring wholly outside of the State of South Carolina, imposes an impermissible burden on interstate and foreign commerce, subjects interstate use of the Internet to inconsistent state regulations, and imposes burdens on interstate commerce that far exceed any intra-state benefits in the nature of protection of minors against exposure to harmful materials.
An Internet user cannot realistically know whether a user in South Carolina might download content posted on the Internet, nor can he prevent posted material from being accessed on the Internet by minors in South Carolina. Consequently, Internet users outside of South Carolina must comply with the state’s law or risk criminal prosecution.
The CBLDF and its co-plaintiffs seek to have the Act declared unconstitutional and void and to have the State permanently enjoined from enforcing the act, by reason of the First and Fourteenth Amendments to, and the Commerce Clause of, the U.S. Constitution.</blockquote>
The full text of the complaint can be found <a href="http://www.cbldf.org/pr/archives/000061.shtml" target="_blank"> here</a>.