CHAPTER EIGHT: THE FIRST AMENDMENT AND THE INTERNET
Type: E
1. How does communication on the internet differ from print or broadcast media?
2. How has the Internet changed regulation of obscene materials, and how has the Supreme
Court dealt with these changes?
3. How has Williams changed the Court’s original analysis about child pornography set in
Ferber?
4. What did the dissenters argue in Williams do they make a good case that Ferber and Free
Speech Coalition have been overturned?
5. Why did Congress pass the Communications Decency Act in 1996? Why did the ACLU (and
others) oppose the law?
6. Why does the Court seem to view the Internet as closer to print media than to broadcast
media?
7. Did Ashcroft v. ACLU [I] settle the issue of internet pornography regulation? Why or why
not?
8. Why did the Court strike COPA in Ashcroft [II]?
9. How did the Court deal with the issue of filtering software in libraries in American Library
Association?Do you agree with the decision?Why?
10. What did the Court say about regulation of virtual child pornography in Ashcroft v. Free
Speech Coalition?Were you persuaded by Kennedy’s argument?Why or why not?
11. How do U.S. regulations on Internet pornography compare to regulations in other nations?
12. What dangers does electronic expression pose that are not posed by print or broadcast media?
13. Why were Justices Kennedy and Breyer slightly concerned with the Court’s decision in U.S.
v. American Library Association, therefore filing a concurring opinion?
14. Do you agree with Justices Souter and Ginsburg’s dissent in Williams, or does the majority
have the better argument?
15. How do you think the Court will rule in future Internet cases? Will it continue to allow some
regulation or will it allow more freedoms? Justify your answer.
Bloom’s Taxonomy: Analysis; Answer Location: _chapter__
16. In Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition the Court ruled that virtual pornography maybe
prohibited by the government:
17. In Reno, the Court struck the Communications Decency Act because it was:
18. In U.S. v. Williams, the Court ruled the PROTECT Act was:
19. Reno indicates the Court views the Internet as:
20. How did Congress respond to the Court’s decision in Reno?
21. Beginning in 1997 the Court began to face questions about regulating media on the Internet.
How, if in any way, do these cases differ from the print media cases decided in Roth, Miller, and
Ferber? Should these cases be decided differently or is the medium not important and the same
standards apply? Why or why not?
22. Why was the Court unwilling to declare that virtual child pornography could be regulated in
the same way as actual child pornography? How did it alter this decision in U.S. v Williams?
CASE CUT DELETE IF YOU LIKE
Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition (2002)
Relevant Case Facts:
The Child Pornography Prevention Act (CPPA) expanded federal prohibition on child
pornography to include not only pornographic images made using actual children, but also
“visual depiction, including any photograph, film, video, picture, or computer or computer-
generated image or picture” that “is, or appears to be, of a minor engaging in sexually explicit
conduct…” This ban included images called “virtual child pornography” that appear to depict
minors but were produced by means other than using real children.
Legal Question: May the government prohibit the production and distribution of virtual children
engaged in sexual activities?
Reasoning:
Dissenting (Rehnquist and Scalia):
Concurring in judgment and dissenting in part (O’Connor, Rehnquist, and Scalia):
Reno v. ACLU (1997)
Relevant Case Facts:
Two provisions of the Communications Decency Act (CDA) seek to protect minors from
harmful material on the Internet. First, it criminalizes the “knowing” transmission of “obscene or
indecent” messages to any recipient under 18 years of age. Second, the law prohibits the
“knowing,” sending, or displaying to a person under 18 of any message, “that, in context, depicts
or describes, in terms patently offensive as measured by contemporary community standards,
sexual or excretory activities or organs.” Affirmative defenses are provided for those who take
“good faith, . . . effective . . . actions” to restrict access by minors to the prohibited
communications and those who restrict such access by requiring certain designated forms of age
proof, such as a verified credit card or an adult identification number.
Legal Question: Do the provisions of the CDA violate the First Amendment because they are
unconstitutional vague?
Reasoning:
Concurring in judgment and dissenting in part (O’Connor and Rehnquist):
United States vs. Williams (2008)
Relevant Case Facts:
In response to Ashcroft vs. Free Speech Coalition (2002), which held that child pornography
could only be prohibited if it featured actual children, Congress passed the Prosecutorial
Remedies and Other Tools to End the Exploitation of Children Act of 2003 (PROTECT).
Attempting to rectify the flaws in the law stuck down by Free Speech Coalition, Congress
limited the commission of the crime to “pandering” and soliciting child pornography.
In April 2004, Michael Williams used a sexually explicit screen name to log onto the same chat
room as a Secret Service agent. Williams posted a message that read: “Dad of toddler has ‘good’
pics of her an [sic] me for swap of your toddler pics, or live cam” and a hyperlink that led to
pictures of actual children (between ages five and fifteen) engaging in sexual conduct. After
obtaining a search warrant, police seized William’s hard drive, which contained similar images
of real children engaged in sexually explicit conduct. After pleading guilty to pandering and
possessing child pornography, Williams challenged the constitutionality of the pandering
conviction. The district court rejected his challenge but the Eleventh Circuit reversed the
pandering conviction, finding that the statutes was unconstitutionally overbroad and
impermissibly vague under the due process clause.
Legal Question: Is the “pandering” statute of the 2003 PROTECT act unconstitutionally vague
and overbroad under the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment or unconstitutionally
overbroad ?
Reasoning:
Concurring (Stevens):
Dissenting (Souter):