Talk:American Civil Liberties Union v. Ashcroft (2002)

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[edit] Discrepancy regarding Justice Stevens

This page says that John Paul Stevens dissented against the majority opinion striking the law down, but his biography page (which links to this case) uses ACLU v. Ashcroft as an example of how he is a libertarian on First Amendment issues.Porce 09:44, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

The majority opinion didn't strike the law down. On the contrary, Thomas wrote: "This case presents the narrow question whether the Child Online Protection Act's (COPA or Act) use of 'community standards' to identify 'material that is harmful to minors' violates the First Amendment. We hold that this aspect of COPA does not render the statute facially unconstitutional (emphasis added). And says the syllabus, "The Court, however, expresses no view as to whether COPA suffers from substantial overbreadth for reasons other than its use of community standards, whether the statute is unconstitutionally vague, or whether the statute survives strict scrutiny." Stevens was actually the only justice in this case who wanted to affirm the Third Circuit's affirmance of the district court's preliminary injunction of COPA on the Third Circuit's ground that "COPA's reliance on community standards to identify 'material that is harmful to minors' does not by itself render the statute substantially overbroad for purposes of the First Amendment" (maj. op.).

This article, then, is highly misleading if not in fact wrong. --zenohockey 02:51, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Okay, I've made a start at fixing it. It needs expansion though. Perhaps your confusion, Porce, stems from the fact that in 2004, Ashcroft v. ACLU (whose WP article currently just redirects to COPA) did strike the law down, pending trial. --zenohockey 03:08, 5 December 2006 (UTC)