Editing Communications Decency Act (section)

==Anti-indecency and anti-obscenity provisions==
The act's most controversial portions were those relating to indecency on the Internet. The relevant sections were introduced in response to fears that Internet pornography was on the rise. Indecency in TV and radio broadcasting had already been regulated by the [[Federal Communications Commission]]: broadcasting of offensive speech was restricted to hours of the day when minors were supposedly least likely to be exposed, and violators could be fined and lose their licenses. But the Internet had only recently been opened to commercial interests by the 1992 amendment to the [[National Science Foundation|National Science Foundation Act]] and thus had not been taken into consideration by previous laws. The CDA, which affected both the Internet and [[cable television]], marked the first attempt to expand regulation to these [[new media]].

Passed by Congress on February 1, 1996,<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=104&session=2&vote=00008|title=U.S. Senate: U.S. Senate Roll Call Votes 104th Congress - 2nd Session|website=www.senate.gov|access-date=2018-03-25|archive-date=2018-07-24|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180724093145/https://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=104&session=2&vote=00008|url-status=live}}</ref> and signed by President [[Bill Clinton]] on February 8, 1996,<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.congress.gov/bill/104th-congress/senate-bill/652/actions|title=Actions - S.652 - 104th Congress (1995-1996): Telecommunications Act of 1996|last=Larry|first=Pressler|date=1996-02-08|website=www.congress.gov|language=en|access-date=2018-03-25|archive-date=2018-05-15|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180515184232/https://www.congress.gov/bill/104th-congress/senate-bill/652/actions|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite magazine|title=Communications Decency Act Ruled Unconstitutional|magazine=[[GamePro]]|issue=96 |publisher=[[International Data Group|IDG]] |date=September 1996|page=21}}</ref> the CDA imposed criminal sanctions on anyone who

{{quote|knowingly (A) uses an interactive computer service to send to a specific person or persons under 18 years of age, or (B) uses any interactive computer service to display in a manner available to a person under 18 years of age, any comment, request, suggestion, proposal, image, or other communication that, in context, depicts or describes, in terms patently offensive as measured by contemporary community standards, sexual or excretory activities or organs.}}

It further criminalized the transmission of "obscene or indecent" materials to persons known to be under 18.

===Legal challenges===
On June 12, 1996, a panel of [[United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania|federal judges]] in [[Philadelphia, Pennsylvania|Philadelphia]] blocked part of the CDA, saying it would infringe upon adults' free speech rights. The next month, another federal court in [[New York City|New York]] struck down the portion of the CDA intended to protect children from indecent speech as too broad. On June 26, 1997, the [[Supreme Court of the United States|Supreme Court]] upheld the Philadelphia court's decision in ''[[Reno v. American Civil Liberties Union]],'' stating that the indecency provisions were an unconstitutional abridgement of the First Amendment because they did not permit parents to decide for themselves what material was acceptable for their children, extended to non-commercial speech, and did not carefully define the words "indecent" and "offensive". (The Court affirmed the New York case, [[Joe Shea|''Reno v. Shea'']], the next day, without a published opinion.)

In 2003, Congress amended the CDA to remove the indecency provisions struck down in ''Reno v. ACLU''. A separate challenge to the provisions governing obscenity, known as [[Barbara Nitke#Nitke v. Gonzales|''Nitke v. Gonzales'']], was rejected by a federal court in New York in 2005. The Supreme Court summarily affirmed that decision in 2006.

Congress has made two narrower attempts to regulate children's exposure to Internet indecency since the Supreme Court overturned the CDA. Court injunction blocked enforcement of the first, the [[Child Online Protection Act]] (COPA), almost immediately after its passage in 1998; the law was later overturned. While legal challenges also dogged COPA's successor, the [[Children's Internet Protection Act]] (CIPA) of 2000, the Supreme Court upheld it as constitutional in 2004.