Supreme Court summarily affirms Shea v. Reno CDA case

[Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com>]

Dealing the final blow to the Communications Decency
Act, the Supreme Court last Friday again ruled the law
was unconstitutional.

In a one-line order, the justices summarily affirmed
the ruling of a New York federal district court that
struck down the law last July. Joe Shea filed the
lawsuit in February 1996 on behalf of his online
publication, the American Reporter.

Since the court did not write an opinion, however, the
Shea v. Reno case does not have the same hefty
precedential value as the ACLU v. Reno lawsuit brought
by the American Civil Liberties Union and American
Library Association plaintiffs.

"Since in practice ACLU v. Reno is the law of the
land, that preempts any binding force that Shea v.
Reno might have," says UCLA law professor Eugene
Volokh. Shea challenged only part of the CDA and
didn't win as broad a victory at the trial court
level as the ACLU and ALA coalitions did.

Still, Shea is celebrating. "What it really means to
me is that other countries aren't going to get the
support they hoped for when they start or continue to
suppress the Internet," he says. "The Net is going to
be an important vehicle for new democracies around the
world. People are going to voice on the Internet what
they can't voice on radio or TV. Governments are going
to find it harder to regulate because the U.S. Supreme
Court stood behind the First Amendment in both of
these cases."

Shea filed the case with the pro bono help of
Arent Fox, Kintner Plotkin & Kahn, a Washington law
firm.

Shea recently signed a partnership with nando.net, which
now will publish the American Reporter online. It'll go
live in July at http://american-reporter.com

-Declan

More info:

 http://www.eff.org/pub/Legal/Cases/Am_Reporter_v_DoJ/

 http://www.newshare.com/Reporter/3097/3097-6.html

 http://www.newshare.com/Reporter/3097/3097-8.html



-------------------------
Declan McCullagh
Time Inc.
The Netly News Network
Washington Correspondent
http://netlynews.com/