The full text of the Supreme Court's decision holding the CDA is unconstitutional.

Information about the CDA Trial held during the spring, 1996 in Philadelpha.

• ACLU Freedom Page (full text of decision)
• ACLU Freedom Page (press release)
• Electronic Privacy Information Center (full text of decision)
• Electronic Privacy Information Center (highlights and analysis)
• Electronic Frontier Foundation (full text of decision)
• Electronic Frontier Foundation (decision statement)
• Citizens Internet Empowerment Coalition Court Challenge to the CDA (full text of decision)

• Judge Buckwalter's Order enjoining the enforcement of Section 223(a)(1)(B)(ii) of the CDA is here. The order could have favored the ACLU's position more, but we am gratified to see Judge Buckwalter poke several holes in the goverrnment's brief.
• Read the entire text of the Communications Decency Act of 1996. Pretty arcane stuff, huh? Here's an easier way to understand what's at stake. Read an edited excerpt from the American Civil Liberties Union's brief filed in support of its position in ACLU vs. Reno.
• Next, see what the ACLU actually claims in its lawsuit. Read the complaint filed in ACLU v. Reno. One of the more interesting aspects of the complaint is the list of all the parties to this case. The ACLU is only one of many organizations and individuals who are part of the case, and the complaint quickly and pointedly brings home what each of them (and you and I) has at stake in the case. Ira Glasser's Affidavit filed in support of the ACLU's case is here. Mark Rotenberg's Affidavit in support of the Electronic Privacy Information Center's case is also now available.
• Or, perhaps you'd prefer to see the entire brief filed by the ACLU in the case?
• The Department of Justice's response to the ACLU's brief is here. Don't miss the parts that Judge Buckwalter tactfully skewered in his order entering the injunction.
• In the More, the Merrier Department, the Citizens Internet Empowerment Coalition has filed another suit against the Justice Department, and the two cases have been consolidated. The CIEC's argument takes a subtley different tack from the ACLU's. Their lawsuit highlights the important need to closely examine the nature of electronic communications when applying free speech concepts to the Internet.
• And finally, the ACLU's Post-Trial Brief places the entire litigation in context. A brief has also been filed by amicus curiae (known to those of us who don't speak latin as "friends of the court").

• The ACLU Freedom Page.
• Electronic Privacy Information Center Home Page
• Electronic Frontier Foundation. There is a great Archive of information on the trial here, including outstanding reports from each day of hearings, written by one of the plaintiffs, Declan McCullagh. Read his stuff to find out how the government has created (after the passage of the Act, of course) the "-L18" coding standard as a means for content providers to comply with the Act, and why it is more nonsense from the DOJ. This entire case reminds me more and more of H.L. Mencken's famous quotation: "Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard."
• The Center for Democracy and Technology. Get Trial Transcripts here.
• Citizens Internet Empowerment Coalition Court Challenge to the CDA
• SafeSurf Home Page. This page is a fine example of an approach to limiting Internet access for children without imposing government restrictions on material available to adults. Visit it, and support it!
• A graduate student has published her paper on the CDA, and it is a fine resource for those who really want to dig into legal issues raised by the Act. The pages are graphically intensive and take time to load, but they are well worth the wait.
• New Age Comstockery: Exon vs the Internet, is an EXCELLENT essay on the history of attempts to censor "indecency" in the United States.
• In The Constitution in Cyberspace, Harvard Law Professor Laurence Tribe delivers a creditable and compelling analysis of Constitutional values in cyberspace.
• Senator Patrick Leahy's page on Protecting the Internet
• Yahoo's Black Thursday Page has some fine links to the most recent Reuters News Service articles about the Act.
• And Yahoo also has a page of almost fifty links to other Anti-CDA pages.
• We have found several pro-CDA pages, two of which are listed here (and these pages contain links to the others . . . sorry for those of you who support the CDA but these pickings are rather slim). Read them, because it is always important to know the argument of the opposition. First, there is the Why Decency? page. Also, check out the Speak Responsibly page. Although the authors of both pages speak in quasi-legal terminology by attempting to analogize from libel cases and the proverbial concept of shouting fire in a crowded theatre, neither has much of a clue about First Amendment law.

• Pacifica v. FCC. This is the "Seven Dirty Words" case we will surely hear more about in the coming days, when the government responds to the ACLU's lawsuit.
• Cohen v. California. This is the "Fuck the Draft" case mentioned above.

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