Ashcroft v. ACLU
A civil liberties organization brought an action against Attorney General Ashcroft alleging that the Child Online Protection Act (COPA) violated free speech guarantees. The district court issued a preliminary injunction to prevent COPA's enforcement, and the Third Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed. The Supreme Court vacated and remanded to the Court of Appeals, holding 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." On remand, the Court of Appeals upheld the injunction again, holding that: (1) the plaintiffs had established substantial likelihood of prevailing on claim that COPA was not narrowly tailored to achieve the Government's compelling interest and therefore failed the strict scrutiny test under the First Amendment, and (2) the plaintiffs had established a substantial likelihood of prevailing on their claim that COPA was unconstitutionally overbroad.
Question Presented:
Whether the court of appeals properly barred enforcement of the Child Online Protection Act on First Amendment grounds because it relies on community standards to identify material that is harmful
to minors.
