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In a ruling the American Civil Liberties Union is calling a clear victory for free speech, a federal court on Tuesday once again upheld a ban on a law that would criminalize constitutionally protected speech on the Internet.

The ACLU challenged the Child Online Protection Act (COPA) as unauthorized by the constitution on account of a broad coalition of writers, artists and health educators who exercise the Internet to communicate constitutionally protected speech.

"For years, the form of sovereignty has been trying to thwart freedom of speech on the Internet, and for years the courts have been verdict the attempts unconstitutional," said Chris Hansen, senior staff attorney with the ACLU First Amendment Working form into groups. "The government has no more right to censor the Internet than it does books and magazines."

The History of COPA

Previously, a federal district court and a federal appeals court found that the online censorship law violates the First and Fifth Amendments of the Constitution. The Supreme Court upheld that decision, effectively banning enforcement of the law in June 2004, sending the case back to the district court to determine whether there had been any changes in technology that would affect the constitutionality of the statute.

Specifically, the court looked for technological changes, so as whether commercially available blocking software was still as effective as the banned law might be in blocking material deemed "harmful to minors." In March 2007, a district judge once again struck down COPA; the government again appealed, and on Tuesday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit upheld the ban.

The ACLU's clients in the case include Salon Media Group, which runs the online magazine Salon.com; the Sexual Health Network, which operates sexualhealth.com; and Aaron Peckham, who owns UrbanDictionary.com. COPA would have imposed harsh criminal sanctions, including penalties of up to $50,000 per day and up to six months in prison, for momentous acknowledged as protected for adults but deemed "harmful to minors."

"Our clients provide valuable and necessary health and news information. Preventing adults from accessing this information under the guise of protecting children is not permissible," said Aden Fine, senior staff attorney with the ACLU First Amendment Working group. "There are more effective, less intrusive tools available to limit what minors can access on the Internet."

COPA Ruling Is Democratic

In upholding the ban on COPA, the court again affirmed that COPA is unconstitutional because it is not tailored to advance the government's interest in protecting children; there are less restrictive, equally effective alternatives to COPA; and COPA is unconstitutionally overbroad and vague.

"Throughout the history of legal challenges to COPA, we have argued that the most effective way to protect children online, and the means least restrictive of spontaneous expression, is to give families the resources to control what their children see and terminate online," said John Morris, general forethought for the Center in quest of Democracy & Technology. "This empowers parents, respects the First Amendment and acknowledges the diverse sensibilities of American families."

The Association of Sites Advocating Child Protection is also pleased with the ruling. The ASACP created the RTA (Restricted to Adults) label nearly two years past to better enable parental filtering and to demonstrate the online adult industry's commitment to helping parents prevent children from viewing age-inappropriate content, according to Joan Irvine, CEO of the ASACP.

"We feel filtering gives the parents the tool to be skilful to allow their children to see what the parents deem appropriate, and we believe that the adult entertainment industry has stepped up," Irvine said. "It's the industry's responsibility to label its content, and then it's the responsibility of parents to use filtering technology to cover their children."