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Contact: Judith Platt (202) 220-4551
Amy Gwiazdowski (202) 220-4550
For Immediate Release
February 11, 2003, Washington, DC: A broad coalition of
organizations representing publishers, booksellers, journalists,
and authors, led by the Association of American Publishers (AAP),
filed a friend-of-the-court brief late yesterday asking the
Supreme Court to affirm the ruling of a lower court and strike
down the Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA) as a violation
of rights guaranteed by the First Amendment. The brief was filed
in support of a challenge to CIPA brought by the American Library
Association and the American Civil Liberties Union.
The case is now before the Supreme Court following a ruling last
summer by a panel of three federal judges that the Act, which
orders public libraries to install blocking and filtering software
on all computers as a condition for receiving so called “e-rate”
discounts for Internet access and other federal funding, is
unconstitutional on its face because it restricts library patrons’
access to substantial amounts of First Amendment-protected
information on the Internet.
The brief argues that “The unavoidable suppression by filtering
software of valuable, constitutionally protected expression, such
as that created by many of amici’s members, covering a vast range
of essential subjects, from sexuality to politics, demonstrates
that CIPA is not a narrowly tailored means of advancing Congress
goal of ensuring that library computers are not used to access
unprotected sexual material.” Congress cannot seek to achieve this
goal, the brief states, by “using means that subvert the very
purpose of offering Internet access to library patrons…”
Among the groups joining AAP on the brief are the American
Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression, PEN American Center,
the American Society of Journalists and Authors, the American
Society of Newspaper Editors, the Authors Guild, the National
Writer’s Union, the Magazine Publishers Association, and the
Center for Democracy and Technology.
The Association of American Publishers is the national trade
association of the U.S. book publishing industry. AAP’s members
include most of the major commercial book publishers in the United
States, as well as smaller and non-profit publishers, university
presses, and scholarly societies. AAP members publish hardcover
and paperback books in every field, educational materials for the
elementary, secondary, postsecondary, and professional markets,
computer software, and electronic products and services. The
Association represents and industry whose very existence depends
upon the free exercise of rights guaranteed by the First
Amendment.
The complete text of the friend-of-the-court brief can be found on
AAP’s web site at
http://www.publishers.org. |
The Free Expression Network is an alliance of organizations united in the
belief that free expression and free access to the expression of others is
an indispensable precondition
of liberty.
The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect the views
of all FEN members.
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