In its first opportunity to say how the First Amendment will be applied to the Internet, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to regulate the new medium as though it were part of the broadcast media. Though the Court stopped short of explicitly saying cyberspace warranted the same full First Amendment protection afforded the print medium, it said it could find no basis in previous decisions for qualifying the level of First Amendment protection for the Internet.
The case before the Justices, Reno v. ACLU, involved The Communications Decency Act (CDA), which would make it a federal crime to transmit sexually explicit material over computer networks to minors. Two lower federal courts had declared the law unconstitutionally overbroad because it would serve as a ban on constitutionally protected indecent speech between adults.
In a 7-2 vote on June 26, 1997, the Supreme Court struck down the CDA. Writing for the majority, Justice John Paul Stevens said the CDA cast a dark shadow over free speech and threatened "to torch a large segment of the Internet community."
Though the Court soundly rejected the CDA, this is not likely to be the last time Justices are asked to decide if an Internet-related statute abridges the First Amendment. In her dissent, for example, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor raised the possibility of some day zoning parts of the Internet for "adults only." And Congressional supporters of the CDA say they will continue writing legislation to protect children from potentially harmful material in cyberspace.
Therefore, an examination of the CDA, the reasoning of the two lower federal courts, the oral arguments made before the Supreme Court, and the Court's ruling provide a useful insight into the legal and technical issues that arise when debating the free speech and free press rights to be afforded Internet users.