19971776 Club
Supreme Court strikes down the Communications Decency Act; vague terms doomed the law
In Reno v. ACLU, all nine justices agree: Congress may not impose criminal penalties on undefined "indecent" online speech under the First Amendment.
By 1996, Congress had decided that the Internet looked enough like television to be regulated like it. The Communications Decency Act, signed by President Clinton in February of that year, imposed criminal penalties on anyone who knowingly transmitted "indecent" or "offensive" material to minors online — terms the law never bothered to define. On June 26, 1997, the Supreme Court unanimously disagreed: Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing for the Court in Reno v. ACLU, held that the law's vague, sweeping content restrictions violated the First Amendment. One narrow provision survived — a liability shield for internet service operators — and became Section 230, the quiet foundation on which the modern internet was built…
