liibulletin-ny

Special project: Internet Law   Censorship and the Internet      • Introduction      • Issues & short answers      • Previous state of the law      • Discussion      • Future of the law      • Authorities Cited

Censorship and the Internet   V. Future of the Law   Legislators and courts face the challenge of fitting First Amendment law standards that evolved in the heyday of neighborhood bookstores and movie theatres to the Internet. As a result of the Internet, however, the world is now much larger. The Internet community crosses state boundaries, and it remains to be seen whether state regulation will frustrate the growth of cyberspace. It is questionable whether any state regulation is allowable, given that states are barred from regulating "those phases of the national commerce which, because of the need of national uniformity, demand that their regulation, if any, be prescribed by a single authority." The Internet not only crosses state borders but national borders. Perhaps, because the Internet is borderless and an individual can send and retrieve information from the World Wide Web from anywhere in the world, it would be more practical for international law to set the definitive boundaries of Internet content restriction. Ironically, the day after the Supreme Court heard arguments on COPA the police in 19 countries took part in a coordinated crackdown aimed at people who distribute child pornography electronically, raiding homes at dawn.

Prepared by Ellen Eagen ('03).