Reno V. Aclu

The parties involved were Janet Reno, attorney general (1993-2001) of the United States, which also makes her the head of the U.S. Department of Justice, she is the first woman in this position#, and the American Civil Liberty Union (ACLU). The ACLU is a nonpartisan organization dedicated to preserve and extend the basic rights of the U.S. constitution.#

b. The problem began when President Clinton signed the Telecommunications Reform Bill into law on February 8,1996. A group of people, led by the ACLU went to court and succeeded in temporarily stopping the implementation of the bill's "decency provisions." After this district court decision, Janet Reno appealed directly to the Supreme Court. The most controversial parts of the Communication Decency Act (CDA) were those that gave criminal penalties to those who knowingly sent any comment, request, suggestion, proposal, image, or other communication deemed "indecent or obscene", to a person under 18. Penalties were also put forth if this information was received by persons under 18. In addition, the "indecent" material included any information that portrayed or described "sexual or excretory activities or organs" in a way deemed "offensive" by community standards. The overall problem was that the Act was unclear and overly broad concerning what internet communications should be criminalized. #

c. The CDA was being challenged because it violated the First Amendment. In trying to keep minors away from inappropriate material the Act reduced "the freedom of speech" by restricting what adults could send over the internet. #

2) Legal Precedent:

a. Sable Communications of California v. FCC (1989) was in response to a ban on indecent and obscene interstate commercial phone messages. Sable Communications was in the dial-a-porn business. The supreme court decision was that the ban on obscene speech was valid since the constitution does not protect that, however the indecent speech was protected. #

Renton v. Playtime Theatres, Inc. (1986) was in response to a zoning rule that said no adult motion picture theatres could be located within 1,000 ft. of "any residential zone, single-or multiple family dwelling, church, park, or school." The court decided that this zoning order did not violate the First or Fourteenth Amendment because it did not ban adult theatres or their content, it just tried to limit the secondary effects these theatres had on the community.#

3) What did the courts decide?

a. The supreme court decided that the CDA violated the First Amendment because it restricted the freedom of speech. The act did not clearly specify what "indecent" communications actually was. People then would not express themselves freely for fear that the information might reach minors. The Court added that the First Amendment protected "indecent" sexual expressions but not "obscene", therefore the Act could be saved if it removed the words "or indecent" from its text. #

b. Justices Stevens, Scalia, Kennedy, Souter, Thomas, Ginsburg and Breyer gave the majority decision. These justices attributed their decision to the fact that the Communications Decency Act restricted the freedom of speech. In the opinion, delivered by Justice Stevens, it defined the internet, and said that some sexually explicit content cannot be prevented from entering a community, and that there was no effective way to verify a person's age through the internet. With this said a person could never guarantee that what they were sending online would not reach a minor.#

c. There was no dissenting opinion, however Justice O'Connor and Chief Justice Rehnquist offered an opinion that was part concurring and part dissenting.

It said that this Act was in a way creating "adult zones" on the internet and that was constitutional based on the decision in Renton v. Playtime theatres Inc. CDA was not trying to ban "indecent" material, just to separate it, so that minors could not access such material. However, the zoning laws could not be applied to the internet because

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