5. RENO VS.

ACLU or conclusively demonstrate that the transmission of "offensive" material is devoid of any social
521 U.S. 844/JUNE 26, 1997/INTERNET/FEVIDAL value.

PETITIONERS Janet Reno, Attorney General
RESPONDENTS American Civil Liberties Union
SUMMARY. The Communications Decency Act of 1996 (CDA) contained provisions which
criminalized the transmission of any obscene or indecent messages to those under 18. The
American Civil Liberties Union argued that certain parts of the act were facially
unconstitutional and thus they sued the government to prevent them from enforcing those
provisions. The government cited cases involving tv and radio broadcasts to prove that it was
legal to censor materials that are deemed indecent or obscene. The court ruled in favor of
ACLU. They held that the terms used, indecent and obscene, are too vague and would end up
violating the constitutional protection of free speech. They also ruled that the factors justifying
the regulation of speech on tv and radio broadcasting do not apply to the internet.
DOCTRINE. The Internet is entitled to the full protection given to media like the print press;
the special factors justifying government regulation of broadcast media do not apply.
As regards the cases cited by the government, the Supreme Court ruled that the FCC's sanctions
in those cases were not criminal punishments; and TV and radio broadcasts, "as a matter of
history, had 'received the most limited First Amendment protection' ... in large part because
warnings could not adequately protect the listener from unexpected program content", as
opposed to Internet users, who must take "a series of affirmative steps" to access explicit material.
NOTE: Simplified, the court says that in tv and radio broadcasts, the viewer cannot anticipate
any unexpected materials that are aired, while on the internet the sites users visit as well as the
content therein are selected specifically by said users.
The Court also added that since the First Amendment distinguishes between "indecent" and
"obscene" sexual expressions, protecting only the former, the Act could be saved from facial
overbreadth challenges if it dropped the words "or indecent" from its text.
INTERNET VS. PREVIOUS TYPES OF COMMUNICATION (J. STEVENS)

FACTS. We are persuaded that the CDA lacks the precision that the First Amendment requires when a
 Two provisions of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 (CDA) seek to protect minors statute regulates the content of speech. In order to deny minors access to potentially harmful
from harmful material on the Internet (The internet was new at the time) speech, the CDA effectively suppresses a large amount of speech that adults have a constitutional
right to receive and to address to one another. That burden on adult speech is unacceptable if
less restrictive alternatives would be at least as effective in achieving the legitimate purpose that
 The CDA made it illegal to knowingly send obscene or indecent messages, or anything that
the statute was enacted to serve. It is true that we have repeatedly recognized the governmental
depicts sexual or excretory activities or organs in an offensive way as determined by
interest in protecting children from harmful materials. But that interest does not justify an
contemporary community standards, to someone under 18.
unnecessarily broad suppression of speech addressed to adults. As we have explained, the
Government may not "reduce the adult population to only what is fit for children."
 ACLU argued that the censorship provisions were unconstitutional because they would
criminalize expression protected by the First Amendment and because the terms "indecency" DECISION.
and "patently offensive" are unconstitutionally excessive and vague.
ACLU won.
 Reno’s main argument was that the Court previously had upheld similarly written provisions.
o Ginsberg v. New York (1968) held that material that is potentially harmful for
children can be regulated, even if it is not obscene.
o FCC v. Pacifica Foundation (1978) allowed the FCC to impose administrative
sanctions on broadcast media that aired content containing expletives when
children could hear it.
o Renton v. Playtime Theatres, Inc. (1986), the Court ruled that municipalities could
use zoning ordinances to keep adult movie theaters out of residential areas.

ISSUES & RATIO.

1. WON the provisions of the 1996 CDA violate the First Amendment by being overly broad
and vague in their definitions of the types of internet communications which they
criminalized – YES.

The Court ruled that the CDA placed an "unacceptably heavy burden on protected speech"
that "threatened to torch a large segment of the Internet community." The court also wrote
that "the interest in encouraging freedom of expression in a democratic society outweighs
any theoretical but unproven benefit of censorship."

The Act violated the First Amendment because its regulations amounted to a content-based
blanket restriction of free speech. The Act failed to clearly define "indecent" communications, limit
its restrictions to particular times or individuals (by showing that it would not impact adults),
provide supportive statements from an authority on the unique nature of internet communications,