July 30, 2003

New Developments in Arkansas and South Carolina Cases

Last Friday the US District Judge in Charleston, SC issued an opinion denying the state's motion to dismiss, abstain or certify questions to the state Supreme Court pertaining to the challenge to South Carolina’s Harmful to Minors internet law. Last year the CBLDF joined the Southeast Booksellers Association, Print Studio South, Inc, the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression, the Association of American Publishers, and Families Against Internet Censorship in a complaint protesting the State’s “harmful to minors” Internet statute. The law as written criminalizes any work communicated on the Internet that contains a depiction of nudity or any sexual conduct that is deemed “harmful to minors.” The law may have a chilling effect on protected speech including legitimate artistic, scientific, and educational material disseminated online because it prohibits distribution to adults of material deemed unsuitable to the web’s youngest users. The law also subjects interstate use of the web to South Carolina’s regulations. The next step is to prepare and file a motion for summary judgment.

Last Friday counsel for CBLDF and co-plaintiffs in Arkansas also filed a motion for summary judgment against a new amendment to Act 858, which would require any content deemed "harmful to minors" to be both segregated and blinded. Fund members in Arkansas are reporting that the law is receiving a great deal of media scrutiny, which supports the position of the Fund and co-plaintiffs. The motion for summary judgment is the next step towards getting the law thrown out.