The expansion of Ohio's child-pornography statute to include
the Internet was met with a legal challenge even as the governor signed a
bill extending current law to the Net.
Media Coalition Inc., representing publishers, bookstores, video retailers
and a sexuality Web site for the disabled, on Monday filed a lawsuit in
U.S. District Court at Dayton, Ohio, challenging the constitutionality of
the law.
The lawsuit, which seeks an injunction to block enforcement after it
takes effect Aug. 6, says it violates the First Amendment and the
Commerce Clause of the Constitution.
Gov. Bob Taft signed the bill to "expand the definition of
'material' in (Ohio's) Sex Offense Laws to include any kind of electronic
images and computer equipment, including the Internet," a news release
said.
The extension includes electronic images on the Internet, computer
monitors,
hard drives and any kind of data-storage device in the state's 28-year-old
law
making it a crime to supply inappropriate material to minors.
'This law has nothing to do with child porn, this law has nothing to do
with
child predators, despite what the governor says was the purpose," said
coalition co-counsel Michael Bamberger, an attorney from the New York
law firm of Sonnenschein Nath and Rosenthal. "That's not what
it talks about, and one can easily draft a constitutional law that covers
that."
The Constitution's commerce clause also prohibits laws such as the
new Ohio statute that "conceivably imposes Ohio standards on persons
posting Web pages or sending messages in any other state," he said.
Similar laws in Arizona, Michigan, New Mexico, New York, Vermont
and Virginia have been struck down as unconstitutional, Bamberger said,
but Taft stands behind the legislation.
"The governor feels that it's a good bill and that it will withstand a
court challenge," Taft spokesman Joe Andrews told Newsbytes.
Citing a National Research Council report published last week, Bamberger
said passing laws is not the way to protect children from pornography and
other material on the Internet that parents deem inappropriate.
While the report, ordered by Congress under a 1998 law, acknowledges
a role for legislation and technology in protecting children from harmful
material online, it says that educational efforts to instill good Internet
habits
represent one of the most promising approaches to shielding children from
inappropriate material.
Washtech reporter Brian Krebs contributed to this report.
Reported by Newsbytes.com, http://www.newsbytes.com .
15:19 CST
Reposted 15:34 CST
(20020507/WIRES TOP, ONLINE, BUSINESS, LEGAL/KIDPORN/PHOTO)
