content in the cyberspace medium.The ACLU argued in the lower court that the censorship provisions are unconstitutional because they would criminalize expression that is protected by the First Amendment and because the terms indecency and patently offensive are unconstitutionally overbroad and vague. ACLU plaintiffs Particia Nell Warren of Wild Cat Press and Kiyoshi Kuromiya of the Critical Path AIDS Project told judges they fear censorship under the new law. Ann Duvall, president of Surf Watch, took judges on a first-ever live tour of the Internet, including a demonstration of how her companys software blocks access to sites deemed unsuitable for children. Dr. Donna Hoffman, an expert witness on marketing in cyberspace, tells the court that the censorship law would destroy the democratic nature of cyberspace, causing many mom & pop websites to close up shop for fear of civil and criminal penalties under the vague indecency ban. Government witness Howard Schmidt conceded under cross-examination that it is highly unlikely for anyone to come across sexually explicit information on the Internet by accident. Plaintiff witness Dr. Albert Vezza told the court about PICS (Platform for Internet Content Selection), a new rating system designed to allow parents to control childrens access to the Internet without censorship. Dan Olsen, another government witness, acknowledged that PICS would allow parents to control their childrens Internet access according to their own values. These judges decided in favor of free speech in cyberspace and the end of the CDA law. The lower court agreed with the ACLUs view that the CDAs ill-conceived effort to censor speech in the unique medium of cyberspace violates the First Amendment.When the government decided to appeal the preliminary injunction ruling to the Supreme Court, it offered this court its first opportunity to consider how traditional free speech principles should be applied to the Internet....
