] PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - A Pennsylvania law allowing the
] state to force Internet service providers to block access
] to child pornography sites is unconstitutional, a federal
] judge ruled on Friday.
]
] Judge Jan Dubois, of the U.S. court for the Eastern
] District of Pennsylvania, found that the law was
] unconstitutional because technology used to block the
] sites would also prevent users from accessing sites that
] had nothing to do with child pornography.
]
] "With the current state of technology, the act cannot be
] implemented without excessive blocking of innocent speech
] in violation of the First Amendment," the judge wrote.
. . .
] Federal courts including the U.S. Supreme Court have
] several times rejected efforts to curb online
] pornography, as violations of constitutional free-speech
] protections.

I am encouraged to see that as the lawsuits involving the internet are moving through the U.S. legal system, that we're seeing more and more courts and judges who "get it" when it comes to the internet. Not so many years ago, much of mainstream society was completely baffled by cyber-culture. But they're catching up and better understanding how things work.

Not that I'm glad that ISPs are allowed to link to child porn -- I just think that the better solution is that once such porn sites have been identified, that legal action should be taken directly against those sites, and not at the ISPs that provide access!

U.S. Judge Rejects Law to Block Child Porn on the Web