Washington - A federal judge has ruled that the ten-year-old Child Online Protection Act (COPA) -- which has never been enforced, but provided criminal and civil penalties for those making sexually explicit content freely available online -- is unconstitutional, and issued a permanent injunction barring its enforcement.

The law was initially challenged soon after being passed into law in 1998.

The Supreme Court eventually heard the challenge in 2002, but sent the case back to a lower court, asking for more study on whether Web filtering technology could be as effective as the law in preventing children from seeing online pornography, without trampling on adults' First Amendment rights to access sexually explicit content.

U.S. District Court Judge Lowell Reed concluded in his ruling that current Web filters are "more effective than ever before," citing data that found them to block around 95% of sexual content.

The lawsuit challenging COPA was filed by the American Civil Liberties Union; other plaintiffs included the Electronic Frontier Foundation and online magazine Salon.

The Justice Dept. has not yet announced whether it will appeal the ruling.

"We're still reviewing the court's opinion and we've made no determination what the government's next step will be," a DOJ representative told CNET News.com.

Related Links:
http://tinyurl.com/2dbrkr (CNET)

http://tinyurl.com/2dgt26 (Ars Technica)