Washington - The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday declined to hear an appeal of a ruling that struck down as unconstitutional the Child Online Protection Act (COPA), which was designed to protect children from sexual and other harmful content on the Internet. Originally passed back in 1998, COPA has never been enforced, as opponents sued to block it soon after it passed.

The law would have required U.S. websites to prevent children from accessing material that ran against "contemporary community standards," or else face hefty fines and jail time.

In 2007, a federal court declared the law unconstitutional; a federal appeals court upheld that ruling last year, stating that COPA was too broad of a statute.

The Bush administration then urged the Supreme Court to review the matter, but the justices declined without comment.

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