Facts
- Congress enacted the Child Online Protection Act (COPA), 47 U.S.C. § 231, imposing criminal penalties for knowingly posting, for commercial purposes, web content deemed “harmful to minors.”
- COPA provided an affirmative defense for restricting access through credit cards or other feasible technological measures.
- Civil liberties groups and online speakers challenged COPA, alleging it burdened protected speech and restricted adult access to lawful material.
- After an evidentiary hearing, a federal district court granted a preliminary injunction barring COPA’s enforcement, finding plaintiffs likely to succeed because less speech-restrictive alternatives (notably user-end filtering) were available.
- After earlier Supreme Court review rejecting a facial challenge based solely on “community standards” and remanding, the court of appeals again affirmed the preliminary injunction on the ground that COPA was unlikely to satisfy strict scrutiny.
- The Supreme Court granted certiorari to review whether the preliminary injunction was properly entered and affirmed on the record developed to that stage.
Issues
- Whether the district court abused its discretion in preliminarily enjoining enforcement of COPA under the First Amendment.
- Whether, under strict scrutiny, the government showed that COPA was narrowly tailored and that no less restrictive, equally effective alternative (such as user-end filtering) could serve the interest in protecting minors.
Decision
- The Supreme Court affirmed the judgment upholding the preliminary injunction and remanded for further proceedings.
- The Court applied abuse-of-discretion review to the preliminary injunction and declined to displace the district court’s assessment of the evidentiary record at the interim stage.
- Although protecting minors from harmful sexual material was treated as a compelling interest, the government had not shown on this record that COPA was more effective than less restrictive alternatives.
- The Court held that maintaining the injunction was proper because plausible less restrictive alternatives existed, and enforcing COPA risked deterring protected speech and burdening adults’ access.
Legal Principles
- Content-based restrictions on speech are subject to strict scrutiny; the government must show narrow tailoring and least restrictive means.
- In a First Amendment challenge to a content-based speech restriction, the government bears the burden to show that proposed alternatives would be less effective than the challenged statute.
- Appellate review of a preliminary injunction is for abuse of discretion; when the constitutional question is close and speech is threatened, interim relief may be warranted pending a full trial.
- Measures that control minors’ access at the receiving end (such as filtering chosen by parents) may be less restrictive than criminal sanctions imposed on speakers and therefore relevant alternatives under strict scrutiny.
Conclusion
The Court left COPA preliminarily enjoined because, on the existing record, the government had not carried its strict-scrutiny burden to show that COPA’s speaker-based criminal scheme was the least restrictive way to protect minors, given plausible and potentially effective user-end filtering alternatives.