Center for Democracy and Technology v. Pappert
United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania
337 F. Supp. 2d 606 (2004)
- Written by Wesley Bernhardt , JD
Facts
In 2002, Pennsylvania enacted the Internet Child Pornography Act, which required internet-service providers to block users from accessing child pornography using the providers’ services. Internet-service providers had three ways to potentially block such content. First, they could engage in domain-name-system (DNS) filtering, meaning if a user attempted to go to a particular website, the computer would look up the website through a domain name registry to route the internet traffic to the correct internet-protocol (IP) address for that website. With DNS filtering, an internet service provider could block traffic associated with a particular domain name, though this blocked all web content under that domain name, not just single web pages. Second, they could engage in IP filtering, whereby the specific IP address of the web page would be blocked, though this also did not specifically block single web pages. Third, they could engage in URL filtering, whereby specific web URLs were blocked, though this was not technologically feasible at the time for the majority of internet-service providers. The Center for Democracy and Technology (the center) (plaintiff) filed suit against the attorney general, Pappert (defendant) seeking a preliminary injunction, arguing that the act burdened the center’s First Amendment rights.
Rule of Law
Issue
Holding and Reasoning (Dubois, J.)
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