The 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia have sided with the civil liberties union and agreed with a lower court ruling by stating that the Child Online Protection Act of 1998, is unconstitutional and also violates First Amendment rights.

The ruling now sets up another showdown in the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court have already overturned the Communications Decency Act, as unconstitutional in the landmark Reno v. American Civil Liberties Union.

While the intent to restrict adult material for minors is well intentioned the motives behind it are not. The real reason that the social conservatives want to enact this law, which has yet to be put into effect, is to try and ban pornography from the internet completely and force all websites to provide family friendly, smut-free content.

Fortunately the courts agreed that the technologies available to parents and guardians for filtering and restricting adult content already exist, thus making the proposed restrictions redundant. The reality is that there is no practical way of locking out children from adult only websites at the source, this has to be enacted by the parent or guardians on the home computer.

The court also ruled that the law is unconstitutionally overly broad and vague.

No doubt the anti-porn lobby will keep fighting on with their relentless campaign, but at this point it seems like a bit of a lost cause.