CDA
/C?D?A/
The ?Communications Decency Act?, passed as section 502 of a major
telecommunications reform bill on February 8th, 1996 (?Black Thursday?).
The CDA made it a federal crime in the USA to send a communication which is
?obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, or indecent, with intent to annoy,
abuse, threaten, or harass another person.? It also threatened with
imprisonment anyone who ?knowingly? makes accessible to minors any message
that ?describes, in terms patently offensive as measured by contemporary
community standards, sexual or excretory activities or organs?.
While the CDA was sold as a measure to protect minors from the putative
evils of pornography, the repressive political aims of the bill were laid
bare by the Hyde amendment, which intended to outlaw discussion of abortion
on the Internet.
To say that this direct attack on First Amendment free-speech rights was
not well received on the Internet would be putting it mildly. A firestorm
of protest followed, including a February 29th 1996 mass demonstration by
thousands of netters who turned their home pages black for 48 hours.
Several civil-rights groups and computing/telecommunications companies
mounted a constitutional challenge. The CDA was demolished by a
strongly-worded decision handed down in 8th-circuit Federal court and
subsequently affirmed by the U.S. Supreme Court on 26 June 1997 (?White
Thursday?). See also Exon.
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