---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Tue, 20 Aug 1996 20:12:42 -0700 (PDT) From: Declan McCullagh <declan@eff.org> To: fight-censorship@vorlon.mit.edu Subject: Justice Department stalls for time in CDA lawsuit, from HotWired [Read the complete column at the URL below... -Declan] http://www.hotwired.com/netizen/ HotWired, The Netizen 21 August 1996 DOJ Dodge by Declan McCullagh (declan@well.com) Washington, DC, 20 August The US Department of Justice is stalling for time. The Supreme Court yesterday granted the government an extra month to submit the next phase of its Communications Decency Act appeal, allowing the DOJ a few more weeks to coordinate the original ACLU lawsuit with a lesser-known suit filed by Joe Shea, editor of the American Reporter. [...] But in truth, the DOJ shouldn't need any more time to file this paperwork. The "jurisdictional statement" the department's been working on for seven weeks - and now has until 29 September to submit - must argue only that there's a substantial constitutional issue at stake in the CDA lawsuit, something transcendently obvious to anyone who hasn't been napping through the 14 months since Time magazine's cyberporn cover hit the newsstands. [...] While this is likely just normal legal skirmishing in a battle where the DOJ attorneys have few useful weapons and already have suffered one crushing defeat, the government's five-page application for an extension of time hints at why a delay would be to their advantage. [...] In other words, the CDA might be unconstitutional now, but _constitutional_ some months from now - depending on how labelling and blocking technologies such as PICS and SurfWatch evolve. Keeping kids out might have been a royal pain when the judges heard the case in March 1996, but by March 1997 it might amount to no more than the minor irritation of a constitutional hangnail. David Sobel, a lawyer for the Electronic Privacy Information Center and co-counsel on this case, said: "They could make the argument in the Supreme Court that the court in Philadelphia hasn't really completed its work on the case, and all that is entered is a preliminary injunction. They could argue that this case should go back to Philadelphia for further proceedings, since they're now prepared to answer the court's questions about what kind of technology may be coming down the pike." Whatever the reason for the DOJ's delay - summer bureaucratic slothfulness or malicious conniving - one thing is certain: we have the rest of the year to enjoy the government's lawyer tricks. ###