P R E S S R E L E A S E FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: CONTACT: Thursday, June 26, 1997 David L. Sobel (sobel@epic.org) 10:45 a.m., ET 202-544-9240 EPIC HAILS SUPREME COURT INTERNET "INDECENCY" DECISION: OPINION "PRESERVES BOTH FREE SPEECH AND PERSONAL PRIVACY" WASHINGTON, DC -- The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) today hailed the Supreme Court's Internet speech decision as "the first landmark decision of the 21st Century." In its first opinion involving cyberspace, the Court, by a 7-2 vote, struck down the online censorship provisions of the Communications Decency Act (CDA) (Chief Justice Rehnquist and Justice O'Connor concurred in part and dissented in part). EPIC participated in the litigation as both plaintiff and co-counsel. "Today's opinion defines the First Amendment for the next century," according to EPIC Legal Counsel David Sobel, who served as co-counsel in Reno v. ACLU. "The Court has written on a clean slate and established the fundamental principles that will govern free speech issues for the electronic age." Sobel said that today's landmark decision "preserves both free speech and personal privacy in this rapidly growing medium." Throughout the litigation of the case, EPIC has stressed that the CDA not only infringed on Americans' free speech rights, but also posed a grave threat to personal privacy. By requiring "speakers" on the Internet to verify the age and identity of all potential recipients of "indecent" material, the law would have destroyed the anonymity that is a hallmark of online communications. EPIC noted that a good deal of sensitive information -- dealing with AIDS prevention, teenage pregnancy, and other critical social issues -- would not be sought out if recipients were required to identify themselves. EPIC joined with the American Civil Liberties Union and 18 other plaintiffs in challenging the law on February 8, 1996, the day it was signed by President Clinton. A three-judge federal court panel in Philadelphia unanimously ruled on June 11, 1996, that the Internet "indecency" provisions violated the First Amendment's free speech protections. That decision was today affirmed by the United States Supreme Court. A copy of the Court's decision is available at: http://www2.epic.org/cda/cda_decision.html EPIC is a non-profit research organization established in 1994 to examine civil liberties and privacy issues arising in new electronic media. - 30 -