My take on it is that overseas citizens have no Constitutional rights. However ISPs in the U.S. have rights that U.S. laws recognize and protect. If a U.S. law prevented an ISP from contracting to put a web site online, it would be like a law that prevented a U.S. book company from publishing a book penned by a German. Or the Netly News from publishing an article written by our London correspondent. Such a law would be facially unconstitutional. Perhaps the analogy between an ISP and publisher is inexact, but that's the type of analysis I'd pursue. -Declan At 23:33 +0100 11/18/97, Peter Herngaard wrote:
Does the First Amendment prevent the Congress from passing a law that would make it illegal for anyone who is outside the United States to set up a web site in the U. S. in violation of a local speechcode? For example, a German nazi organization could establish a WWW site in California out of reach of German law. Would it be constitutional to make a law barring foreign citizens from violating the speech codes of their home countries using a U. S. ISP?