American Association of Law Libraries
For Immediate Release
March 7, 1996
Contact: Roger H. Parent, Executive Director, 312/939-4764
Headline: AALL Supports Challenge to the Communications Decency Act
The Executive Board of the American Association of Law Libraries (AALL) voted
at its meeting on March 2, 1996, to support litigation challenging the
recently enacted Communications Decency Act.
The Communications Decency Act is part of an overhaul of the nation's
Telecommunications Reform Act signed by President Clinton on February 8,
1996, as Public Law 104-104. The Act makes it a crime to display or initiate
the transmission of "indecent" or "obscene" materials on the Internet in such
public areas as the World Wide Web and the Usenet newsgroups. It distinctly
goes beyond obscenity to ban an even-broader category of materials that may
be merely indecent. Some organizations,
including AALL, are concerned that the law is so broad that it could easily
be used to restrict the distribution of library materials, medical
information, motion picture images, song lyrics, works of art and literature
and other categories that might be deemed offensive.
A coalition of organizations led by the American Library Association is
challenging the constitutionality of the Act in a case filed in the Eastern
District of Pennsylvania on February 26, 1996. Other parties named in the
case include the Association of American Publishers, the American Booksellers
Association, Apple Computer Company, America Online, Microsoft.
The American Association of Law Libraries will support the plaintiffs in this
case by becoming a member of the Citizens Internet Empowerment Coalition
(CIEC), which is, itself, a named party in the case. The CIEC is an umbrella
organization that includes such groups as the Association of Research
Libraries, the Special Libraries Association, the Recording Industry
Association, and several others.
CIEC is challenging the Communications Decency Act to establish in
constitutional jurisprudence that the Internet is a unique communications
medium, deserving unique First Amendment protection. The goal of this
litigation is to overturn the indecency ban. CIEC will also mount vagueness
and overbreadth challenges.
The American Association of Law Libraries was founded in 1906 to promote and
enhance the value of law libraries to the legal and public communities, to
foster the profession of law librarianship, and to provide leadership in the
field of legal information and information policy. Today, with almost 5,000
members, the Association represents law librarians and related professionals
who are affiliated with a wide range of institutions: law firms; law schools;
corporate legal departments; courts; and local, state
and federal government agencies.
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