A new law that restricts Web smut violates the First Amendment, a federal judge ruled Monday in a widely watched lawsuit.
Calling a lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union a "rare case," US District Judge Lowell A. Reed Jr. said he would like to see future attempts by Congress to regulate the Net succeed -- but the law went too far.
"Perhaps we do the minors of this country harm if First Amendment protections, which they will with age inherit fully, are chipped away in the name of their protection," Reed wrote in a preliminary injunction ruling.
Reed barred the government from prosecuting anyone under the Child Online Protection Act, which restricts "harmful to minors" material on commercial Web sites, unless the government appeals.
In January, Reed heard arguments by the ACLU and the US Department of Justice in a lawsuit challenging the law, which Congress approved last year as part of a mammoth spending measure.
