This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2005, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
America Online and NetZero aren't leading the fight against Utah's new Internet porn law.
Instead, a group of bespectacled independent bookstore owners, a soft-spoken artist and two small Internet service providers are suing to overturn a statute meant to limit children's access to legal adult content on the Web.
Along with them, the American Civil Liberties Union of Utah, the Association of American Publishers, the American Booksellers Association, the Sexual Health Network and the Utah Progressive Network filed a lawsuit Thursday in U.S. District Court challenging the 2005 legislation as unconstitutional.
Utah's new law requires the Attorney General's Office to compile a list of Internet sites that include content that is "harmful to minors." Internet service providers are then required to block access to those sites. Utah companies that operate Web sites that could be considered harmful are required to rate their own sites and regulate children's access. Those who break the law could be charged with crimes ranging from a misdemeanor to a third-degree felony.
The lawsuit claims the statute violates both the First Amendment and the U.S. Constitution's Interstate Commerce Clause. The law "infringes the liberties of the residents of the State of Utah, imposing the restrictive hand of the state to supplant the power and responsibility of parents to control that which may be viewed by their children," the lawsuit states. "It also infringes the liberties of millions of persons outside Utah who are affected by these restrictions."
The plaintiffs say the law - which goes into effect in stages - is so broad it quells their right to free speech.
Betsy Burton, owner of King's English bookstore in Salt Lake City, worries about posting pictures of Margaret Atwood's new novel, Oryx and Crake, which features two nude female torsos joined as one on the cover. Is Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita harmful to children? What about D.H. Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover?
Burton is afraid her bookstore's Web site could run afoul of Attorney General Mark Shurtleff and the attorneys whose full-time jobs will include mining the Internet for prohibited Web sites. If the King's English site is blocked, Burton said, she has no way to appeal the decision.
"We sell books covering a variety of topics, some of which [have] sexual content," she said. "These and other books we carry, when recommended online, could be described in ways that depict nudity and/or sexual conduct. There is no practical way we can know when a minor is on our Web site or what he or she is looking at."
Calls requesting comment from the bill's sponsor, Highland Republican Rep. John Dougall, were not returned. Shurtleff spokesman Paul Murphy said state attorneys are still reviewing the lawsuit. Dougall's bill set aside $250,000 to pay for an education program and to hire two attorneys to mine the Web. Murphy says those attorneys have not yet been hired and may not be until after the lawsuit is resolved.
"Everybody's trying to consider what would be the most appropriate way to go forward," Murphy said.
Meantime, artist Nathan Lawrence worries his nude paintings could eventually land his Web site on the state's list. And Sam Weller's Zion Bookstore owner Tony Weller wonders if the anti-Mormon, political and erotic literature available on his shelves will lead Internet service providers to block access to the store's Web site.
"There are a lot of books that are 'harmful to minors.' And they're not all about sex," Weller said.
ACLU of Utah attorney Margaret Plane says Utah business owners are legitimately concerned about being charged as criminals for violating the law.
For larger Internet service providers, the law is equally cumbersome and costly, according to John Morris, attorney for the Center for Democracy and Technology, a provider advocacy group.
Because Web sites are bunched on servers, Internet service providers would have to block all the sites on an individual server in order to stop access to one porn site - potentially eliminating access to thousands of innocent Web sites. Trying to target individual Web sites is "prohibitively expensive" and actually slows the Internet down, Morris said.
Utah Progressive Network and Salt Lake City attorney Andrew McCullough, who ran against Shurtleff last year, are plaintiffs in the lawsuit because their Web sites are parked on a server along with adult sites and likely could be blocked by ISPs trying to comply with Utah's law.
Morris said Utah lawmakers should have left the decision up to parents to buy filtering software on their own.
"There are alternatives to the Utah law that don't impinge on free speech," Morris said.
Other states have adopted similar laws - Pennsylvania, Vermont, South Carolina and New Mexico among them - that ultimately were overturned by the courts. Attorney Michael Bamberger, who represents the Media Coalition and successfully sued New Mexico, hopes the judge in this case, U.S. District Judge Ted Stewart, carefully reviews the 1999 ruling from the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver to avoid a lengthy and expensive court battle for state taxpayers. Utah, he says, has not come up with a "better mousetrap."
"There is nothing in the Utah law that makes it any different," Bamberger said.
Utah's new porn law:
Requires the Utah Attorney General's Office to compile an Adult Content Registry of thousands of legal adult Web sites that could be "harmful" to minors.
At a customer's request, Internet service providers would have to block those sites or provide blocking software to users.
Utah-based Web content companies that build adult sites would have to label them "harmful to minors."
Those who don't comply could be charged criminally.
Challenge:
A lawsuit filed Thursday charges that the law violates the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment and Commerce Clause. The law "infringes the liberties of the residents of the State of Utah, imposing the restrictive hand of the state to supplant the power and responsibility of parents to control that which may be viewed by their children," the lawsuit states. "It also infringes the liberties of millions of persons outside Utah who are affected by these restrictions."