The U.S. Supreme Court, on Wednesday, put an end to the legal battle over the Child Online Protection Act (COPA) that was going on for more than 10 years. Utterly unconvinced by the argument that the federal antiporn law was constitutional, the Supreme Court, yesterday, rejected the case, Mukasey v. American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), without comment.   

Supreme Court pronounced that COPA, targeting sexually explicit Web sites, will not be enforced, and adjudicated that “it won't consider reviving a federal law intended to protect children from explicit material on the Internet”.

Passed in 1998, the Child Online Protection Act could never come into effect, as lower federal courts declared it “unconstitutional”. COPA, enacted to fight the anti-Internet porn scares, stated that any commercial Web site operator posting "material that is harmful to minors" on website, could face 6 months imprisonment and a fine of up to $50,000.

The American Civil Liberties Union filed a suit against the law in Philadelphia, arguing that it would "criminalize constitutionally protected speech on the Internet”. Steven R. Shapiro, the ACLU's legal director, asserted, “The law would reduce adults to hearing and seeing only speech that the government considers suitable for children.”

In July 2008, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit upheld decision on the case, but yesterday, Supreme Court rejected all the arguments in the defense of COPA.

In a statement on Wednesday, ACLU staff attorney Chris Hansen said, "It is not the role of the government to decide what people can see and do on the Internet. Those are personal decisions that should be made by individuals and their families."