Another state’s bars on youth access to ‘harmful’ online material...

juveniles” in a child-predator bill would have criminalized nudity neither sexually explicit nor extremely violent, and not glorifying crude bodily functions. The court also said the bill exceeded its scope of protecting kids online. After the legislature passed a revised bill, allowing an exemption for “broadcast” communications that indiscriminately reach some minors, the state persuaded the 6th Circuit to return the suit to the district court. The plaintiffs, including the Association of American Publishers and the National Association of Recording Merchandisers, sued again. The new opinion by Judge Walter Rice deviates little from his preliminary injunction ruling. He said the state had made the definition of “harmful to juveniles” constitutionally narrow, but the broadcast exemption wouldn’t protect “one- to-one” exchanges between adults in, say, chat rooms. Supreme Court precedent dictates that “every user of the Internet has reason to know that some participants in chat rooms are minors. An adult would have no way of ensuring that her communications in a chat room would be between and among other adults alone,” Rice said. The state has a “compelling government interest” needed to restrict speech aimed at juveniles, but the law criminalizes behavior that falls short of attempting to “induce children into sexual activity,” its stated purpose, he said. Other state laws have survived the “strict scrutiny” test by requiring “double intent” -- display of harmful material followed by attempted seduction, Rice said. But he declined to rule the Ohio law a violation of the federal Commerce Clause, saying several courts found that some state regulation of the Internet is justified. And there’s no evidence of congressional intent to subject the Internet to federal authority only, Rice said.