Pennsylvania and Pornography

Abstract

Pennsylvania recently attempted to hold ISPs criminally liable for their customers ability to access child pornography. The Pennsylvania Attorney General's Office would create a list of websites that they believe to contain child pornography. They would then notify a handful of ISPs and demand that they block their users from being able to view the websites. If the ISPs failed to administer some form of block, they would be held liable under a criminal statute and subject to fines as well as jail time. The Pennsylvania statute suffers from a number of serious defects arising from technological limitations as well as Constitutional flaws. The District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania struck the law down as being unconstitutional under a number of possible theories, including: an unlawful restraint of the First Amendment and a violation of Federal powers under the Dormant Commerce Clause.