Summary
The Supreme Court’s hearing of Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton signals potential limits on First Amendment protections for online pornography.
The case involves a Texas law mandating age verification for websites with “sexual material harmful to minors,” challenging the 2004 Ashcroft v. ACLU precedent, which struck down similar laws under strict scrutiny.
Justices, citing the inadequacy of modern filtering tools, seemed inclined to weaken free speech protections, exploring standards like intermediate scrutiny.
The ruling could reshape online speech regulations, leaving adults’ access to sexual content uncertain while tightening restrictions for minors.
It does mention “the people” though.
I’ve always have trouble with this one. The second amendment is a big problem in this country, especially combined with our hatful culture. DC v Heller should have gone the other way because it would have saved lives and allowed some progress.
But when I read the amendment, to me it comes across very much like “the people have the right to guns so that the militia can be called to arms” and not just “the militia gets guns.”
The amendment is outdated and the framers could never have anticipated our current state, much less been in favor of it. Maybe they even misspoke and did only mean for the militia members to be able to keep their guns at home. But what they wrote sure reads to me like the conservatives want it to, at least as far as the individual right to own guns.
This is just an academic discussion anyway. These weapons are part of the personal identity of at least tens of millions of Americans, plus we have a fully Republican government incoming, plus the court that would have to do something about it is even more conservative and corrupt than before.