Citation: "Children's Internet Protection Act." 2000. Internet Free Expression Alliance. 4 April 2009. <http://ifea.net/cipa.pdf>.
The Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA) is a law passed by Congress that encourages filtering the Internet to protect minors by giving schools and libraries financial incentives to do so. Throughout the text, the legislation defines terminology used in the remainder of the document. It states that schools and libraries cannot use federal funds to buy computers or aid Internet access unless they have policies and softwares in place designed to filter visuals on the Internet that contain obscenity, child pornography and material harmful to minors. There is also discussion of how the government plans to implement the law in schools and libraries and how groups can waive this requirement. An exception to the filtering rule is also provided; schools can disable filtering softwares for research purposes. The law concludes by discussing how schools and libraries need to document and enforce the policies outlined in CIPA, and what the legal ramifications for the schools and libraries are if they do not enforce the policies.
CIPA is relevant to my paper because it demonstrates how the government can constitutionally play a role in protecting children online and it shows governmental support for self-regulation. CIPA, unlike parts of the CDA and COPA, has been ruled to be Constitutional and not in violation of the first amendment, because Congress is providing incentives for schools and libraries to regulate content on their own computers, rather than requiring regulation. Congress seemed to take the Supreme Court’s ruling concerning the CDA into consideration when drafting CIPA, because the law allows filtering of obscene and pornographic material but not indecent material. Encouraging communities to enact regulations protecting children themselves is also a better strategy than governmental regulation because it allows communities to better apply their own standards regarding what is obscene and harmful to minors. The government’s established definitions of obscenity and harm to minors involve applying community standards, so this law does a good job of following past legislative precedents, giving the law even greater validity.