CHAPTER FouR • CiviL LibERTiEs 77
Defamation
of Character
Wrongfully hurting a
person’s good reputation.
Slander
The public uttering of a
false statement that harms
the good reputation of
another. The statement
must be made to, or within
the hearing of, someone
other than the defamed
party.outlaw the possession of child pornography in the home.^21 The
Court reasoned that the ban on private possession is justified
because owning the material perpetuates commercial demand
for it and for the exploitation of the children involved. In 2008,
the Court upheld the legality of a 2003 federal law that made it
a crime to offer child pornography, even if the pornography in
question does not actually exist.^22Pornography on the internet. A significant problem facing
Americans and their lawmakers today is how to spare young
children from exposure to pornography that is disseminated
through the Internet. In 1996, Congress first attempted to pro-
tect minors from pornographic materials on the Internet by pass-
ing the Communications Decency Act (CDA). Under the act, it
was a crime to make available to minors online any “obscene or
indecent” message that “depicts or describes, in terms patently
offensive as measured by contemporary community standards, sexual or excretory activi-
ties or organs.” In 1997, the Supreme Court held that the act imposed unconstitutional
restraints on free speech and was therefore invalid.^23 A second attempt to protect chil-
dren from online obscenity, the Child Online Protection Act (COPA) of 1998, met with a
similar fate.^24
In 2000, Congress enacted the Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA), which requires
public schools and libraries to install filtering software to prevent children from viewing
Web sites with “adult” content. The CIPA was also challenged on constitutional grounds,
but in 2003 the Supreme Court held that the act did not violate the First Amendment. The
Court concluded that because libraries can disable the filters for any patrons who ask, the
system does not burden free speech to an unconstitutional extent.^25
Young people today are not dependent on libraries for Internet access, however. Free
Wi-Fi, for use by laptops and tablets, is available almost everywhere. Students also access
the Internet using smartphones. Instead of prohibition, parents and teachers may need to
rely on information about pornography to help children avoid it and react to it appropri-
ately when they do come across it.Unprotected Speech: Slander
Can you say anything you want about someone else? Not really. Individuals are protected
from defamation of character, which is defined as wrongfully hurting a person’s good
reputation. The law imposes a general duty on all persons to refrain from making false,
defamatory statements about others. Breaching this duty orally is the wrongdoing called
slander. Breaching it in writing is the wrongdoing called libel, which we discuss later. The
government itself does not bring charges of slander or libel. Rather, the defamed person
may bring a civil (as opposed to a criminal) suit for damages.
Legally, slander is the public uttering of a false statement that harms the good repu-
tation of another. “Public uttering” means that the defamatory statement is made to,- Osborne v. Ohio, 495 U.S. 103 (1990).
- United States v. Williams, 553 U.S. 285 (2008).
- Reno v. American Civil Liberties Union, 521 U.S. 844 (1997).
- American Civil Liberties Union v. Ashcroft, 542 U.S. 646 (2004).
- United States v. American Library Association, 539 U.S. 194 (2003).
(Tom Nulens/iStockphoto)
www
Helpful Web Sites
Two organizations that
focus on constitutional
issues raised by the
Internet are the Center for
Democracy and Technology
(search on “center
democracy technology”)
and the Electronic Privacy
Information Center (search
on “electronic privacy”).9781285436388_04_ch04_066-091.indd 77 10/15/13 8:56 AM
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