Blocking access to websites doesn"t interfere with free speech because Internet addresses aren"t real, according to the Pennsylvania attorney general"s office.
State attorneys opposing a challenge to the Pennsylvania law that requires ISPs to block access to websites containing child pornography argued to a Philadelphia federal court this week that "a URL is neither a person, nor a real forum, nor a limited commodity."
"It is a little string of letters and numbers that acts as a superficial label," they argued in a brief. "Disablement of an ISP"s customers" access to a particular URL for even an indefinite time does not implicate First Amendment rights."