Arts group challenges S.C. Internet law

By The Associated Press

11.25.02

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CHARLESTON, S.C. — A nonprofit arts group and five publishing industry organizations say a South Carolina law that prohibits certain images on the Internet violates the First Amendment.

The 2001 law makes it a crime to post photographs and other material on the Internet that the state considers unsuitable for children.

Charleston-based Print Studio South Inc., the Southeast Booksellers Association, the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression, the Association of American Publishers, Families Against Internet Censorship and the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund have sued in federal court.

Prosecutors say the lawsuit is premature because the law it challenges has never been enforced.

The lawsuit seeks to overturn the statute "because it's on the books," said the groups' attorney Herbert E. Buhl III, who filed in U.S. District Court in Charleston this month.

"People are worried that it can be enforced," said Buhl, an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union in Columbia. "It's overly broad, vague and unconstitutional."

The sticking point in this case is a provision that was tacked onto an existing law in July 2001. It added "digital electronic files" to the list of visual media that are prohibited from displaying images and other material that are deemed unsuitable for minors, including depictions of nudity and sexual content.

Violators can be sentenced to up to five years in prison and face a maximum $5,000 fine.

Buhl says at least seven other states have overturned similar legislation.

South Carolina Attorney General Charlie Condon was named as a defendant in the suit.

Condon spokesman Robb McBurney said the attorney general's office was trying to determine whether it would represent all the 16 prosecutors also named in the lawsuit.

"Once that's done, we can get into the merits," McBurney said.

Prosecutor Ralph Hoisington says the Internet provision that is being challenged "just hasn't been an issue" in Berkeley and Charleston counties.

"To be frank, it hasn't crossed the radar screen yet," Hoisington said.

Prosecutor Walter Bailey has not prosecuted anyone in Dorchester County under the statute.

"I think the lawsuit is premature," he said. "It isn't ripe."

The plaintiffs say the purpose of the lawsuit is not to weaken the state's obscenity, harassment or child pornography laws but to ensure that provocative works of art and other material are not outlawed.

Because of the wide-open nature of the Internet, the statute as it is written "has the effect of prohibiting adults from viewing ... a wide array of valuable and constitutionally protected images they have a First Amendment right to see," according to the complaint.

Also, Internet site operators have no foolproof way to verify whether their users are minors.

"This could criminalize artwork and other material posted ... by Print Studio South and other plaintiffs," the lawsuit states.

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