1. During much of this century the mass media, particularly radio and television, have been characterized by a limited number of speakers transmitting programming and information to essentially passive audiences. The communications medium of the twenty-first century -- the Internet and "cyberspace" generally -- is changing that, and will allow hundreds of millions of individuals to engage in interactive communication, on a national and global scale never before possible. The public square of the past -- with pamphleteering, soap boxes, and vigorous debate -- is being replaced by the Internet, which enables average citizens to participate in national discourse, publish a newspaper, distribute an electronic pamphlet to the world, and generally communicate to and with a broader audience than ever before possible. It also enables average citizens to gain access to a vast and literally world- wide range of information, while simultaneously protecting their privacy, because in this new medium individuals receive only the communications they affirmatively request.

2. In enacting the Communications Decency Act of 1996 (to be codified at 47 U.S.C. § 223) (the "Act"), Congress acknowledged that the Internet represents "an extraordinary advance in the availability of educational and informational resources to our citizens," and acknowledged that interactive computer services "offer users a great degree of control over the information that they receive." Congress therefore declared "[i]t is the policy of the United States . . . to promote the continued development of the Internet and other interactive computer services; [and] to preserve the vibrant and competitive free market that presently exists for the Internet and other interactive computer services, unfettered by Federal or State regulation." Act § 509 (to be codified at 47 U.S.C. § 230). Unfortunately, as we will show, provisions of the Act that were intended only to protect minors from communications deemed inappropriate for them will have the effect, perhaps unintended, of depriving adults of communications that are appropriate, and indisputably constitutionally protected, for them. Because of the way the Internet works, the Act's prohibition of communications that may be deemed "indecent" or "patently offensive" for minors will effectively ban those same communications between adults, reducing the adult population in cyberspace to only what is appropriate for minors. The banned speech includes valuable works of literature and art, information about health and medical issues, and examples of popular culture. It also includes robust human discourse about politics, current events, and personal matters that may at times include harsh, provocative, or even vulgar language, all of which is constitutionally protected for adults.

3. Plaintiffs represent a broad range of individuals and entities from the computer and communications industries and the general public who are harmed by the Act. Plaintiffs include publishers and creators of content on the Internet; "online services," "Internet service providers," libraries, and others who provide access or connection to the Internet; and speakers, listeners, and users on the Internet. The Act's effective ban of a broad category of communication that is constitutionally protected for adults directly harms the First Amendment rights of plaintiffs, and of the tens of millions of adult speakers and listeners who are "online" and linked through this new communications medium. Plaintiffs also include parents, who seek to protect the rights of parents to decide what is appropriate for their children to receive through interactive computer communications.

4. The speech at issue in this case does not include obscenity, child pornography, harassing speech, speech intended to entice or lure minors into inappropriate activity, or other speech that lacks First Amendment protection even for adults. This complaint does not challenge governmental regulation of those categories of non-protected speech, and the relief sought herein will not affect the government's ability to prosecute the communication of those categories of speech, all of which are already prohibited by existing law.

5. The most sweeping provision of the Act, Section 502(2) (to be codified at 47 U.S.C. § 223(d)), prohibits the "display" of material deemed "patently offensive" "in a manner available to a person under 18 years of age" (emphasis added). That provision is subject to certain defenses, which the sponsor of the Act and Congress apparently believed would enable speakers to restrict access by minors while simultaneously permitting access by adults. But those defenses, which were merely lifted from the "dial-a-porn" laws, simply do not work in the quite different medium of cyberspace. Because of the manner in which information is stored, transmitted, and received on the Internet, this provision has the (perhaps unintended) result of banning speech between adults that is suitable and constitutionally protected for adults.