Now that a federal appeals court has blocked the part of the Telecommunications Act concerned with indecent material on the Internet, First Amendment advocates can all breathe a sigh of relief. Or can we? The parts of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 that remain are far more damaging to the First Amendment than the sub-section known as the Communications Decency Act (CDA). Taken as a whole, the Telecommunications Act is a kind of "free trade" agreement for the corporate media. So, before we celebrate too wildly the federal appeals court's acceptance of an anti-censorship argument to strike down the CDA, we better ask ourselves: have we won the battle only to inadvertently contribute to losing the war?
