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U
S A 9. OTHER RESTRICTIONS ON THE CONTENT
OF INFORMATION The U.S. Supreme Court has consistently maintained a censorship
right when national security is at stake. The Freedom of Information
Act provides for the possibility of federal agencies denying access
to documents or records that are classified as
relating to national defense or foreign relations. During military operations the U.S. government has used battlefield
censorship, requiring correspondents to submit their copy for review
before transmission. The government has used import and postal restrictions to restrict
sexually explicit material. The U.S. Supreme Court has also ruled that pornography, material
aimed at sexual arousal, cannot be stopped. Import and postal restrictions
can be employed against obscene materials, which the Court defined
as going beyond pornography. There are standards for censoring the
material and considering it obscene, such as considering if the
material is devoid of all serious literary, artistic, political
or scientific value; whether a typical person applying local standards
sees the material as appealing mainly for its sexually arousing;
whether it would be offensive in a way that it violates state law
that explicitly defines offensiveness. The U.S. Supreme Court has left the issue of sexually explicit
materials largely up to local standards. The U.S. Supreme Court declared on June 26, 1997, unconstitutional
the Communications Decency Act enacted by the U.S. Congress on February
1, 1996. The CDA was an attempt to ban certain pornographic materials
available to minors on the Internet, among others.
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