Supreme Court appears ready to uphold Texas law restricting access to pornography

Several members of the Supreme Court’s conservative majority appeared deeply skeptical of the challenge to a Texas law aimed at limiting minors’ access to pornography, peppering the challengers’ counsel with unusually hostile questions.

The attorney, Derek L. Shaffer, said the law violated the First Amendment by requiring age verification measures, such as the presentation of government-issued IDs, which placed an unconstitutional burden on adults seeking to view sexually explicit material. He said parents could protect their children by using content filtering software.

Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. was incredulous. “Do you know many parents who are more tech-savvy than their 15-year-old children? He added that “there is a huge volume of evidence that filtering does not work.”

Judge Amy Coney Barrett, who has seven children, said “children can access pornography online through gaming systems, tablets, phones and computers.”

She added: “Filtering content for all these different devices, I can say from personal experience, is difficult to keep up with. »

Much of the debate centered on whether the appeals court erred in using a soft form of judicial review to block enforcement of the law. Several judges indicated that a higher standard applied even though they suggested that Texas law met it.