Supreme Court allows, for now, Texas law restricting access to porn

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court refused on Tuesday to block a Texas law that seeks to limit minors’ access to pornography on the internet by requiring age verification measures like the submission of government-issued IDs.

As is the court’s custom in rulings on emergency applications, its brief order gave no reasons. There were no noted dissents. A petition seeking review of an appeals court’s ruling upholding the law remains pending.

A trade group, companies that produce sexual materials and a performer challenged the law, saying that it violates the First Amendment right of adults.

The law does not allow companies to retain information their users submit. But the challengers said adults would be wary of supplying personal information for fear of identity theft, tracking and extortion.

Judge David Alan Ezra, of the U.S. District Court in Austin, blocked the law, saying it would have a chilling effect on speech protected by the First Amendment.

“By verifying information through government identification, the law will allow the government to peer into the most intimate and personal aspects of people’s lives,” wrote Ezra, who was appointed by President Ronald Reagan.

“It runs the risk that the state can monitor when an adult views sexually explicit materials and what kind of websites they visit,” he continued. “In effect, the law risks forcing individuals to divulge specific details of their sexuality to the state government to gain access to certain speech.”

A divided three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals disagreed. “The age-verification requirement is rationally related to the government’s legitimate interest in preventing minors’ access to pornography,” Judge Jerry Smith, who was appointed by Reagan, wrote for the majority. He was joined by Judge Jennifer Elrod, who was appointed by President George W. Bush.

Judge Patrick Higginbotham, another Reagan appointee, dissented, saying that the law chills free speech rights and could limit adults’ access to popular shows and films like “Game of Thrones,” “The Color Purple” and “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.”

When the majority declined to put its decision on hold while the challengers seek Supreme Court review, Higginbotham again dissented, saying that the case “begs for resolution by the high court” because the majority opinion “conflicts with Supreme Court precedent.”

After the 5th Circuit’s ruling, Pornhub, one of the most-visited sites in the world, suspended its operations in Texas.