668
ASHCROFT v. AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION
Opinion of the Court
addition, the District Court found that verification systems
may be subject to evasion and circumvention, for example,
by minors who have their own credit cards. See id., at 484,
496-497. Finally, filters also may be more effective because
they can be applied to all forms of Internet communication,
including e-mail, not just communications available via the
World Wide Web.
That filtering software may well be more effective than
COPA is confirmed by the findings of the Commission on
Child Online Protection, a blue-ribbon Commission created
by Congress in COPA itself. Congress directed the Commission to evaluate the relative merits of different means of
restricting minors' ability to gain access to harmful materials
on the Internet. Note following 47 U. S. C. §231. It unambiguously found that filters are more effective than ageverification requirements. See Commission on Child Online
Protection (COPA), Report to Congress 19-21, 23-25, 27
(Oct. 20, 2000) (assigning a score for "Effectiveness" of 7.4
for server-based filters and 6.5 for client-based filters, as
compared to 5.9 for independent adult-ID verification, and
5.5 for credit card verification). Thus, not only has the Government failed to carry its burden of showing the District
Court that the proposed alternative is less effective, but also
a Government Commission appointed to consider the question has concluded just the opposite. That finding supports
our conclusion that the District Court did not abuse its discretion in enjoining the statute.
Filtering software, of course, is not a perfect solution to
the problem of children gaining access to harmful-to-minors
materials. It may block some materials that are not harmful to minors and fail to catch some that are. See 31 F. Supp.
2d, at 492. Whatever the deficiencies of filters, however, the
Government failed to introduce specific evidence proving
that existing technologies are less effective than the restrictions in COPA. The District Court made a specific factfinding that "[n]o evidence was presented to the Court as to the
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