ABFEE v. Coakley

Last year Porter Square Books was proud to join a suit with the Harvard Bookstore, the Photographic Resource Center, the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression (ABFEE), the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, the ACLU and others to block the enforcement of a law that would have imposed severe restrictions on internet content by making providers of constitutionally protected materials criminally liable if such material was deemed harmful to minors. It was our view that the law was overly broad and likely violated the First Amendment and Judge Rya Zobel agreed by issuing a preliminary injunction late last year.

We received word today that Gov. Patrick signed into law an amendment to that original legislation that addresses these First Amendment issues while still allowing the state to protect children from predators using the internet.

We'd likely to thank ABFEE, the Media Coalition, our fellow plaintiffs, and all the attorneys who worked so hard on our behalf and Gov. Patrick and the legislators who adopted the needed changes to the law.