This case involves the constitutionality of the Child Online Protection Act ("COPA"), passed by Congress to control minors' access to pornography on the Internet. The Act requires commercial publishers on the World Wide Web to restrict access to materials that are deemed harmful to minors by use of adult identification numbers, credit cards or other similar means. The ACLU challenged COPA on the grounds that it infringed upon free speech rights because commercial pornographers on the Web would be required to abide by community standards with respect to what was deemed harmful to minors.

The Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit agreed with the ACLU, holding that COPA violated the First Amendment. Assuming that there are widely divergent standards across the nation as to what kinds of pornography are harmful to minors, the court held that COPA essentially "required that every publisher abide by the most restrictive and conservative state's community standards." The court granted a preliminary injunction against enforcement of COPA.

The Supreme Court heard oral argument in this case on November 28, 2001, and rendered its decision in May of 2002.