Ever since the Internet became such an important source of information in our lives, there has been a group of people who believe that it is necessary to cleanse it of certain material. These people believe that groups, companies, and the government have the right to block any material they deem objectionable. They are simply wrong. The First Amendment guarantees our right to free expression. Furthermore, there is no option to block or ban these sites. There have been several attempts to impose some sort of moral standard on the Internet. The online community has always fiercely opposed these intrusions on its civil liberties and privacy. One of the most famous cases was the short-lived Communications Decency Act (CDA) of 1996. Section 223.1-B of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 states: Whoever, by means of a telecommunications device, knowingly makes, creates, or solicits, and initiates the transmission of, any obscene or indecent comment, request, suggestion, proposal, image, or other communication , knowing that the recipient of the communication is under 18 years of age, regardless of whether or not the author of such communication had the place to call or initiate the communication iThis is the crux of the Communications Decency Act (CDA). The CDA has been criticized for vague wording used in important places. The use of the word indecent caused an uproar. Who would decide what was indecent? In cases brought before the legal system it was very often not the viewer who decided what was indecent, but it was actually a company or the government who made the decision. Before the CDA could be actively enforced, the American Civi...... middle of paper...... October 2001 Supreme Court Opinion in Reno v. ACLU, Cornell Law School. October 11, 2001 BibliographyHunter, Christopher D. "Internet Filter Effectiveness: Testing the Over- and Under-Blocking Decisions of Four Popular Web Filters." Social Science Computer Review 18 (2000): 214-222Peck, Robert S. Libraries, the First Amendment, and Cyberspace: What You Need to Know. Chicago: American Library Association, 2000Lessig, Lawerence. Code: And Other Laws of Cyberspace, New York: Basic Books, 1999Foerstel, Herbert N. Banned in the Media: a Reference Guide to Censorship in the Press, Motion Pictures, Broadcasting, and the Internet, Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1998