Deputy Solicitor General Seth P. Waxman went before the U.S. Supreme Court last week to praise the Communications Decency Act, not to bury it. That was his first mistake.
The CDA, as it is known by everyone who has followed its tortured history, is the controversial antiporn bill passed by Congress and signed into law last year by President Bill Clinton. The act makes it a federal crime to put online, where children might see it, not just the obscene or the pornographic but any "indecent" word or image--a prohibition so vague that it might criminalize an AIDS-awareness lesson. Proponents argue...