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Originally Posted by blueerica
Actually, I'm waiting for Prudence's analysis of the situation, I realize...
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Er, um,
I'm not sure how this will go. Courts are generally way behind the times when it comes to technology and tend to fail to appreciate the realities of how people use technology.
Can a service provider in one state, providing content legal in that state, be charged with violating the laws of another state when citizens of state B used that service? (Does that even make sense? I'm so tired...)
Example: US v Thomas (74 F.3d 701, if you want to look it up) was a federal obscenity case. I might miss some details because I don't feel like reading it, but basically a BBS in California made pornography files available for download. A Postal Inspector in Tennessee signed up for the BBS, downloaded the files, and then charged the BBS with violating obscenity standards for interstate transportation of obscene materials. Obscenity is evaluated based on "community" standards and while the images were not considered obscene in California, they were considered obscene. The burden was on the BBS to refuse access to folk from Tennessee. Which then brought up all sorts of fun issues about the nature of "community standards" in a webbed world and really demonstrated (in my opinion) just how behind the times the court can be.
Anyhow, this isn't an exact match, of course, but there are similarities - there's a precedent of requiring one state to follow the "rules" of a different state when providing BBS services - so why not for the Internet?
One significant differece is that US v. Thomas involved a federal law, albeit one that can be interpreted differently depending on where one is. NJ is considering a state law, and thus might be stepping on Congress and the Commerce powers. It arguably affects interstate commerce, I think.
But the commerce clause makes my head hurt so I'm going to stop talking about it.