Child Online Protection Act trial: Rufus of Nerve liveblogs it

Rufus Griscom, founder and CEO of "literate smut" site Nerve.com, is liveblogging the COPA trials. This should be a really interesting series of posts, and I'll be checking in daily. Snip from today's entry:

June 26, 1997, was a big day for me, and a big day for Nerve, for two reasons: (1) it was the day the Supreme Court made its decision on Reno vs. ACLU, which effectively overturned the Communications Decency Act, and (2) it was the day that we launched Nerve (then nervemag.com).

This was not a complete coincidence — we delayed our launch for a week to coincide with the ruling, and consider ourselves in some ways a creature of that decision. Don't get me wrong — we would have published Nerve irrespective of that ruling. We were young and fearless, and we also understood that the government would be relatively foolish to go after some idealistic bespectacled kids publishing "literate smut," were the act to be passed. However, we also understood that this was an important decision supporting critical First Amendment rights, and that laws criminalizing what we do every day are not a good thing. Every day since, we have taken great pleasure bringing you lewd and salacious content, baked fresh daily and inappropriate for minors.

Now, nine years later, I am sitting in a hotel room about to go on the stand as the first plaintiff in ACLU vs. Gonzales, Civil Action No. 98-CV-5591, better known as the Child Online Protection Act case. Despite repeated drubbings by the ACLU over the years, the Department of Justice is continuing its efforts to criminalize the publication of content "inappropriate for minors" online — they are, in my view, attempting to put the entire nation back in nursery school.

Link to full text. Large images of hardcore porn will be projected on the courtroom walls later today, before the presiding 70something judge. HOT. Image: "Here I am at 6:30 am (not my favorite hour of the day) with court documents and a souvenir I intend to take home courtesy of the ACLU."

An AP item about the trial is here. And here's a related item from CIO.com (IDG News Service). (Thanks, Susannah Breslin)