Brief of Amici Curiae Woodhull Freedom Foundation, Electronic Frontier Foundation, and Techfreedom in Support of Petitioners
Earlier this year, The Woodhull Freedom Foundation and the Electronic Frontier Foundation submitted a brief to the United States Supreme Court urging the Justices to rule on TX’s unconstitutional age verification law. We filed in support of the constitutional challenge brought by the ACLU, the Free Speech Coalition, and others asking the U.S. Supreme Court to reverse a lower court ruling that, if left standing, would impermissively burden free speech online, involving the unconstitutional age-verification mandate in Texas’s H.B. 1181. The United States Supreme Court has agreed to rule on this law.
Woodhull Freedom Foundation, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), and TechFreedom have filed a friend-of-the-court brief with the Supreme Court, urging it to strike down Texas’ HB 1181. This law, which mandates age verification for websites with substantial sexual content, has sparked a significant legal debate. Enacted in 2023, HB 1181 requires websites that Texas deems to have “one-third” or more of “sexual material harmful to minors” to implement age verification measures for all visitors. This law has raised concerns about online privacy, anonymity, and free speech.
The brief argues that HB 1181 unconstitutionally restricts adults’ access to protected speech online. It emphasizes that the law forces adults to surrender their anonymity and exposes them to privacy and security risks when accessing legal sexual content.
The organizations point out that the Fifth Circuit’s decision to uphold HB 1181 deviates from decades of legal precedent. Previous courts have consistently ruled that similar age verification laws are unconstitutional, recognizing that online ID mandates impose greater burdens on First Amendment rights than in-person age checks.
The brief addresses the limitations of age verification technologies:
- Broad Application: HB 1181 requires age verification for entire websites, not just specific sexual materials.
- Data Retention: Websites must retain personal information, increasing privacy and security risks.
- Limitations of New Technologies: Even newer methods like “age estimation” introduce their own problems and may not satisfy HB 1181’s requirements.
The organizations argue that HB 1181’s age verification mandate continues to impose significant harm on adults exercising their constitutional rights despite any technological advancements since previous court rulings on similar laws.
We argue that the potential consequences of upholding HB 1181 include the chilling effect on protected speech, a clear violation of adults’ rights to access lawful sexual content online, and a dangerous erosion of online anonymity and privacy.
By filing this brief, Woodhull Freedom Foundation, the EFF, and TechFreedom aim to provide the Supreme Court with crucial insights into the constitutional and practical implications of HB 1181. They urge the Court to reaffirm previous decisions that have protected online free speech and adult access to constitutionally protected content.
As the Supreme Court prepares to review this case in its next term, the outcome could have far-reaching consequences for internet users’ rights and the future of online content regulation in the United States.