The State of Freedonia passes a law that says“In order to protect minors from access to potentially obscene websites, no person in this state shall place, or cause or be placed, any material on any publicly available website that shall portray any act of sexual intercourse, deviate sexual intercourse or sexual contact unless such person shall demonstrate that adequate safeguards exist to ensure that no person under the age of 18 shall have access to such site.”Mark hosts a website that contains sexually explicit videos and pictures. However, whenever a person clicks on a link that would allow him or her to view the image, a popup window asks the viewer if he or she is 18 years of age. Only by clicking a button that says “I hereby affirm that I am 18 years of age or older” can a person access the images.Mark is arrested for violating the above statute. The prosecutor argues that simply having the viewer affirm that he or she is of age does little or nothing to prevent minors from accessing the website.Mark argues that the statute is a violation of freedom of speech and is unconstitutional and in violation of the First Amendment, either on its face, or as applied to Mark.Please write an essay discussing whether the statute should be upheld and applied to Mark. Please discuss both issues that Markraised:1) whether the statute is unconstitutional on its face and2) whether it is unconstitutional as applied to Mark.
