Arizona Legislature Short-Circuits Cyber Porn

The Arizona legislature has entered the fight against Internet pornography, and it is requiring that community college districts join the battle.

During its last session, the legislature enacted Arizona Revised Statutes Section 38-448, which restricts the use of computers for the purpose of accessing pornographic materials. Such access is denied to any employee of an "agency." Under the statute, an "agency" includes an Arizona community college district.

The law (which is reprinted below) also applies to employees of state agencies, departments, boards, councils, or commissions; legislative agencies; departments of the state supreme court or court of appeals; and the three state universities.

Under the new law, an employee of any of these agencies may "not use agency owned or agency leased computer equipment to access, download, print or store any information infrastructure files or services that depict nudity, sexual activity, sexual excitement" or "ultimate sexual acts" as that term is defined in state obscenity laws.

The statute does allow the use of agency-controlled computer equipment for accessing, downloading, printing or storing such information "to the extent required in conjunction with a bona fide, agency approved research project or other agency approved undertaking."

Arizona is not the first to enact this sort of law. Nearly five years ago, the commonwealth of Virginia passed a similar statute. That statute withstood a challenge by a group of Virginia community college faculty, who claimed that the law violated their Constitutional right of free expression.

In Urofsky v. Gilmore, the US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit held that the law did not "regulate the speech of the citizenry in general, but rather the speech of state employees in their capacity as employees.

"It cannot be doubted that in order to pursue its legitimate goals effectively, the state must retain the ability to control the manner in which its employees discharge their duties and to direct its employees to undertake the responsibilities of their positions in a specified way."

Published in the Fall 2003 Edition of In Brief