If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. The Sixth US Circuit Court of Appeals has allowed Tennessee to start enforcing a state age verification law. It obligates adult sites to verify that their visitors are 18 or over, and do that by unmasking everyone by requiring a person’s photo ID, or “certain public or private transactional data” to ascertain their age. This is one of close to 20 similar laws, cited in the lawsuit against that adopted by Tennessee, where state Republicans behind the legislation say it is needed to protect children from harmful influence online – while those opposed argue that the efforts are both unconstitutional, First Amendment-wise, and ineffective. On December 30, a district court by and large approved a preliminary injunction motion submitted by the plaintiffs, adults entertainment trade group the Free Speech Coalition. The law was to come into force on January 1. But in a 3-0 ruling earlier this week, the appeals court judges greenlit the law’s implementation as the legal battle continues. We obtained a copy of the ruling for you here. Memphis District Court Judge Sheryl Lipman justified the decision to block the law’s enforcement in late December by stating that it “likely” harms adults’ First Amendment rights while failing to actually stop minors from accessing pornographic material online. Lipman argued that minors will use workarounds like VPNs to hide their location, and that they might turn to completely unregulated parts of the internet in search of this type of content, or simply use social media (that pass the one-third adult content threshold). But the state attorney-general appealed, and now the Sixth Circuit panel overturned the injunction, rejecting Judge Lipman’s stance that the law had the potential to suppress constitutional free speech protections. At the same time, children’s ability to access pornography online is described as easy, and having “devastating effects.” Moreover, the ruling touches on the fact that this is one of a number of similar laws, and that when it comes to Texas and Indiana, district courts’ decisions blocking them had also been overturned by the respective courts of appeal. “We see no reason to keep Tennessee’s law on ice while Texas and Indiana may enforce theirs (against at least one of the same plaintiffs), especially when the Supreme Court will soon offer guidance on the standard of review we should apply,” the Sixth Circuit stated. If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. The post Sixth Circuit Court Allows Tennessee to Enforce Online Digital ID Laws appeared first on Reclaim The Net.