STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
Today, the U.S. Supreme Court hears a challenge to a Texas law on porn. Texas requires you to verify your identity and age before accessing adult content online. At least it has up to now. Lydia Wheeler covers the Supreme Court for Bloomberg Law. Good morning.
LYDIA WHEELER, BYLINE: Good morning. Thanks for having me.
INSKEEP: OK. So who is challenging this law that makes it hard for minors to access adult content?
WHEELER: Right. So adult film producers and a trade group for the adult industry are the ones challenging this law, which forces websites to verify the age of users if a third or more of their content is harmful to minors. So the adult industry is saying that the law infringes on the First Amendment rights of adults to access constitutionally protected forms of expression.
INSKEEP: Ah, I think I've heard this argument before. They are saying, not that we want minors to access this, but we want adults to be able to do it anonymously. Is that right?
WHEELER: Right. So their main fear is that the identities of people who view their content will be exposed if the user has to scan their ID or confirm their age through some sort of facial recognition app before they can access this pornography. The trade group, which is Free Speech Coalition, and the adult producers here say that the law is overly broad and applies to websites that could stream even R-rated movies or TV shows like "Game Of Thrones" that have explicit sex scenes.
INSKEEP: OK, but does it apply to those websites? Is it used in those cases?
WHEELER: Right. So Texas is arguing that it's only targeting the websites with the content that's the most harmful to minors. So it's saying it doesn't sweep that broadly. And it says that it's regulating obscene material that even adults don't have a First Amendment rights to access.
INSKEEP: I guess we should remember at this point that no right is necessarily absolute, and that there certainly have been a lot of cases where minors are treated differently than adults, which is at least the intent, the stated intent of this law. What is the case to bypass someone's claimed First Amendment right here?
WHEELER: Right. So the question that the Supreme Court will try to answer is what the Fifth Circuit did here, and if they were correct in basically allowing the law to take effect.
INSKEEP: Now let's remember, the Fifth Circuit - so this is the Court of Appeals before the Supreme Court.
WHEELER: That's right. So the Fifth Circuit, you know, the question that the Court is trying to answer is whether the Fifth Circuit applied the correct standard of review in assessing whether or not the Texas law is constitutional. Before it just went ahead and allowed the law to take effect.
INSKEEP: I think that there are efforts for nationwide laws of this sort. There are many states that have legislated or tried to legislate in this way. There's calls for similar laws on a federal level. This case, this ruling, could have a sweeping effect, couldn't it?
WHEELER: It could. So the Free Speech Coalition says that there are 18 other states in addition to Texas that have passed these sort of age-gating laws like this. And so what the Supreme Court decides here could impact those other laws. And it all comes down to, you know, whether or not the Supreme Court - or whether or not the Fifth Circuit, I should say, used the right standard of review.
So the Fifth Circuit said that Texas only needed to have a rational basis for restricting speech. But, you know, the users and the adult content producers here are saying that, hey, you need to apply a stricter standard.
INSKEEP: Well, we'll find out how it spins out in the no doubt not R-rated arguments before the United States Supreme Court today, which Lydia Wheeler will be watching. Thanks so much.
WHEELER: Thank you.
INSKEEP: She's a Supreme Court reporter with Bloomberg Law.
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