NetChoice Asks SCOTUS to Enjoin Miss. Age-Verification Law
NetChoice asked the U.S. Supreme Court to quickly reinstate a preliminary injunction on a Mississippi age-verification law in an emergency application Monday. The tech group appealed just days after the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals granted a stay of HB-1126 with no explanation, allowing it to go into effect for the time being (see 2507170019).
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The Mississippi law requires parental consent for those younger than 18 to create accounts with certain digital service providers.
"NetChoice respectfully requests emergency relief to maintain the status quo, in which both minors and adults can access and engage in fully protected expression online, free from governmental interference," NetChoice said in the application. "Neither NetChoice nor this Court can know why the Fifth Circuit believed this law satisfies the First Amendment’s stringent demands or deviated from the seven other decisions enjoining similar laws."
The trade association added that the 5th Circuit stay "threatens immediate, irreparable injury."
The U.S. District Court for Southern Mississippi previously enjoined HB-1126 for being too broad to survive a First Amendment challenge (see 2506180051), which Attorney General Lynn Fitch's (R) then appealed (see 2506200000).
"Mississippi’s censorship regime would upend the status quo by forcing people to provide their sensitive, personal information just to access fully protected speech online," said Paul Taske, co-director of NetChoice's litigation center, in a news release Monday. "Just as the government can’t force you to provide identification to read a newspaper, the same holds true when that news is available online."