미국의 온라인상 청소년유해정보에 대한 규제와 위헌성심사기준 ― 청소년온라인보호법(The Child Online Protection Act)을 중심으로 ―

Since the unconstitutionality of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 (hereinafter referred as “CDA”), congress had tried to establish the Child Online Protection Act of 1998 (hereinafter referred as “COPA”) as a son of CDA narrowing the regulation against protected speech of adults in order to prevent minors from accessing sexually explicit materials on the Internet. Very right after enactment of COPA, civil unions like American Civil Liberties Union brought a lawsuit to seek preliminary injunction against COPA. It took more than ten (10) years to be resolved with permanent injunction against COPA in the Supreme Court denying the certiorari January 21, 2009. The case law on COPA shows us what standards apply whether the statute against the Internet is not constitutional. This thesis deals with strict scrutiny standard and others to review on constitutionality of the statute: government's burden of proving that there is no less restrictive alternatives than regulations of the statute to achieve government's compelling interest, the vagueness doctrine on the term of the statutes such as “minors” and “community standards,” and the overbreadth doctrine with average person's viewpoint. To conclude, case laws of COPA may show that there are a lot of issues on unconstitutionality against Youth Protection Law in Korea in the view of vagueness doctrine and overbreadth doctrine. Furthermore, people can find appropriate attributes to revise laws and regulations against materials on the Internet harmful to minors, referring legal arguments on COPA.