LOS ANGELES – The Free Speech Coalition (FSC) has asked Montana’s U.S. District Court to block the state’s new age verification law.
Free Speech Coalition has filed a complaint in the U.S. District Court of Montana for declaratory and injunctive relief against the Montana Attorney General over the state’s age verification law, SB544. FSC and the other plaintiffs, including journalists, sex educators, therapists, book publishers and sexual wellness retailers, are asking a district court to block enforcement of the law pending resolution of the case.
“Montana’s law is dangerous, ineffective and deeply unconstitutional,” said Alison Boden, executive director of the Free Speech Coalition. “Laws like SB544 extend far beyond adult sites and restrict the right of journalists, educators, healthcare professionals and consumers to access the Internet without government interference. While these laws are nominally about age verification, they are so dangerous to consumer privacy that their practical effect is to censor constitutionally protected speech. We are fully committed to combating these attacks on freedom of expression.”
The Free Speech Coalition joins the lawsuit as co-plaintiffs: O.school, a platform for sex education; Lynsey Griswold, a Montana journalist and publisher at Oneshi Press; Ryn Pfeuffer, a journalist and sex worker; Dr. Anna Louise Petersen, a psychotherapist in Missoula; PHE, Inc, a national sexual wellness retailer; Convergence Holdings, Inc., a retailer doing business as Adam and Eve Montana; and JustFor.Fans, an adult content platform.
“Montanans take pride in their self-reliance, independence and willingness to stand up for individual freedom,” said co-counsel Natasha Prinzing Jones of Boone Kalberg in Missoula. “While deterring minors from accessing age-inappropriate content is a worthy goal, the law is overbroad and impermissibly vague, violates Montanans’ constitutional protections under the First and Fourteenth Amendments, and has a significant chilling effect on the legal expressions on the internet. I look forward to standing up for individual rights in the face of government overreach.”
The parties are represented by Jeffrey Sandman of Webb Daniel Friedlander LLP, D. Gill Sperlein of the Law Office of D. Gill Sperlein, and Natasha Prinzing Jones of Boone Karlberg.