In addition to contentions against the registry, plaintiffs also complained about the provision that requires Internet service providers to block sites on the registry under certain circumstances.

According to John Morris of the Center for Democracy and Technology, there is no effective way for an ISP to restrict access to one site without restricting access to every site that shares the same Internet protocol address, regardless of the site's content.

"If they try to restrict access to 400 sites, they could restrict access to 1 million unrelated sites," he said.

Morris said the Utah Progressive Network — a group aimed at social, racial, economic and environmental justice — could be a site that could have restricted access since it unintentionally shares an ISP address with more than 1,000 sites containing material that is arguably harmful to minors.

The suit doesn't include any major Internet service providers, just two little-known companies operating in Utah, Mountain Wireless and CSolutions Inc. The big players don't want to be seen as opposing any anti-porn legislation or take on a political battle that won't win them any customers, but are "secretly cheering us," said Gregg Teeter, another lawyer involved in the case.

Pete Ashdown, president of XMission, an Internet service provider with more than 25,000 Utah subscribers, said he lobbied Utah legislators to contain the damage of legislation he called a "steamroller that was going to pass" but didn't join the suit because "I didn't want to antagonize anyone further."

Ashdown, a Democrat who has said he would challenge U.S. Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, in the 2006 election, said the lawsuit "was going to happen without me."

Ashdown said the market already has responded with filters parents can use to keep their children from viewing pornographic Web sites. He said government can't do any better and will only make matters worse.

Bamberger also cites interstate commerce violations among the reasons for the suit. The "geographically neutral" Internet cannot be subjected to such restrictions, he said.

Tony Weller, owner of Sam Weller Books and a plaintiff in the case, said the lawsuit is not to allow children access to harmful material, but rather to protect First Amendment rights and to put the responsibility of regulation on parents instead of the government.

"I have an 8-year-old daughter," Weller said. "I'm sympathetic. But it's my responsibility to regulate what my daughter sees, not the government's."

Morris added that home-filtering systems would be a more effective and "less restrictive alternative" to the law he called "egregious and unconstitutional."

Similar laws have been found unconstitutional in Arizona, New Mexico, New York, South Carolina, Vermont, Virginia and Wisconsin, Bamberger said.

"There's nothing in the Utah law that makes it any different," he added. "In fact, the law is even broader because Utah has no Safe Harbor laws," which protect children from media content.

---

Contributing: Associated Press

---

E-mail: afalk@desnews.com