NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — A Tennessee law requiring pornographic websites to verify their visitors' age was largely blocked in court before it was to take effect Jan. 1, even as similar laws kicked in for Florida and South Carolina and remained in effect for more than a dozen other states.
On Dec. 30, U.S. District Judge Sheryl Lipman in Memphis ruled that Tennessee's law would likely suppress the First Amendment free speech rights of adults without actually preventing children from accessing the harmful material in question. The state attorney general's office is appealing the decision.
The Free Speech Coalition, an adult entertainment trade group, is suing over Tennessee's law and those in a half-dozen other states. The coalition lists some 19 states that have passed similar laws. One prominent adult website has cut off access in several states due to their laws.
The issue will hit the U.S. Supreme Court for oral arguments regarding Texas' law next week.
No one voted against Tennessee's law last year when it passed the Republican-supermajority legislature, and GOP Gov. Bill Lee signed off on it.
The law would require porn websites to verify visitors are at least 18 years old, threatening felony penalties and civil liability possible for violators running the sites. They could match a photo to someone's ID, or use certain “public or private transactional data” to prove someone’s age. Website leaders could not retain personally identifying information and would have to keep anonymized data.
The Free Speech Coalition and other plaintiffs sued, winning a preliminary injunction that blocks the attorney general from enforcement while court proceedings continue. However, the coalition expressed concern that private lawsuits or actions by individual district attorneys could be possible.
In her ruling, Judge Lipman wrote that parental controls on minors' devices are more effective and less restrictive.
She wrote that under Tennessee's law, minors still could access adult sites using VPNs, or virtual private networks, that mask a user's location. Or, they could view pornographic material on social media sites, which are unlikely to reach the law's threshold of one-third of its content considered harmful to minors.
The judge also said the impact could be overly broad, potentially affecting other plaintiffs such as an online educational platform focused on sexual wellness.
She noted that Tennessee's definition of “content harmful to minors” extends to include text. She specifically mentioned that the phrase “the human nipple,” or crude combinations of keyboard characters, would be considered harmful as long as they lack “serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value for minors."
Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti's office is asking the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to let the law take effect as the lawsuit proceeds. Skrmetti noted that other appeals courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court, allowed similar laws to take effect.
“The Protect Tennessee Minors Act institutes common sense age verification to stop kids from accessing explicit obscene content while protecting the privacy of adults who choose to do so," Skrmetti said.
The Free Speech Coalition has argued the law would be ineffective, unconstitutional and force people to transfer sensitive information.
“This is a deeply flawed law that put website operators at risk of criminal prosecution for something as trivial as a mention of the human nipple," said Free Speech Coalition Executive Director Alison Boden.
As verification laws took effect in Florida and South Carolina last week, website Pornhub cut off access there and posted a message encouraging people to contact political decision-makers. Its parent company, Aylo, says the site has blocked access in 16 states with verification requirements it called "ineffective, haphazard, and dangerous" and not properly enforced. The company is advocating for age verification on individual devices.
Judges had paused the laws in Indiana and Texas. But circuit appeals courts stepped in to allow enforcement.
The Supreme Court declined to halt Texas' law in April while the court action continues. The next step is Supreme Court oral arguments on Jan. 15.
Another age verification law is set to begin in July in Georgia.
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This story has been corrected to show that Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti made a statement about the Protect Tennessee Minors Act, not his spokesperson.
FILE - The Tennessee Capitol is seen on April 23, 2024, in Nashville, Tenn. (AP Photo/George Walker IV, File)
DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP) — Bangladesh’s ailing former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia left the nation's capital for London on Tuesday for medical treatment, said one of her advisers.
Zahiruddin Swapan, an adviser to Zia, told The Associated Press by phone that the three-time former premier and head of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party left Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport late Tuesday on an air ambulance.
“Our senior leaders left the airport seeing her off,” Swapan said.
Her ailments include liver cirrhosis, cardiac disease and kidney problems, according to her physician.
Zia left behind a South Asian nation grappling with uncertainty over its political future after her archrival, former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, was ousted in a student-led mass uprising in August. Zia and Hasina are the most influential political leaders in Bangladesh.
An interim government headed by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus is running the country and plans to hold elections in December this year or in the first half of 2026.
Zia was sentenced to 17 years in jail under Hasina’s rule following two corruption cases stemming from 2001-2006 when she was prime minister. Her supporters say the charges against her were politically motivated, an allegation Hasina’s administration denied. Under Yunus, Zia was acquitted in one of the cases in November and an appeal in the second case was being heard on Tuesday.
Zia, 79, was freed from prison on bail under Hasina through a government order and had been undergoing medical treatment in Bangladesh. But Hasina’s administration did not allow her to travel abroad for treatment despite requests seeking approval.
The special air ambulance was sent by Qatar’s emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani. Hundreds of her supporters gathered outside her residence in the city's upscale Gulshan area to see her off.
Zia’s motorcade took nearly three hours to cross about a 10-kilometer (6-mile) stretch of road to get to the airport from her residence in Dhaka’s Gulshan area as thousands of her desperate supporters greeted her on the way, creating traffic chaos. Her hours-long journey to the airport was broadcast live by television stations.
Enamul Haque Chowdhury, a close aide of Zia, told reporters that the air ambulance had arrived from Doha to take her to London, where her eldest son and heir apparent Tarique Rahman has been in exile since 2007. Rahman is the acting chairman of Zia’s Bangladesh Nationalist Party and is expected to lead the party toward the election. The country’s dynastic politics have long focused on the families of Hasina and Zia.
Zia is the wife of late President Ziaur Rahman, a former military chief who rose to prominence during years of tumultuous politics after Hasina's father Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the country's independence leader, was assassinated along with most of his family members in a military coup in 1975. Zia's husband was also killed in 1981 in another military coup after he formed his political party and ruled the country as president for three years. Hasina's father led Bangladesh's independence war against Pakistan, aided by India, in 1971.
Zia’s personal physician, A.Z.M. Zahid Hossain, said Qatar’s emir arranged the special aircraft with medical facilities for the former prime minister, whose ailments include liver cirrhosis, cardiac disease and kidney problems.
Her departure follows dramatic political developments since last August, when Hasina’s 15-year rule ended. Hasina fled into exile in India as she and her close aides faced charges of killing hundreds of protesters during a mass protest movement that began in July.
Zia’s departure could create a symbolic vacuum in the country’s politics amid efforts by a student group that led the anti-Hasina protest to form a new political party. In the absence of Hasina and her secular Bangladesh Awami League party, the rise of Islamist political parties and other Islamist groups has been visible in the Muslim-majority country of 170 million people.
Zia's party has been bargaining with the Yunus-led government for an election sometime this year. Yunus said his government wants to make some major reforms before the election.
Bangladesh's ailing former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia, right, leaves in a car on her way to the airport in Dhaka, Bangladesh, to travel to London for medical treatment, Tuesday, Jan. 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Mahmud Hossain Opu)
Supporters of Bangladesh's ailing former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia shout slogans before Zia left Dhaka, Bangladesh, to travel to London for medical treatment, Tuesday, Jan. 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Mahmud Hossain Opu)
FILE- Bangladesh's former prime minister and Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) chairperson Khaleda Zia, center, leaves after a court appearance in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Dec. 28, 2017. (AP Photo/A.M. Ahad, File)
