Woodhull Files Motion to Have FOSTA Declared Unconstitutional

WASHINGTON, D.C.—The Woodhull Freedom Foundation, along with the other plaintiffs in the Woodhull Freedom Foundation, et. al v. Barr case, filed a Motion for Summary Judgment this past Monday, August 31, seeking to have the Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act, better known as FOSTA, declared unconstitutional and to stop its enforcement. FOSTA was signed into law on April 11, 2018, and anti-censorship groups and sex worker rights organizations have protested the law ever since. Woodhull Freedom Foundation, together with Human Rights Watch, The Internet Archive and two individuals filed suit in district court on June 28, 2018 to have the new law declared unconstitutional. In the current action, the plaintiffs argue that FOSTA is overbroad, vague, and a content-based restriction on speech which violates the First and Fifth Amendments. The motion also attacks the retroactive provisions of FOSTA as being an unconstitutional ex post facto law since they criminalize activities that occurred before the law was passed. The case was originally dismissed by the district court on standing grounds, but that decision was reversed by the D.C. Circuit Court in January 2020. The action was sent back to the district court to consider whether FOSTA is unconstitutional. No hearing date has yet been set on the motion. Woodhull is represented by Lawrence G. Walters of Walters Law Group, along with Bob Corn-Revere and Ronald London of Davis Wright Tremaine, as well as Daphne Keller of the Stanford Cyber Policy Center, and attorneys with the Electronic Frontier Foundation. All court filings can be found here.