In June 2003, the Supreme Court declared high-tech censorship constitutional.2 Congress passed the Children's Internet Protection Act, or CIPA, in 1999.The law requires all publicly funded libraries to electronically regulate the access of patrons to the World Wide Web.The "filtering software" is far from perfect.It partly fails in its primary aim: shielding underage eyes from pornography.Worse, the software censors massive quantities of legitimate information from children and adults alike.3 The Supreme Court's 6-3 vote in United States v.American Library Association obscures an ominous detail.Only four justices bothered to acknowledge that censoring public access to cyberspace is a First Amendment issue.Four justices outright denied it.They called the legislation a mere matter of purse strings, declaring that Congress can dictate rules to institutions that take federal funds.The Court's ninth justice, Kennedy, made vague noises of sympathy for "constitutionally protected Internet material" but voted to uphold the law.As Kennedy loitered on the fence, the First Amendment slipped through its pickets.4 There are five things wrong with the US v. ALA decision.The purse-strings argument is almost as faulty as the filtering technology; and the Court misconceives censorship, federalism, and what libraries are for.As a scholar of law and politics, but especially as a former librarian, I criticize from experience.Perhaps these credentials add weight to the arguments to come.The wonder of the Web, though, is that I don't have to have such credentials to be heard.