This week's In the News focuses on the disputed Child Online Protection Act (COPA). The eight resources discussed provide news, commentary, analysis, and primary material. Last Wednesday in a US District Court in Philadelphia, proceedings began in a hearing that will determine the future of the controversial COPA. Passed by Congress and signed into law by President Clinton last October as part of an omnibus budget bill that allocated $500 billion for fiscal 1999, COPA requires commercial Web publishers to verify the age of Internet users who wish to access material deemed to be "harmful to minors." However, COPA has not yet taken effect because it has been suspended since last November under a preliminary injunction that questions the law's constitutionality in regard to the First Amendment. The current hearing is to resolve whether or not the injunction will be extended. The challenge to COPA, which claims a violation of free speech and personal privacy rights, was filed jointly by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), and the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) on behalf of seventeen groups and businesses, including booksellers, news media, medical professionals, and gay rights organizations. In defense of the law, the US Department of Justice asserts that COPA is necessary to protect children from mature online content that lacks "serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value." If the injunction is not upheld by the court, COPA will go into effect February 1 and transgressors of the law could receive up to six months in jail and a $50,000 fine for each day of violation, in addition to civil penalties. COPA is the second significant attempt made by Congress to legislate the protection of children in cyberspace. In June 1997, the US Supreme Court overturned the online censorship provisions of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 (CDA). The constitutionality of COPA, which has been dubbed CDA II, ultimately may be decided in the Supreme Court as well.