Michelle Langlois, whose brother is embroiled in a pending child custody case with his ex-wife, posted information and commentary about her brother's case to her Facebook account.  Tracey Martin, the ex-wife, filed a "domestic abuse" petition in Kent County Family Court against Langlois, claiming that her posts constituted "harassment" and a "mental assault" on Martin and her children. 

Family Court Judge Michael Forte, who presided over Martin's petition, issued an order restraining Langlois from "posting details about the children and the pending Family Court proceedings on the Internet."  After this order was issued, the Rhode Island ACLU intervened in the case on Langlois' behalf.   The ACLU filed a motion to dismiss, arguing that the court's order was an unconstitutional violation of Langlois' First Amendment rights, and that the Family Court had no jurisdiction to issue the order. 

On July 28, 2009, a day before the court was scheduled to hold a hearing on the motion, Martin voluntarily dismissed her complaint.  This had the effect of rescinding the court's initial restraining order.

Betty Ostergren sued the Attorney General of Virginia, Robert F. McDonnell, in his official capacity to challenge Virginia's Personal Information Privacy Act (PIPA), Va. Code Ann. § 591.443.2, as a violation of the First Amendment. Ostergren is a self-proclaimed advocate of privacy rights and has posted on her website, The Virginia Watchdog, examples of public documents containing social security numbers (SSNs) "to alert members of the public that their own personal information may be online somewhere."  (Compl. ¶ 7.)  A recent amendment to PIPA made it unlawful to "[i]ntentionally communicate an individual's social security number to the general public," Compl. ¶ 13, even if those SSNs are included in public documents.

After Ostergren's lawsuit was filed, counsel for the Attorney General of Virginia agreed that, if Ostergren maintained her website with the posted records, she would be violating the law and be subject to civil sanctions, including fines, investigative demands, and injunctions.  Ostergren sought a preliminary and permanent injunction prohibiting the enforcement of Virginia's PIPA as it applies to public records, and a declaration that the statute is unconstitutional as applied to public records.  (Compl. Requests for Relief ¶ A-B.)

In an August 22, 2008 opinion, a federal court in Virginia declared the Virginia PIPA unconstitutional as applied to Ostergren's website, but sought further briefing on the "propriety and scope of an injunction other than with respect to Ostegren's [sic] website as it exists."  (Op. 33.)  In a further order on June 2, 2009, the judge permanently enjoined the enforcement of the Virginia PIPA against "any iteration of [Ostergren's] website, now or in the future, that simply republishes publicly obtainable documents containing unredacted SSNs of Virginia legislators, Virginia Executive Officers or Clerks of Court as part as [sic] an effort to reform Virginia law and practice respecting publication of SSNs online."  (Order 1.)

On June 24, 2009, McDonnell appealed the decision to the Fourth Circuit.  Ostergren filed a cross-appeal on July 8, 2009.

On July 26, 2010, the  Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed in part and reversed in part. The court held that district court's grant of injunctive relief was an abuse of discretion. The court reversed the district court's decision and remanded the case for further proceedings.(Appeals Decision 45)

In 2000, several movie studios filed suit against Shawn Reimerdes, Roman Kazan, and Eric Corley after 2600.com published the DVD descrambling program DeCSS, which allowed users to circumvent anti-piracy protections allegedly in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Judge Kaplan of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York granted the plaintiffs' request for a permanent injunction, and the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed the decision. 

Near the outset of the lawsuit, the district court granted the plaintiffs' request for a preliminary injunction barring the defendants from posting DeCSS. Despite the order, Corley continued to engage in what he termed "electronic civil disobedience" by posting links on 2600.com to other sites that made DeCSS available. In the spring of 2000, Kazan and Reimerdes reached separate settlements with the plaintiffs in which they agreed to permanently refrain from posting DeCSS or linking to other sites that make DeCSS available. On April 10, 2000, 2600 Enterprises, Inc., was added as a defendant.

In district court, the defendants argued that their conduct did not violate the DMCA and that application of the DMCA to their activities violated the First Amendment.  The court rejected these contentions, reasoning that, while computer code is entitled to First Amendment protections, the DMCA restricts the non-expressive aspect of code -- the functional act of descrambling. The court held that the anti-trafficking provision of the DMCA, as applied to DeCSS code, is a content neutral regulation that furthers an important governmental interest and which does not unduly restrict expressive activities. The court also ruled that it could enjoin and impose liability for linking to websites publishing DeCSS so long as "those responsible for the link (a) know . . . that the offending material is on the linked-to site, (b) know that it is circumvention technology that may not be lawfully offered, and (c) create or maintain the link for the purpose of disseminating that technology." The court found that the defendants' conduct satified these criteria.

On May 30, 2001, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the lower court's decision.