NCJ Number
169414
Journal
Harvard Journal on Legislation Volume: 34 Issue: 2 Dated: special issue (Summer 1997) Pages: 439-472
Date Published
1997
Length
34 pages
Annotation
Child pornography is not a constitutionally protected form of speech, based on first amendment jurisprudence that emphasizes the associated harm to minor participants, but technological advances may obviate the need to use minors in the production of child pornography.
Abstract
In response to new technologies, Congress has amended the definition of child pornography under the Child Protection and Obscenity Enforcement Act of 1988 to include materials that only appear to depict minors engaging in sexually explicit conduct. The act also makes it unlawful to use a computer to transport, distribute, or receive child pornography and imposes recordkeeping and disclosure requirements on producers of certain sexually explicit materials. Provisions of the act making virtual child pornography advertised as real and virtual child pornography made with identifiable minors both categories of unprotected speech will probably survive strict scrutiny review because the state will argue in suppressing even visual depictions that only appear to be of a minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct that such depictions will arouse pedophiles to abuse children, will be used like adult pornography to seduce children, and will debase society through the treatment of children as sex objects. Nonetheless, the author notes the inclusion of visual depictions that merely appear to be made with minors is constitutionally suspect. 203 footnotes