Supreme Court strikes down ban on virtual child pornography

Associated Press ^ | 4-16-02

[Oldeconomybuyer]

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Supreme Court struck down a congressional ban on virtual child pornography Tuesday, ruling that the First Amendment protects pornography or other sexual images that only appear to depict real children engaged in sex.

The 6-3 ruling is a victory for both pornographers and legitimate artists such as moviemakers, who argued that a broad ban on simulated child sex could make it a crime to depict a sex scene like those in the recent movies "Traffic" or "Lolita."

[rwfromkansas]

You use this liberal line all the time on other issues like church and state......and you are conservative HOW?

[rwfromkansas]

And Libertarians claim they are returning to the Constitution, yet idiots like that guy show they really aren't with attitudes like "we should not care what the founders think per se."

[Diddle E. Squat]

I'm sure the USSC won't be able to see the connection to this story either.

[Bonaparte]

Thanks for posting the actual decision, Timesink. In affirming the plaintiffs, the critical distinction followed by the court is that the images in question do no direct harm to any actual children. While I'm as ambivalent about this decision as many others (including some of the justices), I can see a silver lining here. By extension of the legal principles and precedents cited, the "zero tolerance" prohibition on children bringing toy guns to school, drawing gun images or playing "cops and robbers" in the schoolyard may be overturned in the future. It is a well-established principle, enshrined in the Constitution and upheld by the courts from time to time, that children do indeed have a right to freedom of expression just as adults do.

[Calico Cat]

The concern I have with this issue is the problem of legitimization: if virtual child porn is seen as OK, the behavior it displays will also be perceived as being OK. This is the 'legitimization' of activity that some pedophiles are looking for: this is legal, so what's so wrong with what I want to do? Also, the Justice Department has stated that it has a hard enough time tracking down kids it sees in 'real' child pornography; now that they'll have to sort through 'virtual' child porn as well, how much MORE difficult will their job become? If you can't tell the difference between the 'real' stuff and the 'virtual' crap, how do you know if a crime has been committed? The Supreme Court has made a terrifying mistake on this one, I'm afraid.

[proxy_user]

I was talking about the actual file, not what the software does when it reads it and converts it to pixels on the screen.

Any computer file, no matter what its type, is just a series of ones and zeros, arranged in a particular order.

[BikerNYC]

Despite the additional problems with prosecuting real child porn, if a child pornographer can achieve his economic goal and a viewer be sufficiently satisfied by the fake stuff so that real children are not being used to make real porn, that, alone, is a worthwhile result of this decision.

[Phantom Lord]

I believe that the production of virtual images (which is what we are talking about) is a protected activity under the 1st amendment. Just as much as Maplethorpes 'art' is.

[Redcloak]

...this deals with kids involved in simulated sex.

Not quite. This deals with simulated kids involved in simulated sex. Thus far, virtual plaintiffs have no standing in court, Star Trek holodeck characters not withstanding.

[Aquinasfan]

This decision is not only a perverse interpretation of the First Amendment, it's truly satanic.

It's time the court changed its name to the Satanic Court.

[Bonaparte]

Just for the sake of argument, let's suppose that somebody rents a billboard and on this billboard places a virtual but very lifelike image of "President Bush" getting his brains blown out by a "trigger man." Is there any substantial legal difference between this and the posting of publicly accessible "virtual" images of illegal acts perpetrated against "virtual" children? And, if so, why the distinction?

[aomagrat]

Doesn't anybody f'n knock?

[donh]

the same reason millions of men read Playboy and Penthouse without turning into rapists. But I'm not aware of any legitimate studies on the issue.)

For the very good reason that you can't do scientific studies in which you try to optimize the conditions of your control or investigation group to commit crimes.

However, the more general question: "does pornography induce sex crimes" has been about as definitively answered as it is possible for science under courtroom levels of scrutiny to answer, by the Nixon administration's commission, heavily staffed by rabid anti-porn scientists and commissioners, no less.

And the short answer is that there is zero (0) scientifically detectable correlation between sex crimes of any sort, and pornography.

Pornography does not invent anti-soclal thoughts in men, men seek out pornography, at great inconvenience and potential embarassment that appeals to their tastes. Men are sexually anti-social to start with. Do you think there was no rape or child abuse before pornography? Do you think bold innovations in the pornography market open up new criminal venues? The notion is absurd. Men can easily have a deep streak of evil in them when it comes to sex, and this is the engine that drives the pornography market. The horse pulls the cart; the cart does not push the horse.

[Uncle Fud]

If you insult the Creator who gives you the unalienable right to be free by using your 'freedoms' in a manner that utterly offends Him, then your laws will slowly take a form that cuts off such 'freedoms'.

This is an excellent point, but perhaps not the one you intended.

The point being that if you want to change the culture, you have to CHANGE THE CULTURE. Trying to reverse a cultural decline by passing more and more laws is useless. Further, it fosters the idea that legislation is the way to cure all society's ills, a poisonous concept to a Free Republic.

[Condorman]

Slashdot has a similar discussion in progress. There are some interesting posts on the thread-- this one for example.

[Uncle Fud]

Political and governmental solutions can no longer handle the rot that is enveloping this society.

Egg, you will have taken a giant step on the day you realize that they never could, and never did.

[GSWarrior]

Nobody gets hurt - there is no victim.

The victim is the user.

[general_re]

Slashdot has a very strong libertarian streak on things like this - I don't even have to click the link to know which way the wind is blowing over there ;)

[in_troth]

You can't have the government telling you how you can arrange pixels in a picture. That's the bottom line. It's a victory for the sickos and weirdos, but it's still the right decision, which is confusing. yeah, but didn't they recently re-jail a pedophile who was out on parole, because they found that he had been drawing pics of child porn scenarios? seems to me this ruling might invalidate that arrest (cuz while it's probably not a bad idea to keep him locked up, it does have a creepy 'thought police' aspect to it.)

[Diddle E. Squat]

IMHO, this decision is huge, not so much legally, but in societal impact(should it get widespread coverage in the media). It has the potential to mute the abortion argument of the Democrats. The key is making sure this decison receives the most publicity possible, so that every person is aware of it.

Almost everyone but a few perverts or detached legalists are bothered inside by it, irregardless of whatever logical justifying argument can be presented. It is clearly an issue where emotion and common morality will trump, like it or not. The makeup of the 6-3 decision is a bit tricky, but whichever party is able to frame a simple concluding argument around this decision has the potential to use it quite effectively this Fall. If the GOP is forced to defend the decision, it will cost them a few percentage points(in an election that barring a major event will probably congeal around the even split we have right now, i.e. very close in many places), IRREGARDLESS OF HOW STRONG AND VALID THE LEGAL DEFENSE IS.

I see tremendous opportunity for the GOP however. Define the issue, beginning today, with "How far is too far?" Even for much of the libertine moderate moral relativists, i.e. the Clinton swing voters of the '90's, this decision haunts as another blow(like 9/11, but mored direct) that maybe certain moral limits are indeed necessary at some point.

At the least, the GOP can invoke this decision whenever the Leahy and Daschle's try to Bork judicial nominees, and make the USSC and abortion a major theme of the Fall elections. There major scare tactic has been that 'Ashcroft extremists' want to impose a moral book-burning and theocracy. This decision can be used to turn the tables on them, asking where they would draw the line, since Ginsburg, Breyer, Stevens, and Souter were in the majority. A chance to shift the debate from one of draconian solutions to reasonable limits, while robbing the Dems of the seemingly moderate positioning. Any good debater should be able to paint the Dems as not only extreme on this issue, but illustrate the pattern leading to this decision as a natural result of their relativistic foundation. An unsustainable denial of needed societal limits.

Bottom line, which do soccer moms value more: defending access to abortion(which they might need only a few times in their lives) from a perceived threat, or protecting their children from a threat that their children could possible encounter on a near daily basis?. My money bets heavily on the latter.