> Debating the Ban on Virtual Porn
> By Declan McCullagh
> 2:00 a.m. Apr. 24, 2001 PDT
> WASHINGTON -- A federal law that prohibits creating erotic images of
> minors should be upheld, antiporn groups told the U.S. Supreme Court
> on Monday.
This will be an interesting case.
The precedent for criminalizing non-obscene erotic depictions of minors is
the Ferber case. Ferber is very specific in stating that harm to an
actual identifiable child is the only basis for such criminalization being
Constitutional.
If the Supremes rule that erotic depictions of minors can be criminalized,
based solely on some unproven notion that they might be used to reduce
some hypothetical minor's inhibition level, then of course the door is
opened to criminalize lots of other speech that some people think makes
crime more likely too.
I would expect that the Supremes are going to uphold the law, and open
this can of worms, since they seem emboldened lately to operate free of
their usual pretense of Constitutional justification.
It's unfortunate that the majority of the Amicus briefs filed in this case
seem to be from conservative groups and quasi-governmental puppet
organizations.
If there was ever a time to draw a line in the sand against those using
child porn as an excuse to gut the First Amendment, this is it.
Don't think animation, drawings, and text won't follow next, based on the
argument that they can be used for "voodoo molestation" too.
First Amendment attorney Lawrence Stanley used to tell people who
suggested that material not featuring actual children might someday be
criminalized, to shut up before they discredited themselves, since harm to
an actual identifiable child was the foundation on which all child porn
laws were built, and this could not be changed without changing the
Constitution.
I trust Larry is eating his big bowl of crow right now.
--
Eric Michael Cordian 0+
O:.T:.O:. Mathematical Munitions Division
"Do What Thou Wilt Shall Be The Whole Of The Law"
