US Attorney General, John Ashcroft vs.
Attorney General John Ashcroft announced more than 100 arrests on Aug. 8 related to a Texas-based Internet child pornography ring. Postal inspectors say the two-year investigation that preceded the arrests may yield 30,000 more cases involving those who received child pornography. Part of the Child Pornography Prevention Act (CPPA) of 1996, is constitutionally suspect in the eyes of some First Amendment lawyers, and faces a significant test before the U.S. Supreme Court this fall. The courts say the federal law is a shift in the way Congress views the First Amendment and child pornography. In addition to addressing pornography involving real children, it bars the production, possession or distribution of fake child porn. It outlaws crude and obscene material with adults playing minors, adults who could pass as underage and virtual computer-generated images that seem to portray minors. .
In 1999, 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a trial court ruling that held the "virtual pornography" section of the law to be constitutional. Free Speech Coalition v. Reno. The government has since appealed that ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court. A lawyer for the Free Speech Coalition says the CPPA, and state laws like that used in Ohio in July to convict a man for fictional depiction of child sex abuse in his diary, endanger free speech. .
First Amendment experts say that if the act is kept, other laws could be expanded to punish fake portrayals of other illegal behavior, under the reasoning that such portrayals result in crime. The law defines child pornography as a visual depiction that "appears to be a minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct." This statement was found to be vague in its 2-1 ruling in Free Speech Coalition. The law provides for up to 15 years in prison for the possession of more than three images of child pornography, and 30 years for defendants with previous child-porn or sex-abuse convictions.
