'Virtual' Child Porn Act Ruled Unconstitutional

wiredog writes "The United States Supreme Court, in a 6-3 ruling, has found the Child Pornography Prevention Act to be unconstitutionally vague and far-reaching." You might read the Act. There were a number of cases challenging the constitutionality of the Act; I believe three Appeals courts eventually upheld it, and one ruled it unconstitutional, guaranteeing that the Supreme Court would take one of the challenges for review. A summary of the decision is available, and see that pages for links to the majority opinion and dissenting opinions.

Comments

Good Ruling ?

[stoolpigeon]

Child pornography is bad.

Child molesters are bad (and people who make child pornography are by definition child molesters)

I am thinking that creating 'imitation' child pornography is not any better. Somewhat like robbing a store with a fake gun.

I wont garner a lot of support on this as I can already here replies to the above but people who like to look at child pornography become people who want to act out on what they have been taking in.

Fortunately here in AZ there are a couple situations where it is legal to shoot someone w/out them directly putting you in harms way. One of them is to stop the rape of a child.

Out to the range this week-end to work on my marksmanship I guess.

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Mandatory DMCA comparison...

[Rogerborg]

• The argument that virtual child pornography whets pedophiles' appetites and encourages them to engage in illegal conduct is unavailing because the mere tendency of speech to encourage unlawful acts is not a sufficient reason for banning it

So, depictions of kiddie porn are protected speech and watching them doesn't make you a paedophile, but if you tell someone where to get DeCSS, then that proves that you're both evil copyright thieves.

Nice to know we've got our priorities straight.

The way I read the judgement...

[SkyLeach]

I think it's BS. I don't care if it's a 6yr old girl or a 30,000,000 verticies 3DS Max mesh: if it's lewdly pornographic it should be banned.

The reason, at least to me, is simple. We have enough psychos, rapists and stalkers who get worse because of pornography without adding to the problem 10x over by letting them get their hands on "virtual" children. Read this for more info.

Twisted logic

[reidman]

Its pretty sad to see how a few of you guys here are applying a logical progression to a situation where it doesn't belong. I know a lot of you are engineers/nerds/geeks/whatever. I am too. Logic is important for some of the work we do. But its truly sad when you see someone misusing a logical progression to explain something away, to divide it into digestible steps which eventually lead to a huge perversion of the situation at hand. This is what I'm talking about (you'll notice that the root of the problem lies in the very first step): "People who want kiddie porn can't possibly ever be cured of this desire. "Therefore they must have kiddie porn. "Fake kiddie porn is not as bad as kiddie porn. because no real kids were used. "Fake kiddie porn is therefore better than the real stuff. "Fake kiddie porn, in fact, is ART, if you really think about it. "Due to its higher acceptability, giving fake kiddie porn to the addicts is thus better than giving them the real stuff. "Kiddie porn makes a bad situation better. "Therefore, fake kiddie porn is alright, and even necessary." Can't you step back and hear what you're saying? This is disgusting. Do I seriously need to explain WHY there is a problem with the idea that fake kiddie porn is alright or acceptable? You who talk like this are putting on logical blinders to the real world; politics, logic, and constitutionality roar through your mind, but you never stop for a moment to look straight at the facts and realize how truly heinous it is to defend the constitutionality of having virtual kiddie porn. Stop playing political mind games and come back to reality! There's a problem when you use step by step problem-solving algorithms to explain away the problems associated with social/emotional things like child pornography. A few of you guys need to get your heads out of your politically/logically overcharged butts and look at what you're actually saying. Before you reply to flame me, read this and see if this actually applies to you or not.

Yeah so you are a rapist

[HanzoSan]

I'm sure you've looked at porn, and you want to have sex with women more now and you cant control yourself anymore

So how many women have you raped? Answer my question.