A collection of anti-porn groups filed amicus briefs today before the U.S. Supreme Court arguing that the so-called "morphed child porn" is constitutional. Amicus brief from the National Law Center for Children and Families, the National Coalition for the Protection of Children and Families and the Family Research Council: http://www.politechbot.com/docs/nlc-frc.amicus.042301.html Morality in Media amicus brief: http://www.politechbot.com/docs/morality.amicus.042301.html Text of the 1996 morphed child porn law (also called the Child Pornography Prevention Act): http://www.politechbot.com/docs/cppa.text.html Background (see wired.com for coverage tomorrow): http://www.politechbot.com/cgi-bin/politech.cgi?name=morphed -Declan ********** From: "Bruce Taylor" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Declan McCullagh" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: FW: Our amici brief in Supreme Court in child porn case Date: Mon, 23 Apr 2001 18:18:12 -0400 Attached is the Brief Amici Curiae of the National Law Center for Children and Families, the National Coalition for the Protection of Children & Families, and the Family Research Council, in Support of Petitioners (the Attorney General, DOJ, et al.), which was filed with the Supreme Court today in Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition, the computerized child porn case involving 18 USC 2252A. The Ninth Circuit declared the statute unconstitutional as applied to computer generated images of child sex that aren't proven to include an actual minor person, but the First, Fourth, and Eleventh Circuits have upheld it as written and intended by Congress to apply to realistic, synthetic images that are or appear to be of real children. We argued that the statute is valid for three main reasons: (1) the new law only applies where the images are so realistic that they appear to be real, whether created in whole or part by polaroid or pentium; (2) that counterfeit child porn is a clear and present danger to children because such realistic images would have the same incitement effect on pedophiles to molest children and the same seductive effect on children to become victims and, therefore, the act of knowingly producing, distributing, or possessing such child sex images should not be recognized as a type of protected expression under the First Amendment; and (3) that such computer imaging technology is a threat to the effectiveness of the existing child exploitation statutes, since law enforcement cannot find all the children in the images and defendants would argue that there is an automatic reasonable doubt defense to prosecutions of even "real" child porn under the old statute because it cannot be assumed that what appears to be a picture of a child is actually of a real child when computers can create the same authentic-looking images. Amicus briefs were also filed in support of the law by Morality in Media, American Center for Law and Justice, and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. **********
