NEW YORK LAW SCHOOL -- Oct 24 -- In Connection Distributing Co. V. Keisler the courts found that an attempt by Congress to crack down on child porn by requiring producers of sexually-explicit images maintain detailed proof-of-age records open to government inspection violates the First Amendment. The court felt the law overstepped its boundaries for it's major purpose of curtailing child porn. One judge focused on how the law was written, said it would penalize people making movies in their home for personal use. A second judge argued that the statute was even unconstitutional as applied to the particular plaintiffs in this case, who included several defendants who wished to publish swinger ads in the magazine illustrated with sexually-explicit pictures but did not want to sacrifice their anonymity. The third judge, while agreeing that the statute as written is unconstitutional, argued that the court should adopt a narrowing interpretation to avoid unconstitutional applications and preserve those portions that might be constitutional on their own.
The full article was originally published at NY Law School blog, but is no longer available.
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