October 25, 2007

Porn Record-Keeping Law Ruled Unconstitutional

A federal appeals court has struck down a 1988 law requiring adult entertainment producers to keep records on their models and performers, complicating the Justice Department's anti-child porn efforts, and diminishing a legal cloud hovering over websites hosting amateur, user-produced porn.

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"This statute not only regulates a person's right to take sexually explicit photographs, but it also requires that person to identify him or herself as the photographer as well as identify the individual depicted," wrote Judge Cornelia Kennedy in the majority opinion of the three-judge panel. "While the individual depicted is shown in the photograph, that person still has a First Amendment right to not provide his or her name and therefore retain a certain level of anonymity."

The Justice Department argued that regulating all photographs of sexually explicit conduct was justified by its legitimate interest in "eradicating" child pornography.

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The statute requires record keeping when "sexually explicit conduct" is depicted. Such conduct is defined to include images of "sexual intercourse, including genital-genital, oral-genital or oral-anal, whether between persons of the same or opposite sex." Also included are images of bestiality, masturbation, sadistic or masochistic abuse and "lascivious exhibition of the genitals or pubic area of any person."

Under the law, the producer of such images must inspect an individual's government-issued photo I.D., and keep a copy, along with records of where the images were published, including any websites.


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