New Law

In today’s society, people are debating if “virtual” child pornography should be banned. Most people believe that it should, while others believe that it should not be banned at all. Since the Supreme Court decided that “virtual” child pornography is legal, most people have felt that they have made a horrible mistake. By check many articles on this topic, I have decided to use two fairly good articles, written by two well-known editors, Wendy Kaminer, editor at The Atlantic Monthly, and Paul Rodriguez, editor of Insight on the News. Even though I agree that “virtual” child pornography should be banned, Kaminer presented a stronger argument that “virtual” child pornography should not be banned.

On January 11, 1999 both sides filed briefs to argue the constitutionality of the law. (ACLU) Congress's intention in enacting COPA was to protect minor children from access to free erotic "teaser" pictures available at commercial pornography sites on the World Wide Web. In order to accomplish this governmental interest, the law specifically requires commercial pornography sellers to take a credit card or adult PIN or access number in order to insure that visiting children or teenagers will not be able to see graphic sex pictures on the front pages of commercial pornography WWW. sites. COPA provides punishment of up to six months in jail and a $50,000 fine for each violation.

The question of the legality of child pornography first appeared in 1982, in the case of New York vs. Ferber. It was decided that the creation, promotion and distribution of child pornography was illegal. Also, it is illegal to falsely persuade children into performing sexual acts. There are some images still that are protected by the First Amendment that could still be considered child pornography, depending on their use. For instance, images of child genitalia are legal in medical books, but if these same images are put on an adult website, the courts would most likely rule them illegal (AdultWebLaw, 2002).

Legislative Proposal for New Indecency Language in Telecom Bill I. Summary Although the October 16, 1995 legislative proposal purports to regulate “ computer pornography”, the proposal contains fatal flaws which render the proposal at best counterproductive and at worst devastating to on-line communications. First, it prohibits, but fails to define, “indecent” speech to minors -- a dangerously vague, medium-specific, and, after decades of litigation, still undefined concept, which may include mere profanity. This may tie up successful prosecution of the law in courts for years to come, while courts wrestle to divine a constitutional definition of “indecent” -- and while companies are left with uncertain liability. Second, the October 16 proposal may actually hold systems liable for communications over which they have no specific knowledge or control.

Virtual Child Pornography Should be Legal This nation has several issues over which most people's minds freeze up, with the disastrous drug war probably leading the list. I don't share a feeling of squeamishness and horror when it comes to drugs: What I don't want, I don't take, it's that simple. And I don't spend time fretting that my neighbors might be toking, or snorting, in the privacy of their homes. Child pornography is something else; it pushes all kinds of emotional hot-buttons in me. Certainly I would agree with the majority that anyone who exploits children in a sexual manner is committing a serious offense, deserving of harsh punishment.

Imagine, you have decided to frolic through the realm of video games when all of the sudden you are shooting up every living piece of matter you spot. Games like this recently caused California to try and warrant a law that would have made it contraband to sell violent video games to underage minors without the consent of their parents. When all of a sudden, the Supreme Court swooped from out of no where like fruit bat, after that, the court decided to attempt to reason and declare if it is okay for underage minors to obtain violent video games. After a long and rational debate the supreme by a 7-2 majority declared it unconstitutional to not permit the selling of video games to kids even without parent’s permission. Although the court said it is protected by the First Amendment.

After the horrific incident on September 9, 2001, the Patriot Act was passed to help “reduce” terrorist attacks, but they have only restricted us from our rights and feeling free. Regardless of whether we have anything to hide, we deserve to feel comfortable in our own homes. They can even hack into our TVs and cameras! This is unacceptable! We have been dealing with the violation of our privacy due the Patriot Act, but this act led to the abuse of governments’ power, violation of our natural rights, and the government has been going through our texts, internet history, social media, which is breaching into the laws of the constitution.

The court soon declared that restricting the sale of video games to minors was unconstitutional under the First Amendment. The games were considered to be protected as they represent the Freedom of Speech. What they said they could do was require parents to supervise their children while they play the mature rated games.

They say that the Internet has to be censored because it has material, especially pornography, which can and will be offensive to others. But not everybody agrees with that. The censorship of the Internet is still a very controversial issue, and people all over the world debate whether or not this is a case against free speech. While Morgan states that by censoring the Internet we’ll be protecting ourselves and our children, Mr. Jeffrey Pollock, a Republican from Oregon who used to think the same, recently changed his mind when he found out that his own site had been blocked by an Internet filter. After the incident, Mr. Pollock expressed that “To mandate the federal government to legislate morality, I find abhorrent”(Schwartz).

The biggest failure of responsibility lies with federal and state prosecutors who turn a blind eye to obscenity on the Internet. If obscenity laws were being vigorously enforced, the last thing hardcore pornographers would want to do is draw attention to their vile wares by engaging in reckless marketing methods. If vigorously enforced, there would also be much less pornography to accidentally stumble across. But prosecutors aren't the only ones at fault. Some ISPs provide parents with an option to filter out the pornography, but they refuse to block access to even illegal pornography unless a parent requests filtering.