US court ends ban on virtual child porn

The United States Supreme Court yesterday struck down a ban on computer-generated images that appear to show children engaged in sex. The decision will have global ramifications on the use of internet images of children supposedly involved in sex acts.

The overturning of the ban was hailed as a victory by pornographers. They had appealed against a 1996 law prohibiting the use of images in which photographs are manipulated to make it appear that minors are having sex.

The supreme court decision, by a majority of six to three, opens the door internationally for the latest computer techniques to be used to create child pornography.

The depiction of real children engaged in sexually explicit acts remains illegal.

Although the appeal against the ban was brought by publishers, including pornographers, under the auspices of the Free Speech Coalition, the law had also caused concern to mainstream film-makers, who claimed that it could have been used against films such as Lolita and Traffic.

The court ruled that the first amendment right to free speech protected these kinds of pornography and sexual images, indicating that the 1996 law was too vague in its definitions and unclear in its scope. The law had banned sexually explicit material in which any participant "appear(s) to be a minor" or that was advertised in a way that "conveys the impression" that a minor was involved.

"The first amendment requires a more precise restriction," said Justice Anthony M Kennedy in the judgment he wrote on behalf of himself and four other justices.

In his dissenting opinion, Chief Justice William Rehnquist wrote: "The aim of ensuring the enforceability of our nation's child pornography laws is a compelling one. The [law] is targeted to this aim by extending the definition of child pornography to reach computer-generated images that are virtually indistinguishable from real children engaged in sexually explicit conduct."

The law was passed after sexual images of children proliferated on the internet, on the grounds that such images encourage paedophilia.

The Free Speech Coalition declared its opposition to child pornography in which real children are involved, but argued that the existing law was too broad.

The retention of the law had been backed by the National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children and representatives of both the Clinton administration, under which it was introduced, and the current US administration.