117 STAT. 676
PUBLIC LAW 108–21—APR. 30, 2003 (1) IN GENERAL.—Section 991(a) of title 28, United States Code, is amended by striking ‘‘At least three’’ and inserting ‘‘Not more than 3’’. (2) APPLICABILITY.—The amendment made under paragraph (1) shall not apply to any person who is serving, or who has been nominated to serve, as a member of the Sentencing Commission on the date of enactment of this Act.
28 USC 991 note.
TITLE V—OBSCENITY AND PORNOGRAPHY Subtitle A—Child Obscenity and Pornography Prevention 18 USC 2251 note.
VerDate 11-MAY-2000
13:45 Aug 26, 2004
SEC. 501. FINDINGS.
Congress finds the following: (1) Obscenity and child pornography are not entitled to protection under the First Amendment under Miller v. California, 413 U.S. 15 (1973) (obscenity), or New York v. Ferber, 458 U.S. 747 (1982) (child pornography) and thus may be prohibited. (2) The Government has a compelling state interest in protecting children from those who sexually exploit them, including both child molesters and child pornographers. ‘‘The prevention of sexual exploitation and abuse of children constitutes a government objective of surpassing importance,’’ New York v. Ferber, 458 U.S. 747, 757 (1982), and this interest extends to stamping out the vice of child pornography at all levels in the distribution chain. Osborne v. Ohio, 495 U.S. 103, 110 (1990). (3) The Government thus has a compelling interest in ensuring that the criminal prohibitions against child pornography remain enforceable and effective. ‘‘The most expeditious if not the only practical method of law enforcement may be to dry up the market for this material by imposing severe criminal penalties on persons selling, advertising, or otherwise promoting the product.’’ Ferber, 458 U.S. at 760. (4) In 1982, when the Supreme Court decided Ferber, the technology did not exist to— (A) computer generate depictions of children that are indistinguishable from depictions of real children; (B) use parts of images of real children to create a composite image that is unidentifiable as a particular child and in a way that prevents even an expert from concluding that parts of images of real children were used; or (C) disguise pictures of real children being abused by making the image look computer-generated. (5) Evidence submitted to the Congress, including from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, demonstrates that technology already exists to disguise depictions of real children to make them unidentifiable and to make depictions of real children appear computer-generated. The technology will soon exist, if it does not already, to computer generate realistic images of children.
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