Child Protection and Obscenity Enforcement Act - Legal Challenges

Legal Challenges

The initial iteration of 2257, first passed in 1988, mandated that producers keep records of the age and identity of performers and affix statements as to the location of the records to depictions. However, rather than penalties for noncompliance, the statute created a rebuttable presumption that the performer was a minor. Pub. L. 100-690. This version was struck down as unconstitutional in American Library Association v. Thornburgh on First Amendment grounds. 713 F. Supp. 469 (D.D.C. 1989) vacated as moot 956 F.2d 1178 (D.C. Cir. 1992).

After Thornburgh, Congress amended 2257 to impose direct criminal penalties for noncompliance with the record-keeping requirements. The same plaintiffs challenged the amended statute and accompanying regulations, but the new version was upheld by American Library Association v. Reno, 33 F.3d 78 (D.C. Cir. 1994).

In Sundance Association Inc. v. Reno, 139 F.3d 804 (10th Cir. 1998), the Tenth Circuit rejected the regulation's distinction between primary and secondary producers and entirely exempted from the record-keeping requirements those who merely distribute or those whose activity "does not involve hiring, contracting for, managing, or otherwise arranging for the participation of the performers depicted." 18 U.S.C. § 2257(h)(3).

In 2004, bound by the new PROTECT Act of 2003, the DOJ made sweeping changes to the 2257 Regulations to keep up with the proliferation of sexually explicit material found on the Internet. However, the "secondary producer" language not only remained in the regulations, but the DOJ created a much wider interpretation of who exactly was a "producer" of sexually explicit material and hence was required to comply with the new regulations. Anyone who touched explicit content in any way could arguably be considered a producer and be forced to maintain identification records of models along with a highly complex indexing system that many argue is impossible to implement. Under the current law, anyone who commercially operates a website or releases sexually explicit images of actual humans, regardless of the format (DVD, photos, books, etc.), is subject to penalties that include up to five years in federal prison per each infraction of the regulations. These regulations do not currently apply to explicit drawings (i.e., adult cartoons, hentai) as no actual humans are involved in such production. However, the exclusion for such sexually explicit drawings are being confronted with changes to these laws in the recently signed Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act addendum to the adult record-keeping requirements now codified at 18 U.S.C. § 2257A. At this time, though signed into law, the portions of § 2257A which include simulated sex are not enforceable.

In June 2005, the Free Speech Coalition (FSC) sued the Department of Justice to enjoin the regulations until they can be challenged in whole in court. In December 2006, a federal judge issued an injunction protecting secondary producers who are members of the Free Speech Coalition, but FBI inspections of these producers are still ongoing despite the injunction.

On March 30, 2007, District Court Judge Walker Miller issued an interim ruling, which dismissed some causes of action and allowed others from the initial 2005 case to proceed in light of the Walsh Act amendments. The actual trial phase has not yet begun.

On October 23, 2007, the 6th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruled the federal record-keeping statute unconstitutional, holding that the law is overly broad and facially invalid. The Sixth Circuit subsequently reheard the case en banc and issued an opinion on February 20, 2009, upholding the constitutionality of the record-keeping requirements, albeit with some dissents.