The Supreme Court and Virtual Child Pornography On January 22, 2001, the United States Supreme Court granted the government's petition for review on the question of the constitutionality of the Child Pornography Prevention Act (CPPA) of 1996) in which Congress sought to modernize federal legislation by strengthening its ability to combat child pornography in the computer age. (Owner) The CPPA classifies an image that “appears to be” or “conveys the impression” of a minor engaging in sexually explicit acts as “virtual” child pornography. Such images include a photograph of a real child that can be scanned, replicated and manipulated by computer to create a sexual photo, or a completely fake child that can be generated solely from computer graphics. By enacting this law, Congress recognized a loophole in child pornography law, as technological improvements have made it possible for child pornographers to use computers to "morph" or alter innocent images of real children to create a composite image showing them in a sexually explicit way. poses. With this in mind, Congress intended to (1) ban computer-generated images that are "virtually indistinguishable" from those of real children, (2) protect the privacy of real children whose innocuous images are altered to create sexually explicit images, and ( 3) aimed at depriving perpetrators of child sexual abuse of a "criminal tool" often used to facilitate the sexual abuse of minors. (Child) As reported in the July 2000 Obscenity Law Bulletin, the Ninth Circuit in Free Speech Coalition v. Reno, 198 F.3d 1083 (9th Cir. 1999), struck down the CPPA as a content-based restriction on protected speech not in furtherance of any compelling governmental interest because the prohibited images do not involve actual children. According to that Court, "Because the 1996 Act attempts to criminalize renegade mental impulses, manifested in illicit creative acts, we determine that censorship through the enactment of criminal laws intended to control an evil idea cannot satisfy the constitutional requirements of the First Amendment." This ruling divides with other circuits: United States v. Hilton, 167 F.3d 61 (1st Cir. 1999) ("The government's interest in addressing these forms of child pornography is no less powerful than in cases where an actual child is used and abused during the production process. We will not second-guess Congress' decision to address the social ills posed by various types of virtual child pornography."); United States v. Acheson, 195 F.3d 645 (11th Cir. 1999) ("Despite the risk of suppressing protected expression, Congress and the States are entitled to greater leeway in regulating pornographic depictions of children. .) In March 2000, in United States v. Pearl, the United States District Court for the District of Utah, Northern Division, upheld the CPPA against vagueness and excessive challenges. The Court rejected the free speech position and instead aligned himself with Hilton and Acheson who found the statute's language "sufficiently targeted to advance the government's compelling interest in preventing harm to real children, based on proven congressional findings that virtual pornography was being used to seduce real children into sexual activities, and therefore complies with guarantees of free speech." WORKS CITED: Prevention of Child Pornography Act. http://www.politechbot.com/docs/cppa.text.html Holder v. Free Speech Coalition, Docket No. 00 -795 http://www.ballononecommerce.com/ballononecommerce/updates/ch46upd. html