Virtual Child Porn Just as Illegal

When is child pornography that doesn’t involve children still child pornography?

In the United States, that would be now, under a new law that bans computer-generated images of children engaged in sexual acts.

Folded into the government spending bill that went into effect last week, the Child Pornography Prevention Act of 1996 makes possession of such material punishable by up to five years in prison--more for repeat offenders. Producers and distributors would face up to 30 years in jail.

The act also outlaws “any visual depiction, including any photograph, film, video image or picture . . . where . . . such visual depiction is, or appears to be, of a minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct.” And it amends laws restricting newsroom searches to allow such searches in cases where reporters are suspected of possessing child pornography.

Under previous laws, depictions of real children engaged in sexual conduct are illegal and not protected by the 1st Amendment.

But supporters of the new law said it was necessary to address new forms of high-tech pornography, such as digitally altered photographs or increasingly realistic-looking computer graphics that can be used to seduce children or to incite pedophiles.

“While federal law has failed to keep pace with technology, the purveyors of child pornography have been right online with it,” Sen. Orrin Hatch, the Utah Republican who introduced the act, said in a statement.

Civil libertarians immediately attacked the law as unconstitutional, warning that it could criminalize even movies that use adult actors to portray teenagers.

In previous cases, the Supreme Court has said that filmmakers could use adults in roles that depict minors to avoid illegally exploiting children, but the new law explicitly prohibits that. Computer graphics designers--and anyone who fiddles with such programs on their home PC--are also at new risk, critics said.

“They’re creating a thought crime,” said Daniel E. Katz, legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union. “They’re saying, ‘We believe what you created on your computer appears to be a minor and we don’t approve of that, therefore we’re going to prosecute you.’ If you use your computer to generate a work of art that has some nudes in it, you better put gray hair on your nudes.”