Expanded Child Porn Law Is Struck Down

A federal judge has struck down an expansion of federal child pornography law that targets computer technology used to alter images to make them sexually explicit.

U.S. District Judge Gene Carter ruled that language in the 1996 law that defines child pornography as a visual depiction that “appears” to be a minor engaging in sex is unconstitutionally vague.

Before the law was enacted, prosecutors had to prove that children actually were used to make the pornographic images. It is a crime to possess such materials.

Carter, who issued his ruling last week, is the first judge in the country to attack the law’s constitutionality, legal observers said.