Declan writes:
Take an erotic photo of an adult and alter it in Photoshop to look as though he was a minor. Would you be breaking the law? A federal judge in San Francisco ruled yesterday you would be, rejecting a court challenge to a 1996 law banning computer-generated erotic images that "appear" to be of children.
1930's: "Actung Juden!" 1950's: "Actung Communists!" 1990's: "Actung Photoshop Users!" Of course this is just another example of how quickly the Constitution can be made to evaporate when the Mantra "Society's Overwhelming Interests" is recited in the courtroom. Often over silly thought-control type issues like this one. It won't be long before "Society's Overwhelming Interest" to Protect the Little Children(tm) bans not only simulated visual material, but any juxtiposition of English words which might suggest that anyone under the age of 18 in the past, present, or future, has had even the slightest inkling of a sexual thought or feeling. Said laws of course being absolutely necessary to prevent bad ideas from being used by clever predators to break down innocence and purity and reduce all children to sexually aroused putty in the hands of professional sex criminals. I wonder exactly how far child sex hysteria will be permitted to continue, before rational people begin giggling loudly in the auditorium. -- Mike Duvos $ PGP 2.6 Public Key available $ enoch@zipcon.com $ via Finger $ {Free Cypherpunk Political Prisoner Jim Bell}