At 2:40 PM 9/14/95, Rev. Ben wrote:

...

The bill would expand the definition of child pornography to include any photograph, film, videotape or computer image produced by any means, including electronically by computer, if it depicts or appears to depict a minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct.

If I'm reading this correctly, if I Photoshop a kids face onto the body of the latest Playboy centerfold, I'm in violation of this proposed law?

I believe there have already been prosecutions along these lines. For example, do you think a _comic book_ with child porn themes ("explicit" art, situations) would not be prosecuted as child porn? I strongly suspect that a _painting_ of a 7-year-old girl engaged in a sex act would result in a prosecution. Keith Henson, amongst others, has long suggested that a good test case will be the _morphing_ of legal images to make them look like child porn. This is not a legal list--for that there are several other fora/forums--but it is clear that the child porn laws are not necessarily aimed at the protection of specific minor children from "exploitation," as the laws apply to porn imported from countries where the age of consent is lower, apply to images of dead children (who can no longer be exploited by the images), and to "created" images of children (morphing, cut-and-paste, paintings, etc.) The laws are clearly aimed at both extinguishing the _market_ for child pornography and the _thoughts_ themselves, not at the protection of specific children. (Advocates will argue that by suppressing the production of child porn markets, future children may be protected....) The main Cypherpunks theme I can find here is this: anonymous remailers and Web proxies will be used to access offshore (or indeterminately located) sites. The Feds will likely come down very hard on any remailers or proxies found to be "trafficking" in such materials. I'm going to post to this list a recent post I made to the Cyberia list about whether pointers are the same as transfers. --Tim May ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay@got.net 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Higher Power: 2^756839 | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders are just speed bumps on the information superhighway."