Problems with Congress’ Latest Anti-Porn Law

Congress’ latest anti-porn attack is codified in 18 U.S.C. 2257. a law which requires anyone producing or distributing pornography to engage in some costly and logistically-difficulty verifications and record-keeping. Kurt Opsahl at EFF explains how this law affects more than just commercial pornographers and, instead, has the potential to jeopardize significant quantities of socially-beneficial speech on the Internet.

The Free Speech Coalition is challenging this law and has reached a temporary settlement with the DOJ to defer enforcement of the law until a court can rule on its constitutionality. My hope is that this law, like so many of Congress’ other efforts to attack pornography, will bite the dust so that online publishers will not have to incur costly and potentially-futile reviews of anything that might be characterized as pornography.