On the AgapePress site: – Lawyers defending the smut industry are concerned about “Rule 2257” (18 U.S. Code 2257) which requires pornographers to provide physical evidence that porn performers are of age (18 years or older). The newly updated federal code effects video, still images, and Internet content produced since July 3, 1995.
Jeffrey Douglas of the Free Speech Coalition — a porn industry advocacy legal group — feels the law places an “undue burden” on the industry. The group has filed a lawsuit in a Denver court asserting the code violates the industry’s First Amendment rights.
Porn industry lawyer Paul Cambria [pictured] conducted a seminar earlier this year at the Sands Convention Center in Las Vegas instructing industry producers of the nuances of Rule 2257. Adult Video News reports that during the seminar Cambria explained that “performers in sexually explicit material need to provide government-approved forms of identification.” He also clarified the difference between the “primary” and “secondary” producers as it pertained to the newly updated code.
Comments by District Court Judge Walker D. Miller indicate that the thrust of the newly updated federal code is generally in compliance with the court’s opinion. Walker indicated that the industry coalition has yet to establish “a strong likelihood of success in their First Amendment claim” (Wall Street Journal>). It is generally understood that the Justice Department will begin to enforce Rule 2257 after years of stonewalling by the porn industry.
Dr. Judith Reisman, author of the upcoming Kinsey’s Attic: The Shocking Story of How One Man’s Sexual Pathology Changed the World (WND Books, November 2006), recalls that the U.S. Commission on Pornography recommended in 1986 that adult performers should be 21 years or older. However after several years of debate, Congress lowered the age to 18. Reisman believes that U.S. agencies “that have pledged and are paid to protect the health and welfare of the American public have failed us.” In making a case for a lower age of consent, pornographers can exploit and entice young girls who are desperate and in need of money so that they perform in adult venues, explains Reisman.
After Congress passed the consent and identification law in 1988, it was soon challenged by the porn industry. It has taken more than 17 years of legal challenges to get to the point where the law might finally show some teeth. According to the Wall Street Journal, “first-time violators can face prison sentences up to five years.”
U.S.C. 2257 derives from the Child Protection and Obscenity Enforcement Act of 1988.