THE CRIMINALIZATION OF VIRTUAL CHILD PORNOGRAPHY - A CONSTITUTIONAL QUESTION

Child pornography is not constitutionally protected speech. In excepti ng such speech from protection, First Amendment jurisprudence has focu sed upon the harm inflicted upon its minor participants. Technological advances, however, now have obviated the need to use minors in the pr oduction of child pornography In response, Congress amended the defini tion of child pornography render federal criminal law so as to include materials that only appear to depict miners engaging in sexually expl icit conduct. This Article discusses the constitutionality of this new statutory definition. The author concludes that the provisions amendi ng the definition of illegal child pornography to include that which i s advertised as being real and that which is composed using identifiab le minors are constitutionally sound but that the inclusion of visual depictions that merely appear to be made with miners is constitutional ly suspect.