The U.S. Supreme Court upheld criminal penalties Monday for the promotion of child pornography, ignoring arguments that the law could apply to mainstream movies that depict adolescent sex, classic literature or even harmless e-mails that describe pictures of grandchildren.

The ruling upheld part of a 2003 law that additionally prohibits possession of child porn. It replaced an earlier law against child pornography that the court struck down as unconstitutional.

The law sets a five-year mandatory prison term for promoting or pandering child porn and does not require that someone possess child pornography. Opponents have said that could prepare the law apply to movies such as Titanic or Traffic, which depict adolescent sex. Both movies won “best picture” Academy Awards, Titanic in 1997 and Traffic in 2000.

Justice Antonin Scalia, in his opinion for the court, said the law does not deal with movie sex. There is no “possibility that virtual child pornography or sex within youthful-looking adult actors

might be covered by the term ’simulated sexual intercourse,’” Scalia said.

Likewise, Scalia said, free speech protections in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution do not apply to “offers to supply or requests to obtain child pornography.”

Justice David Souter, joined by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, dissented. Souter said promotion of images that are not real children engaging in pornography still could be the basis for prosecution under the law. Possession of those images, on the other hand, might not be prosecuted, Souter said.

“I believe that maintaining the First Amendment protection of expression we have previously held to cover fake child pornography requires a limit to the law’s criminalization of pandering proposals,” Souter said.

The 11th U.S. Circuit of Appeals struck down the provision. The Atlanta-based court said it makes a crime out of merely talking about illegal images or possessing harmless materials that someone else might…

Original post by Top Tech News