** LEGAL NEWS ** Important New Title 18 Porn Law Changes
 

The House and Senate sent Bill S 151 for the President's siganture yesterday. The White House has stated President Bush will sign it. Here are porn and sex related law updates:

S.151

SEC. 108. MISLEADING DOMAIN NAMES ON THE INTERNET.

(a) IN GENERAL- Chapter 110 of title 18, United States Code, is amended by inserting after section 2252A the following:

`Sec. 2252B. Misleading domain names on the Internet

`(a) Whoever knowingly uses a misleading domain name with the intent to deceive a person into viewing obscenity on the Internet shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 2 years, or both.

`(b) Whoever knowingly uses a misleading domain name with the intent to deceive a minor into viewing material that is harmful to minors on the Internet shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 4 years, or both.

`(c) For the purposes of this section, a domain name that includes a word or words to indicate the sexual content of the site, such as `sex' or `porn', is not misleading.

`(d) For the purposes of this section, the term `material that is harmful to minors' means any communication that--

`(1) taken as a whole and with respect to minors, appeals to a prurient interest in nudity, sex, or excretion;

`(2) dhahahahats, describes, or represents, in a patently offensive way with respect to what is suitable for minors, an actual or simulated sexual act or sexual contact, actual or simulated normal or perverted sexual acts, or a lewd exhibition of the genitals; and

`(3) taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value as to minors.'.

(b) CLERICAL AMENDMENT- The table of sections at the beginning of chapter 110 of title 18, United States Code, is amended by inserting after the time relating to section 2252A the following new item:

`2252B. False or misleading domain names on the Internet.'.


TITLE V--ADDITIONAL PROVISIONS

SEC. 501. FINDINGS.

Congress finds the following:

(1) Obscenity and child pornography are not entitled to protection under the First Amendment under Miller v. California, 413 U.S. 15 (1973) (obscenity), or New York v. Ferber, 458 U.S. 747 (1982) (child pornography) and thus may be prohibited.


SEC. 105. PENALTIES AGAINST SEX TOURISM.

(a) IN GENERAL- Section 2423 of title 18, United States Code, is amended by striking subsection (b) and inserting the following:

`(b) TRAVEL WITH INTENT TO ENGAGE IN ILLICIT SEXUAL CONDUCT- A person who travels in interstate commerce or travels into the United States, or a United States citizen or an alien admitted for permanent residence in the United States who travels in foreign commerce, for the purpose of engaging in any illicit sexual conduct with another person shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 30 years, or both.

`(c) ENGAGING IN ILLICIT SEXUAL CONDUCT IN FOREIGN PLACES- Any United States citizen or alien admitted for permanent residence who travels in foreign commerce, and engages in any illicit sexual conduct with another person shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 30 years, or both.

`(d) ANCILLARY OFFENSES- Whoever arranges, induces, procures, or facilitates the travel of a person knowing that such a person is traveling in interstate commerce or foreign commerce for the purpose of engaging in illicit sexual conduct shall be fined under this title, imprisoned not more than 30 years, or both.

`(e) ATTEMPT AND CONSPIRACY- Whoever attempts or conspires to violate subsection (a), (b), (c), or (d) shall be punishable in the same manner as a completed violation of that subsection.

`(f) DEFINITION- As used in this section, the term `illicit sexual conduct' means (1) a sexual act (as defined in section 2246) with a person that would be in violation of chapter 109A if the sexual act occurred in the special maritime and territorial jurisdiction of the United States; or (2) any commercial sex act (as defined in section 1591) with a person who has not attained the age of 18 years.

`(g) DEFENSE- In a prosecution under this section based on illicit sexual conduct as defined in subsection (f)(2), it is a defense, which the defendant must establish by a preponderance of the evidence, that the defendant reasonably believed that the person with whom the defendant engaged in the commercial sex act had attained the age of 18 years.'.

(b) CONFORMING AMENDMENT- Section 2423(a) of title 18, United States Code, is amended by striking `or attempts to do so,'.




SEC. 502. IMPROVEMENTS TO PROHIBITION ON VIRTUAL CHILD PORNOGRAPHY.

(a) Section 2256(8)(B) of title 18, United States Code, is amended to read as follows:

`(B) such visual dhahahahation is a digital image, computer image, or computer-generated image that is, or is indistinguishable (as defined in section 1466A) from, that of a minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct; or'.

(b) Section 2256(2) of title 18, United States Code, is amended to read as follows:

`(2)(A) Except as provided in subparagraph (B), `sexually explicit conduct' means actual or simulated--

`(i) sexual intercourse, including genital-genital, oral-genital, anal-genital, or oral-anal, whether between persons of the same or opposite sex;

`(ii) bestiality;

`(iii) masturbation;

`(iv) sadistic or masochistic abuse; or

`(v) lascivious exhibition of the genitals or pubic area of any person;

`(B) For purposes of subsection 8(B) of this section, `sexually explicit conduct' means--

`(i) graphic sexual intercourse, including genital-genital, oral-genital, anal-genital, or oral-anal, whether between persons of the same or opposite sex, or lascivious simulated sexual intercourse where the genitals, breast, or pubic area of any person is exhibited;

`(ii) graphic or lascivious simulated;

`(I) bestiality;

`(II) masturbation; or

`(III) sadistic or masochistic abuse; or

`(iii) graphic or simulated lascivious exhibition of the genitals or pubic area of any person;'.

(c) Section 2256 is amended--

(1) in paragraph 8(D), by striking `and' at the end;

(2) in paragraph (9), by striking the period at the end and inserting `; and'; and

(3) by inserting at the end the following new paragraph:

`(10) `graphic', when used with respect to a dhahahahation of sexually explicit conduct, means that a viewer can observe any part of the genitals or pubic area of any dhahahahated person or animal during any part of the time that the sexually explicit conduct is being dhahahahated.'.

(d) Section 2252A(c) of title 18, United States Code, is amended to read as follows:

`(c)(1) Except as provided in paragraph (2), it shall be an affirmative defense to a charge of violating this section that the production of the alleged child pornography did not involve the use of a minor or an attempt or conspiracy to commit an offense under this section involving such use.

`(2) A violation of, or an attempt or conspiracy to violate, this section which involves child pornography as defined in section 2256(8)(A) or (C) shall be punishable without regard to the affirmative defense set forth in paragraph (1).'.


SEC. 512. RECORDKEEPING TO DEMONSTRATE MINORS WERE NOT USED IN PRODUCTION OF PORNOGRAPHY.

Not later than 1 year after enactment of this Act, the Attorney General shall submit to Congress a report detailing the number of times since January 1993 that the Department of Justice has inspected the records of any producer of materials regulated pursuant to section 2257 of title 18, United States Code, and section 75 of title 28 of the Code of Federal Regulations. The Attorney General shall indicate the number of violations prosecuted as a result of those inspections.

Summary someone?
WG

meh. thx guys in charge, now i can be paranoid about getting laid in *other* countries, i cant wait to be interrogated by customs... "so... you get any, eh?"..

"Any United States citizen or alien "

alien nation

"`(c) For the purposes of this section, a domain name that includes a word or words to indicate the sexual content of the site, such as `sex' or `porn', is not misleading."


but hotbabes.com having porn is misleading according to the law

what about iteens.com same case

and so on

That domain section is a major situation for a lot of webmasters who have bought mainstream dmoz domains with pre existing traffic and are redirecting to porn sites.

The sex tourism section for example if you are a US citizen and you go to Bangkok Thailand and fuck a girl who is 17 which might be a legally permissable age in that country or another, the govt. can lock you up regardless.

Also looks like the DOJ might be enhancing its 2257 investigations.

The misleading domains I think is a good thing. Nobody should snag a dropped domain like childrenstoys.com and redirect it to a porn site. Like alot of you idiots do.

The virtual cp thing. I understand it, but I think the implications are scary. I Just wonder how broad the definition of virtual child porn will be. They are essentially telling people you will be prosecuted for your thoughts and not your actions. Scary.

What next? No virtual rape? No virtual snuff?

The rest of it doesnt apply to us.

guess which site they'll go after first

Exactly this could be a MAJOR source of debate and legal debacle for a lot of webmasters.

I imagine if you had a site called housewives.com going to a porn site they could under this new law fuck with you.

I'm trying to think of any of the big domains that could be fucked up by this law. Anyone?

i dont know how the legislation works there, if president signs it, does this mean that for at least a couple of months or even years we wont have any update on the laws or do the updates occur very often?

whitehouse.com

What do you think? Hmmm. I imagine they could even fuck with BadPuppy.com under this.

yup, thats what I was thinking too

ahh i never noticed that site :1orglaugh

yup that one is gonna bite the dust

Bill

Members of the House or Senate introduce bills for consideration by the Congress. The President, a member of the Cabinet or head of a Federal agency can also propose legislation, although it must be introduced by a member of Congress.

Committee Action

The Bill is referred to the appropriate committees for comment and revisions. Hearings may be held and reports issued containing the revised bill, committee's recommendations and background information. Once revised, a bill is brought again before the House or Senate for debate.
Some bills are referred to a conference committee, composed of both Senate and House members, to reconcile differences in similar bills in both Chambers. If the Conference committee reaches a compromise, it will prepare a written conference report to be submitted to each chamber.

Floor Action

Revised bill is brought before the House and Senate for debate and approval.

Vote

Members of both Chambers vote on the final version of the bill.

Presidential Action

A bill approved by both House & Senate is sent to the President. The President may comment on the bill and then sign or veto it. If he signs it, the bill becomes law. If he vetoes it, it may go back to Congress for redrafting or Congress may override the veto with 2/3rds majority vote in both Houses. If the President does not return the bill to Congress with his objections within 10 days, the bill automatically becomes a law. If Congress adjourns before the 10 day period, the bill is vetoed. (pocket veto)

Laws

Once signed by the President, laws are given public law numbers and issued in printed form first as slip laws. These Public Laws are then bound into the Statutes at Large.

Laws are announced in the Federal Register.

Now this is crazy...or maybe its just me...

`(d) ANCILLARY OFFENSES- Whoever arranges, induces, procures, or facilitates the travel of a person knowing that such a person is traveling in interstate commerce or foreign commerce for the purpose of engaging in illicit sexual conduct shall be fined under this title, imprisoned not more than 30 years, or both.

Would this and related articles prohibit someone from arranging or facilitating talent to fly to a location and produce content under certain circumstances...

Meaning if I fly some chick from a state where, for the sake of argument anal sex is considered illicit and illegal, to california for an anal shoot...am I breaking the law...?

yeah using whitehouse.com as an example, youd think they had that site in mind as they wrote that fucking law.

i thought it might also have to deal with folks who use domains in deceiving ways, such as, I came across some STAR WARS EPISODE 1 domains once that looked to have been snagged through expired domains or something, regardless the domains had HIGH PAGE RANK, and it was almost as if, they simply left all the text and the STAR WARS links, but added a table of porn links as well.

seems this law could help target such behavior as well.

how many kids you think hit the page? It was listed in the Yahoo directory under Star Wars Episode 1.

Looks like the above sections posted are just a small part of a larger sweeping Bill covering CP:

This Act may be cited as the `Prosecutorial Remedies and Tools Against the Exploitation of Children Today Act of 2003' or `PROTECT Act'.

What I'd heard is their pushing all this through as an add on to the Amber Alert bill. No one dares vote against it.

:sigh: where's the line item veto when we need it.

God I hope not I promote them. But they've been around forever and their tour is pretty R rated so hopefully it won't effect them. They really have their act together.

anyone....anyone....beuller...

Sure seems that way...

Looks like the Senate vote was 84-0 in favor:

http://www.theorator.com/bills108/s151.html

Yay.. lets continue to vote republican.

chant with me now..
FREEDOM... FREEDOM... FREEDOM...

Statement of Senator Patrick Leahy, Ranking Democratic Member,
Senate Judiciary Committee,
On The PROTECT Act

January 30, 2003

I commend Chairman Hatch for placing S.151, the Hatch-Leahy PROTECT Act, on the Committee?s agenda and for making the bill an early priority for the Committee in the new congressional session. Our bill is carefully written and purposefully targeted. We have worked hard to write a bill that would make a real difference in fighting crimes of child pornography, and we have produced a bill that would help these prosecutions in several tangible ways.

In the last Congress a bill identical to this one was reported by the Judiciary Committee and passed unanimously by the Senate. Senator Hatch and I worked hard to get that bipartisan bill passed, and I am pleased to continue to work alongside him in this Congress on the issue.

Although this bill is not perfect, it is a good-faith effort to provide powerful tools for prosecutors to deal with the problem of child pornography within constitutional limits. We failed to do that in the 1996 Child Pornography Protection Act (?CPPA?), much of which the Supreme Court struck down last year. We must not make the same mistake again. The last thing we want to do is to create years of legal limbo for our nation?s children, after which the courts strike down yet another law as unconstitutional.

I said last week that I hoped that we could pass the bill in the same form as it unanimously passed in the last Congress. That is still my position, but nevertheless I have continued to work with Senator Hatch to craft the strongest bill possible that will produce convictions that will stick.

For that reason, I have worked with the Chairman to craft changes that will improve the bill, which we will be considering today as part of a joint Hatch-Leahy amendment. Together, we have been able to further refine the bill and to improve certain sections, strengthening them against the constitutional challenges that will follow. For instance:

The Hatch-Leahy amendment creates a new specific intent requirement in the new pandering crime. The provision is now better focused on the true wrongdoers and requires that the government prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant actually intended others to believe that the material in question is obscene child pornography. This is a positive step.

The Hatch-Leahy amendment narrows the definition of ?sexually explicit conduct? for prosecutions of computer-created child pornography. Although there are serious concerns about whether the constitutionality of prosecuting cases involving such ?virtual child pornography? would be upheld after the Supreme Court?s decision in Free Speech Coalition v. Ashhahahahaha, narrowing the definition of the conduct covered provides another argument that the provision is not as overbroad as the one in the CPPA. I had also proposed a change that contained an even better definition, in order to focus the provision to true ?hard core? child pornography, and I hope we will consider such a change as the process continues.

The Hatch-Leahy amendment saves the existing ?anti-morphing? provision from a fresh constitutional attack by excluding 100 percent virtual child pornography from its scope. That morphing provision was one of the few measures from the CPPA that the Supreme Court did not strike down last year. This will help avoid placing our bill in constitutional peril.

The Hatch-Leahy amendment refines the definition of virtual child pornography in the provision that Senator Hatch and I worked together to craft last year, which will be new 18 U.S.C. § 2252B. These provisions rely to a large extent on obscenity doctrine and thus are more rooted in the Constitution than are other parts of the bill. The Hatch-Leahy amendments include in new 2252B(2) a definition that the image be ?graphic? ? that is one, where the genitalia are actually shown during the sex act. This is significant for two reasons:
First, because the old law would have required proof of ?actual? minors in cases with ?virtual? pictures, this clarification will remove a potential contradiction from the new law which pornographers could have used to mount a defense. Second, it will provide another argument supporting the law?s constitutionality because the new provision is narrowly tailored to cover only the most ?hard core? child pornography. I am disappointed that we could not include a similar definition in S. 151?s other virtual child pornography provision, which was included at the request of the Administration. I hope that will be considered as this bill moves forward.

The Hatch-Leahy amendment also clarifies that digital pictures are covered by the PROTECT Act, an important addition in today?s world of digital cameras and camcorders.

Although, as I said last week, this bill is not exactly as I would have written it were it my decision alone, I would have voted to pass S.151 exactly as Senator Hatch introduced it. Nevertheless, I was willing to work with Senator Hatch on additional improvements that are set forth in the Hatch-Leahy amendment.

Unfortunately, I cannot support all the changes that Senator Hatch seeks to make part of the bill we have introduced. I believe that some of them go too far and would subject the bill to the same constitutional limbo and risk that brought down the earlier law. Most notable among these is the new prong of the pandering crime that Senator Hatch and I worked so hard to craft last year. It would allow prosecution of anyone who ?presented? a movie that was intended to cause another person to believe that it included a minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct, whether or not it was obscene and whether or not any real child was involved. Any person or movie theater presenting films like Traffic, Romeo and Juliet, and American Beauty would be guilty of a felony. The very point of these dramatic works is to cause a person to believe that something is true when in fact it is not. These were precisely the concerns that led seven justices of the Supreme Court to strike down the 1996 Act. We do not want to put child porn convictions on hold while we wait another 6 years to see if the law will survive constitutional scrutiny.

Another new provision in the Hatch amendment includes a mandatory directive to the United States Sentencing Commission to establish penalties for these new crimes at certain levels. In my experience, however, the nonpartisan Sentencing Commission operates best when it is allowed to study an issue carefully and come up with a particular sentencing guideline based upon its expertise in these matters. In child pornography cases the commission has established appropriately high penalties in the past, and there is no reason to believe that it would not do so again with respect to these new laws.

For these reasons, I note my objection to the Hatch amendment and hope that we will continue to work together to come up with solutions to these concerns as the legislative process continues.

I ask consent that my entire statement be entered in the record, and if our bill is reported, I request the opportunity to place my views in the Committee Report.

Hoax

Just make sure that SHE pays for her airfare.. and then you reinburse her.. ;)


SEC. 512. RECORDKEEPING TO DEMONSTRATE MINORS WERE NOT USED IN PRODUCTION OF PORNOGRAPHY.

Not later than 1 year after enactment of this Act, the Attorney General shall submit to Congress a report detailing the number of times since January 1993 that the Department of Justice has inspected the records of any producer of materials regulated pursuant to section 2257 of title 18, United States Code, and section 75 of title 28 of the Code of Federal Regulations. The Attorney General shall indicate the number of violations prosecuted as a result of those inspections.

Does that mean that they will start doing some kind of random inspections?

This doesn't look good for Persian Kitty either.

KRL thanks for info


well things do not look that bad, let's hope not a major change will come, specially regarding the "misleading" domains.

A lot of weird laws in your country. Glad I don´t live there..

WWW.THEHUN.COM IS FUCKED THEn:2 cents:

thehun doesnt live in states, the law doesnt apply for him.

Most of it looks fine, but I can see some webmasters getting into trouble. If your URL can be interpratated to a non-sexual meaning I would rename it.

Glad we live in the land of the free. Czech Republic :thumbsup

I believe I remember another content provider wrote on GFY that their lawyer said the reading of the existing law is that only the Attorney General himself in person has the right to do the inspection. Here above it says how many times the "Department of Justice" has inspected records. I wonder if they intend to revise and clarify the original section that covers that.

join4free.com
persiankitty.com
teens.com
ls-university.com
seventeen.com
eighteen.com
justeighteen.com

And any site of a girls name (i.e. TawneeStone, NinaKnowsBest, KaylaCam, etc)
Any tgp using thumb, tgp, etc with no adult words.

Come to mind. I would say 75% of adult domains on the web.

The world is a pretty fucked place up if the Czech Republic is consider "land of the free":thumbsup
The US is turning to a muslim dictatorship

hm,i didnt know teens.com is porn site

this one is candidate

11,000 posts, woohoo!!!!

What tells if your site is under US laws or other?

If my sites are on a server hosted in the US?
If my domains were regged on a US register?
If i operate from EU would i be safe from these new domainrules?

I think you should vote anything else than bush next time guys :thumbsup

Ah don't worry, 30 years isn't really a long time, and they do have computers in prison libraries, so you can still visit GFY.

:1orglaugh :1orglaugh

holy, i didnt notice it :helpme :glugglug

Hehehe I think the FBI now has offices in 40 + countries. The long arm of the law is everywhere these days and then some.

This I actually find the most scary part of this law. I can tolerate the cp part but the obsenity part is very scary. If this goes thru you basically have destroyed porn in the US. Welcome in a new world. Moving all my shit to Holland.

I want to see those busts on the travel agencies and online travelstores ;) if they help you book a flight to Thailand. This is such insane stuff to apply US laws to foreign sex. There are countries where sex with a 16 year old is completely legal but you would go to prison in the US anyway.

The land of the free? well it seems only if you are a bigot, gunslinging, warloving, rich American

Yeh, it gets very complex when you really think about the the things they could do with this law.

No it certainly doesn't. Just realized that one. Oh shit.

:1orglaugh :1orglaugh :1orglaugh :1orglaugh :1orglaugh

I don't have anything to hide. But say for example thehun.com has nothing with porn or sex todo in their name. If that site would be hosted in the US would it be illegal? Or is it enuff to have a company thats non-us. I can't see how internet get new laws internationally with only US gov to decide whats good or not.

Glad you think it's funny. My site is named no differently then thousands of thousands of other sites... it came from an online nickname. They can in no way prove intent to lure anyone. I've discussed this long an hard with several top attorneys. Any reasonable person looking for information on a persian cat would search for persian cat or persian kitten in a search engine NOT persian kitty.

Think this is insane. When i think of it like 90% of all TGPs is non-sex/porn named or so. Sure maybe it's good that people won't be fooled by a name but a warning page would be enuff.

That's not legal logic Soul. If we go by what you posted than a major drug dealer in Columbia couldn't be prosecuted for distribution into the US. Or a child porn ring leader in Amsterdam couldn't be prosecuted for distribution over the Net into the US.
So I don't think you're right on that.

The Hun derives revenues, traffic and customers from the United States. End of story from the DOJ's perspective.

Didn't mean to laugh PK. Sorry. But like my attorneys always tell me when I say stuff like that - "Tell it to the Judge".

where are his servers? someone posted a link once here to the huns host and it was located blocks from me. in southern california.

not sure about now though.

:glugglug