Age Record Requirement for Pornography Sites Judged Unconstitutional

The U.S. Sixth Circuit Court yesterday ruled that the record keeping requirements federal law places on producers of images of "actual sexually explicit conduct" to verify the ages of those depicted in the images is unconstitutional. Under the law, pornography websites hosted in the United States had to keep records confirming that all performers shown on their sites were of a legal age. In their opinion, the judges considered the law to be overly broad, explaining, "The plain text, the purpose, and the legislative history of the statute make clear that Congress was concerned with all child pornography and considered recordkeeping important in battling all of it, without respect to the creator's motivation."