U.S.C. 2257

Note: While this new law doesn't relate to gay marriage, I thought the restriction on the freedom of speech may interest some readers.


A new law that greatly restricts freedom of speech went into effect last June. It lasted ten hours before Attorney General Gonzales put enforcement on hold until Sep 7 while arguments brought before the government by the Free Speech Coalition are heard.

If you own a website and aren't a member of the Coalition, you are subject to enforcement of this law today.

The law requires any primary producer of Internet porn to maintain documentation of the age of any people who appear in the nude. Such strict requirements were always required of the primary producers of porn on the Net or elsewhere.

The law goes one step further. All secondary producers of porn are required to keep the same documentation on hand, too. That means if you post the cover of Debbie Does Dallas on you website, you need to contact everyone pictured on the cover in the nude and obtain and verify their age and id and keep that documentation on hand. If you are selling that movie, you need to get that information from every performer in the movie. In the past, you wouldn't have had to do that because you knew the producers of the movie had already collected the information and was readily available for inspection by the Feds.

But the law doesn't stop there. All the personal, swingers, and amatuer sites where members post their own pictures are subject to the same law. In the past if you posted your own picture, you were the primary producer of the porn and responsible for yourself. Now the owner of the website must get that proof from you before you can post your picture.

In effect, the law will shut these sites down.

Fine, you might think. Porn producers can take their business overseas. But if an American portal, like Google, allows you to view that porn, then American webmasters are in violation of the law.

So what happens if you post a nude pic of yourself? You must have proof of your id and age ready for inspection at any time, unannounced, between the hours of 8 AM to 6 PM, 365 days a year. Failure to do so could land you in jail for up to five years.

And yet mainstream media is strangely quiet about this invasion of our free speech rights.