2257 Lawsuit Update
May 22nd, 2018
As some of you know I’m one of the named plaintiffs in a lawsuit asking that the federal laws known as 2257 and 2257A be declared unconstitutional. This has been going on for a long time. We filed the original lawsuit in 2009.
I received word today that the court has ruled in our favor on many of our challenges to the laws and found substantial portions to be in violation of the First Amendment of the Constitution.
The judge struck down a number of the statutes’ key provisions as unconstitutional. Specifically, he struck down the recordkeeping requirements, the statutes’ criminal penalties, and application of the statutes to secondary producers who don’t actually produce the depictions but publish depictions produced by others. He also found the labeling requirements imposed by the regulations were not narrowly tailored and ordered the submission of new simple, straightforward regulations implementing the labeling requirement. The only portion of the statutes the court upheld is the requirement that primary producers check the IDs of the people appearing in their work to verify their ages.
The judge has issued his opinion, but has not entered the judgement. That judgement should be issued in the next few months after input from us and from the government as to the final language. And, of course, there could be more appeals and the case could still end up before the Supreme Court. But this is a significant victory for us and for our rights under the Constitution.
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