September 14, 2005

Family News in Focus

Written by: Steve Jordahl

After a decade of looking the other way, the Justice Department is getting tough on child pornographers. The Child Pornography Prevention Act of 2005, introduced this week, will close loopholes in the law to allow the Attorney General to rigorously prosecute offenders and protect victims. Indiana Congressman Mike Pence authored the bill and says it will take on the predator down the street.

“We specifically close a loophole that exists in federal law today that allows pornographers who produce child pornography at home with digital cameras, Polaroid cameras, or video cameras, downloaded on their home computers, to actually escape prosecution.” 

Child pornographers stand to forfeit their movie and photography equipment as well as other business assets. Benjamin Bull of the Alliance Defense Fund says it goes after the corporate porn vendors as well by taking away the excuse that they thought their victims were over eighteen.

“It tightens up the record keeping requirements of it for sure, and it broadens the kind of material that record keeping requirements are applied to.”

Daniel Weiss of Focus on the Family Action says the provisions will give the Justice Department a large hammer to wield against the porn trade.

“Any one of those may not have immediate large impact, but when you take them together you’re seeing a significant strengthening of obscenity and child pornography laws. I think it’s going to pass Congress, I think the President will sign it into law, and I think it will immediately be challenged in the courts.”

Congressman Pence is linking the bill as an amendment to the Child Safety Act of 2005 to speed its passage and avoid a lengthy committee process.

The bill also protects the privacy of victims by sealing evidence in trials, makes it easier for the federal government to gather evidence, and makes even the intent to transport child porn across state lines a crime. Bull says as written, the bill can pass constitutional muster.

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