Page:United States Statutes at Large Volume 117.djvu/697

 117 STAT. 678

PUBLIC LAW 108–21—APR. 30, 2003 children. It will not, however, be difficult or expensive to use readily available technology to disguise those depictions of real children to make them unidentifiable or to make them appear computer-generated. (12) Child pornography results from the abuse of real children by sex offenders; the production of child pornography is a byproduct of, and not the primary reason for, the sexual abuse of children. There is no evidence that the future development of easy and inexpensive means of computer generating realistic images of children would stop or even reduce the sexual abuse of real children or the practice of visually recording that abuse. (13) In the absence of congressional action, the difficulties in enforcing the child pornography laws will continue to grow increasingly worse. The mere prospect that the technology exists to create composite or computer-generated depictions that are indistinguishable from depictions of real children will allow defendants who possess images of real children to escape prosecution; for it threatens to create a reasonable doubt in every case of computer images even when a real child was abused. This threatens to render child pornography laws that protect real children unenforceable. Moreover, imposing an additional requirement that the Government prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant knew that the image was in fact a real child—as some courts have done—threatens to result in the de facto legalization of the possession, receipt, and distribution of child pornography for all except the original producers of the material. (14) To avoid this grave threat to the Government’s unquestioned compelling interest in effective enforcement of the child pornography laws that protect real children, a statute must be adopted that prohibits a narrowly-defined subcategory of images. (15) The Supreme Court’s 1982 Ferber v. New York decision holding that child pornography was not protected drove child pornography off the shelves of adult bookstores. Congressional action is necessary now to ensure that open and notorious trafficking in such materials does not reappear, and even increase, on the Internet.

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

(a) Section 2256(8) of title 18, United States Code, is amended— (1) so that subparagraph (B) reads as follows: ‘‘(B) such visual depiction is a digital image, computer image, or computer-generated image that is, or is indistinguishable from, that of a minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct; or’’; (2) by striking ‘‘; or’’ at the end of subparagraph (C) and inserting a period; and (3) by striking subparagraph (D). (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—

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