Previously, only porn that showed actual children was illegal.
Violators are subject to a fifteen year jail sentence.
Free speech advocates claim that the law is unconstitutional. The Department of Justice appealed the ruling to the Supreme Court. In a late September jurisdictional statement, the government argued for a change in the scope of the law at the appeal stage, a highly unusual practice. The ACLU motion asks the Supreme Court to find that the lower court's decision was constitutionally correct, and therefore does not merit further examination. The law has been on hold since 1992 when it was challenged by four performance artists who were denied NEA funding for their controversial and often sexually explicit work.