Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/09pdf/08-769.pdf
Page Number: 37.0

Cite as:  559 U. S. ____ (2010) 

13 

ALITO, J., dissenting 

that the only way of preventing these crimes was to target
the sale of the videos.  Under  these circumstances, I can-
not  believe  that  the  First  Amendment  commands  Con-
gress  to  step  aside  and  allow  the  underlying  crimes  to
continue. 

The  most  relevant  of  our  prior  decisions  is  Ferber,  458 
U. S. 747, which concerned child pornography.  The Court 
there held that child pornography is not protected speech, 
and  I  believe  that  Ferber’s  reasoning  dictates  a  similar 
conclusion here. 

In  Ferber,  an  important  factor—I  would  say  the  most
important factor—was that child pornography involves the
commission of a crime that inflicts severe personal injury
to the “children who are made to engage in sexual conduct
for commercial purposes.’ ”  Id., at 753 (internal quotation
marks  omitted).    The  Ferber  Court  repeatedly  described
the  production  of  child  pornography  as  child  “abuse,”
“molestation,”  or  “exploitation.”  See,  e.g.,  id.,  at  749  (“In
recent  years,  the  exploitive  use  of  children  in  the  produc-
tion  of  pornography  has  become  a  serious  national  prob-
lem”);  id.,  at  758,  n. 9  (“Sexual  molestation  by  adults  is
often  involved  in  the  production  of  child  sexual  perform-
ances”).  As  later  noted  in  Ashcroft  v.  Free  Speech  Coali-
tion, 535 U. S. 234, 249 (2002), in Ferber “[t]he production 
of the work, not its content, was the target of the statute.”
See  also  535  U.S.,  at  250  (Ferber  involved  “speech  that
itself is the record of sexual abuse”). 

Second,  Ferber  emphasized  the  fact  that  these  underly-
ing  crimes  could  not  be  effectively  combated  without  tar-
geting the distribution of child pornography.  As the Court 
put  it,  “the  distribution  network  for  child  pornography
must be closed if the production of material which requires 
the  sexual  exploitation  of  children  is  to  be  effectively
controlled.”  458 U. S., at 759.  The Court added: 

“[T]here  is  no  serious  contention  that  the  legislature