Opinion ID: 2975947
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Amount of Protected Speech Impacted

Text: The first consideration in an overbreadth challenge is the amount of protected speech reached by the statute. Flipside, Hoffman Estates, Inc., 455 U.S. at 494. As described in Section I, the recordkeeping provisions have an extensive reach. Records are required to be kept and disclosure statements are required to be affixed by any person who takes a photograph or films a movie depicting actual sexually explicit conduct. This conduct is defined as “sexual intercourse, including genital-genital, oral-genital, anal-genital, or oral-anal, whether between persons of the same or opposite sex.” 18 U.S.C. § 2257(h)(1) (2006); see 18 U.S.C. § 2256(2)(A)(i) (2006). It also includes bestiality, masturbation, sadistic or masochistic abuse, and “lascivious exhibition of the genitals or pubic area of any person.” 18 U.S.C. § 2257(h)(1) (2006); see 18 U.S.C. § 2256(2)(A)(ii)-(v) (2006). This means that a married couple who videotape or photograph themselves in the bedroom engaging in sexually explicit conduct would be required to keep records, affix disclosure statements to the images, and hold their home open to government agents for records inspections. This reach sweeps in a lot of protected speech. This includes images which amount to obscenity but are kept in the privacy of one’s home and are therefore constitutionally protected speech. Stanley v. Georgia, 394 U.S. 557, 564-68 (1969). Nonobscene sexually explicit images of adults are also considered protected speech and are covered by the statute. See Free Speech Coal., 535 U.S. at 250-51 (“[New York v. Ferber] reaffirmed that where the speech is neither obscene nor the product of sexual abuse, it does not fall outside the protection of the First Amendment.” ); see also Am. Civil Liberties Union, 521 U.S. at 874; United States v. X-Citement Video, Inc., 513 U.S. 64, 72-73 (1994); Sable Commc’ns of Ca., Inc. v. FCC, 492 U.S. 115, 126 (1989) (unanimous); Osborne v. Ohio, 495 U.S. 103, 112 (1990); Brockett v. Spokane Arcades, Inc., 472 U.S. 490, 498-99 (1985). Additionally, the First Amendment protects an individual’s right to speak anonymously. See McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Comm’n, 514 U.S. 334, 342 (1995) (“[A]n author’s decision to remain anonymous . . . is an aspect of the freedom of speech protected by the First Amendment.”). This statute not only regulates a person’s right to take sexually explicit photographs, but it also requires that person to identify him or herself as the photographer as well as identify the individual No. 06-3822 Connection Distributing Co., et al. v. Keisler Page 10 depicted. While the individual depicted is shown in the photograph, that person still has a First Amendment right to not provide his or her name and therefore retain a certain level of anonymity. See Watchtower Bible & Tract Soc’y of N.Y., Inc., 536 U.S. at 167 (“The fact that circulators revealed their physical identities did not foreclose our consideration of the circulators’ interest in maintaining their anonymity [in Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U.S. 1 (1976)].”). It is clear that this statute covers quite a bit of protected speech.