Regulation of Obscenity and Pornography - Assignment Example

After years in which no Supreme Court opinion could command majority support, five members of the Court in Miller set out a several-part test for judging obscenity statutes: the proscribed material must depict or describe sexual conduct in a patently offensive way, the conduct must be specifically described in the law, and the work must, taken as a whole, lack serious value and must appeal to a prurient interest in sex. For decades, the courts have struggled to define just what material is so offensive as to be legally obscene, and to delineate limits on the government's ability to regulate sexually explicit material.

The new statute has to define firmly what has to be considered as pornography and obscenity. First, the statute has to regulate potentially harmful content such as for example, adult pornography; and regulation of invariably illegal content such as child pornography. These issues are different in nature and should not be confused. The questions of possessing and selling pornography and obscenity must be reflected. . Government and the private sector should undertake a major education campaign to promote public awareness of technologies and methods available to protect children online.

Public education must be done in a sustainable manner that effectively reaches families. Public libraries, community centers and schools would be essential components of this effort. Resources should include information about access to law enforcement and child advocacy organizations. Government should provide block grants to states to create materials appropriate for Internet safety curricula. Materials for community and school publications, and libraries should be developed and distributed.

Questions of privacyAn individual has a right to satisfy emotional needs in the privacy of his own house. A person has to have a right to use any pornography material in his home if the material doesnt contain children pornography.Regulation of selling pornography and obscenity materialsIt is necessary that the institutions that sell pornography and obscenity materials knew the content of the material and provided special measures to prevent buying it by children.Regulating pornography and obscenity in InternetThese range from pictures and short animated movies, to sound files and stories.

Most of this kind of pornographic content is available through World Wide Web pages; but sometimes they are also distributed through an older communication process, Usenet newsgroups. The Internet also makes it possible to discuss sex, see live sex acts, and arrange sexual activities from computer screens. It is very difficult to regulate the information that goes through the internet because it is multinational and every nation has its own laws. A recent European