US has another crack at child porn law

The US House of Representatives is having another crack at developing an internet child pornography law that can survive the country's court process.

It is the third time the US government has developed such a law for the internet, and each time it has proved unconstitutional.

A House of Representatives committee yesterday voted on a more tailored version of the legislation that it hopes will pass courtroom muster.

The new law outlaws only computer images that are indistinguishable from actual photographs or movies. Pornography involving prepubescent children would be outlawed entirely, 'virtual' or not.

Defendants in child pornography cases would have to prove that the images were entirely computer generated and not a photograph of actual events.

According to USA Today, people opposed to the new bill fear that it will criminalise protected speech and end up on the judicial scrap heap.

"I think this bill is the newest in a series of attempts to do what the Supreme Court has said we repeatedly cannot do," said New York Democrat Jerry Nadler.