LOTS of manga/anime now illegal in Sweden; soon to be in EU

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Causes of the drop in child sexual abuse are complex and not completely understood. Some experts point out that the overall crime rate dropped significantly during the same time, and that child abuse rates fell along with murder and assault rates. Other analyses credit the economic prosperity of the 1980s and 1990s as improving overall social conditions, while still others note that tougher penalties for sex crimes led to higher numbers of offenders being jailed. It's also likely that greater social awareness of child abuse through television news (and even Hollywood films such as "Mystic River") resulted in parents taking more precautions for their children's safety. Like most social problems, there's no simple answer.

So stuff like these books which I and many others enjoy reading are now illegal and make us pedophiles?

I don't actually have these two books but could easily order them from Amazon or other sites.

There are many yaoi books which are set in high schools and have characters under 18.

The PROTECT Act includes prohibitions against illustrations depicting child pornography, including computer-generated illustrations, also known as virtual child pornography.[1][2][4] Provisions against virtual child pornography in the Child Pornography Prevention Act of 1996 had been ruled unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2002. However, the provisions of the Protect Act are distinct, since they establish the requirement of showing obscenity as defined by the Miller Test, which was not an element of the 1996 law.

The act was signed into law by President George W. Bush on April 30, 2003.[10]

On April 6, 2006, in United States v. Williams, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that one component of the PROTECT ACT, the "pandering provision" codified at 18 U.S.C. § 2252A(a)(3)(B) of the United States Code, violated the First Amendment. The "pandering provision" conferred criminal liability on anyone who knowingly advertises, promotes, presents, distributes, or solicits through the mails, or in interstate or foreign commerce by any means, including by computer, any material or purported material in a manner that reflects the belief, or that is intended to cause another to believe, that the material or purported material is, or contains (i) an obscene visual depiction of a minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct; or (ii) a visual depiction of an actual minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct.

The Williams court held that although the content described in subsections (i) and (ii) is not constitutionally protected, speech that advertises or promotes such content does have the protection of the First Amendment. Accordingly, § 2252A(a)(3)(B) was held to be unconstitutionally overbroad. The Eleventh Circuit further held that the law was unconstitutionally vague, in that it did not adequately and specifically describe what sort of speech was criminally actionable.

The Department of Justice appealed the Eleventh Circuit's ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court. The Supreme Court reversed the Eleventh Circuit's ruling in May 2008 and upheld this portion of the act.[11]

The first conviction of a person found to have violated the sections of the act relating to virtual child pornography, Dwight Whorley of Virginia, was upheld in a 2-1 panel decision of the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals in December 2008.[12] This was in apparent contradiction to a previous U.S. Supreme Court ruling that stated virtual child pornography was protected free speech.

History and details

The Miller test was developed in the 1973 case Miller v. California.[2] It has three parts:.

Whether "the average person, applying contemporary community standards", would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest,
Whether the work depicts/describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by applicable state law,
Whether the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value.[3]

A court of law would have to determine whether or not the magazines met the Miller Act standards of Obscenity, per the Protect act of 2003. One note to consider, although no one here has directly indicated that they have any of this material, the interent, including public forums, is scoured by US law enforcement; all it takes is probable cause for someone to receive a visit from lawenforcement, for investigation, in the US.

I have no idea what their standards of probable cause are. The internet does not necessarily provide anonymity from this level of lawenforcement; most people's identity can be traced, through legal authority and technology. That note is just provided for general information. More referenced information provided below:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLyLGrbKokI[/youtube]

How can they be illegal? The even have these for sale right on the Barnes and Noble web site. I would think if they were illegal Barnes and Noble wouldn't be selling them.

It's just another form of racism.

Incidentally, Chris Morris actually went to school at a private boarding school not far at all from me, which was at the centre of a child sex abuse scandal.