WASHINGTON – The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear an appeal challenging 18 U.S.C. §2257, the federal recordkeeping and labeling act. The court also declined to give a reason why it would not consider the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals’ en banc ruling affirming the law’s constitutionality.
The underlying case, Connection Distributing Co. vs. Holder, arose in the mid-1990s when a publisher of swinger magazines and websites sued to prevent the enforcement of the law in cases where individuals submitted nude or sexually explicit photos of themselves to accompany personal ads seeking like-minded adults for friendship and frolic. The act requires all publishers of explicit materials to maintain records about the individuals depicted in all images. Connection Distributing asserted because it did not create the images, it should not be required to maintain the documentation and make the files available for inspection by duly authorized representatives of the Department of Justice. Doing so violated the privacy rights of the citizens from whom Connection accepted advertising, the company claimed, and the appropriate custodians of records for the images were the individuals themselves. (more…)
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