In this article we will present an important case involving the government's attempt to defend a child protection law designed to protect minors from Internet pornography. In Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition, 00-795, the court heard arguments on the Child Pornography Protection Act of 1996 (CPPA). (Ashcroft) Producing or possessing actual child pornography was illegal before 1996; the CPPA expanded the definition of child pornography to include images that merely appear to be children engaged in sexually explicit conduct – for example, images of adults digitally altered to appear to be children – or that convey the impression that those involved are minors. The rationale behind the law was that it is not just the children involved in the creation of child pornography who are harmed, but that the images themselves are harmful because they incite pedophiles to abuse children. In a 1982 case, the Supreme Court said that child pornography, like obscenity, should not receive First Amendment protection because children were abused in it...