Child porn operators are pushing the limits of obscenity laws by posting images of children in bits of clothing in the hopes that distributors, themselves and their customers avoid child porn charges.
According to a New York Times investigative story Sunday, the newspaper found more than 200 child porn Web sites most of which focused on one child, demonstrating that crackdowns on child porn purveyors have severely cut into the availability of exploitative images of children.
Of those sites, many show sexualized images of children wearing some form of garment as well as makeup to disguise the fact these were children, the paper reported. One popular site, for instance, features a girl getting out of a bath tub wearing wet undergarments and a clingy top.
One pedophile who runs a child porn site said in an online conversation that he feels that Web sites featuring children wearing skimpy outfits are among of the last bastions of online child porn.
But even such images have attracted law enforcement as evidenced by the arrest earlier this year of Sheila L. Sellinger of Shoals, Ind. She was convicted of selling clothed, but revealing photos of her 10-year-old daughter on a modeling Web site. A judge sentenced her to 12 years in prison last month.
Sellinger reportedly earned thousands of dollars a week from selling the images.
Although the Times did not subscribe to these child porn sites, it accessed sites which featured conversations of pedophiles online and followed links there to child porn sites for its story.
By law, the newspaper was required to report what it found on those sites to authorities, which it did last July.
But already some child porn purveyors facing legal trouble are citing the First Amendment protection as their basic defense. In a case involving Stephen Knox, who was peddling erotic videos of underage girls, his lawyers said the fact the girls were wearing clothes doesn’t make the images illegal.
But prosecutors say the First Amendment does not protect people from child pornography charges.
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