This welcome court decision affirms that the government should not be prying into and punishing relationships between consenting adults under the guise of fighting child pornography. Section 2257 and the regulations proposed are part of our government’s hypocritical and punitive views about sex, sexuality and reproductive rights. All of this — from abstinence-only sex education programs to the elimination of funding for accurate and explicit HIV prevention programs — disproportionately impact lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.

We applaud the Free Speech Coalition for its work in combating this onerous and dangerous statute. We thank the thousands of members of our community who said ‘no’ to this assault on civil liberties by filing formal objections with the Department of Justice.

Under the auspices of combating child pornography, Section 2257 imposes expansive record-keeping requirements on visual representations of adult sexual activity. Among other restrictions, it requires that detailed personal identification information be affixed to all photographs and videos; that the identifying information be maintained by both the picture-takers an any entity publishing the pictures, such as social networking sites; and that the government be allowed to enter the premises where the records are kept at least once every four months to inspect them. Violations are felonies punishable by up to five years in prison with a maximum of 10 years for a second offense.

Connection Distributing, a publisher of adult social networking magazines, and plaintiffs who wished to publish photographs in Connection’s magazines anonymously, and without having to create or maintain the extensive records required by Section 2257, challenged the law.