Arizona's Unconstitutional 'Revenge Porn' Law Is Officially Dead
Via Reason
A constitutionally troublesome 2014 law designed to combat "revenge porn" in
Arizona was permanently halted by a federal court Friday, after the state agreed to
give up on its enforcement. "This is a complete victory for publishers,
booksellers, librarians, photographers, and others against an unconstitutional
law," said David Horowitz, executive director of the Media Coalition, an
association dedicated to defending First Amendment rights. "Now they won't have
to worry about being charged with a felony for offering newsworthy and
artistic images."
The law had made it a felony to "disclose, display, distribute,
publish, advertise, or offer" an image of a nude person without that person's
consent. Intended to combat the spread of sexualized images by jilted lovers—a
phenomenon known as "revenge porn"—and others online, it was so overbroad it
could have punished a wide range of constitutionally protected communication,
including "a library lending a photo book about breast feeding to a new mother,
a newspaper publishing pictures of abuse at the Abu Ghraib prison, or a
newsweekly running a story about a local art show," as the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) pointed out.source