[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 72 (Friday, June 10, 1994)]
[House]
[Page H]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: June 10, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
          THIRD CIRCUIT RULING ON CHILD PORNOGRAPHY IS WELCOME

  (Mr. MAZZOLI asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. MAZZOLI. Mr. Speaker, on yesterday, Thursday, the Third Circuit 
Court of Appeals sitting in Philadelphia reinstated an earlier decision 
it had reached concerning a child pornography case, the now famous Knox 
child pornography case. In a 40-page opinion, which I have not yet had 
time to fully read, I am well advised that the court told the Justice 
Department of the United States that it was off-base in the decisions 
it reached and in the position that it took concerning this child 
pornography case.
  Basically the Justice Department's position, which I objected to in a 
letter to Janet Reno, the Attorney General of the United States, was 
basically that the children depicted in these films had to be 
provocatively posed or lasciviously acting, and had to be unclothed or 
scantily and revealingly clad or the case of pornography had to be 
dropped. The court has set that aside, and I think now we are on a 
better track because if there is any activity which is absolutely 
heinous and grievous and cries to the Lord for retribution, it is that 
of people who engage in child pornography and the damage that they 
cause psychologically and physically to their models and to the people 
depicted in their degraded materials.
  Mr. Speaker, I am glad the court reached its position. I hope that 
becomes the position taken from now on by the U.S. Justice Department.

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