Email porn, go to jail ...

Fear of the Internet as a "cesspool" coupled with an almost hysterical fear of child pornography is leading to a rash of outrageous criminal legislation. In Nebraska, a state senator introduced a bill at the attorney general's request that would make emailing a pornographic image a crime - a felony if mailed to a child, the Associated Press reports.

Current law prohibits using a telephone to intimidate, threaten, harass, annoy or offend a person. The new bill would add computers and other electronic devices, and would make illegal sending a "visual depiction of sexually explicit conduct."

While I haven't read the legislation, this report seems to suggest that the very act of sending a pornographic image over email would be a crime, regardless of intent. That seems to fly in the face of an awful lot of First Amendment decisions allowing willing adults to communicate freely. It would mean that publishers and magazine distributors could sell printing pornography, but friends couldn't share images online.