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United States obscenity law deals with laws in the United States that relate to the regulation or suppression of what is considered obscenity. In the United States, discussion of obscenity revolves around pornography and raises issues of freedom of speech and of censorship. Issues of obscenity arises at federal and state levels. The States have direct responsibility in relation to criminal law matters, including the punishment for the production and sale of obscene materials. These laws operate only within the jurisdiction of each state, and there are a wide variation of laws. The federal government has become involved in the issue indirectly by making it an offense to distribute obscene materials through the post. It is also involved as the regulator of telecommunications, broadcasting and foreign trade. Because censorship laws enacted to combat obscenity restrict freedom of expression, crafting a legal definition of obscenity presents a civil liberties issue. ==Legal issues and definitions== The sale and distribution of obscene materials had been prohibited in most American states since the early 19th century, and by federal law since 1873. Adoption of obscenity laws in the United States at the federal level in 1873 was largely due to the efforts of Anthony Comstock. Comstock's intense lobbying led to the passage of an anti-obscenity statute known as the Comstock Act which made it a crime to distribute "obscene" material through the post. It also prohibited the use of the mail for distribution of birth control devices and information. Comstock was appointed postal inspector to enforce the new law. Twenty-four states passed similar prohibitions on materials distributed within the states. The law criminalized not only sexually explicit material, but also material dealing with birth control and abortion. However, the legislation did not define "obscenity" and left it to the courts to determine what is and what isn't proscribed. In the United States of America, the suppression or limitation of what is considered obscenity raises issues of rights to freedom of speech and of the press protected by the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. The Supreme Court has ruled that obscenity is not protected by the First Amendment, but the courts still need to determine what material is obscene in each case. Legally, a distinction is made between socially permitted material and discussions that the public can access on the one hand and ''obscenity'', access to which should be denied, on the other. There does exist a classification of those acceptable materials and discussions that the public should be allowed to engage in, and the access to that same permitted material—which in the areas of sexual materials ranges between the permitted areas of erotic art (which usually includes "classic nude forms" such as Michelangelo's David statue) and the generally less respected commercial pornography. The legal distinction between artistic nudity and permitted commercial pornography (which includes sexual penetration) deemed "protected forms of speech", versus "obscene acts", which are illegal acts and separate from those permitted areas, is usually predicated on cultural factors. However, no such specific objective distinction exists outside of legal decisions in federal court cases where a specific action is deemed to fit the classification of obscene and thus illegal. The difference between erotic art and (protected) commercial pornography, vs. that which is legally obscene (and thus not covered by 1st Amendment protection), appears to be subject to decisions within local US federal districts and contemporary moral standards. In fact, federal obscenity law in the U.S. is highly unusual in that not only is there no uniform national standard, but rather, there is an ''explicit'' legal precedent (the "Miller test", below) that all but guarantees that something that is legally obscene in one jurisdiction may not be in another. In effect, the First Amendment protections of free speech vary by location within the U.S., and over time. With the advent of Internet distribution of potentially obscene material, this question of jurisdiction and community standards has created significant controversy in the legal community. (See United States v. Thomas, 74 F.3d 701 (6th Cir. 1996)) Even at the federal level, there does not exist a specific listing of which exact acts are to be classified as obscene outside of the legally determined court cases. Title 18, chapter 71 of the USC deals with obscenity, the workings out of the law described in this article, most notably the aforementioned Miller test. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「United States obscenity law」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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