US Supreme Court upholds child porn law

In a victory for the Bush administration, the high court bya 7-2 vote rejected the argument that one part of the lawillegally infringed on free-speech or other rights guaranteedby the U.S. Constitution.

The justices overturned a ruling by a U.S. appeals courtthat struck down the provision on the grounds the governmentcannot suppress lawful free speech.

Opponents of the law argued it sweeps too broadly and couldbe applied to popular award-winning movies like "Lolita,""Traffic," "American Beauty" and "Titanic" that depictadolescent sex. The government replied that those movies arenot child pornography and would not be targeted by the law.

The provision bars the advertising, promoting, presenting,distributing or soliciting of material in a way intended tocause others to believe it contains illegal child pornography.Violators face a sentence of at least five years in prison.

The ruling involved a Florida man, Michael Williams, whowas arrested in 2004 after he traded messages in an Internetchat room with an undercover federal agent posing as a woman.

Williams offered to trade photos of children with the agentand then posted seven images of minors in sexually explicitconduct. Agents then searched his home and found more childpornography pictures on his computer.

Williams was convicted of one count of promoting and onecount of possessing child pornography. The Supreme Court rulingdealt only with his conviction for promoting childpornography.