Is it against the law to look at porn in public? If I took my labtop to the park and put a porno video on, am I breaking any law? What if I’m walking down the street reading a penthouse?
In the UK, if someone can see what you are doing and/or it is reasonably forseeable that someone can see what you are doing, then yes.
Don’t ask how I know this…
(Doesn’t apply if you’re watching porn in private property and someone is gawping in through your window)
In New York state, this is covered by penal code 245.11, Public display of offensive sexual material, whichi is a class A misdemeanor. Depending on the circumstances, you could also be charged with Obscenity (penal code 235.05 through 235.07), which ranges from a class A misdemeanor to a class D felony. If minors are present or nearby (which could presumambly be argued if you are showing pornos in a pubic park), you could be subject to additional charges of dissemenating obscene material to minor.
Man arrested watching porn while driving. Another link to the same story states he was charged with public display of offensive material.
NBA player Eddie Griffin sued for allegedly watching porn and drinking while driving, causing crash.
Couldn’t find any specific references to reading a porno mag while walking on a public street (or watching porn on one’s iPod) but I imagine the same laws that would make it illegal to “display” through the window of your car would apply to your “displaying” it while walking. Whether that would pass First Amendment scrutiny, I hope not but I don’t know.
‘Outraging public decency’ is probably what you’d get charged with?
Shouldn’t he also have been charged with reckless driving?
If this is against the law in NY, I wonder why the Rochester public libary, and County Executive Maggie Brooks are had so much trouble coming to an agreement about whether or not people had a right to view pornography on libary computers. Here’s a link to the story for people unfamiliar with it. What am I missing here?
Because librarians have a tradition of crusading against censorship. The ALA has an Intellectual Freedom office to track and oppose all incidents of censorship involving libraries. It would be logically inconsistent to oppose all censorship then turn around and impose it.
Exactly. Libraries frequently have to fight people who demand that works they consider offensive be removed from the shelves, often on the grounds that the works in question are pornographic. It puts the librarians in an awkward position to argue in one case that library patrons should have the right to access the materials, then in another case to argue that patrons should not actually be allowed to view them.
Libraries are in the difficult position of balancing first amendemnt rights with anti-obscenity laws. Specifically, libraries that receive federal funds are required to comply with CHIPA, the Children’s Internet Protection Act. This says:
The thorny first amendment issue arises because the mechanisms enacted to be in compliance with CHIPA would block adults from speech that is constitutionally protected. In Multnomah County Library v US, the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of CHIPA, ruling that first amendment issues could be alleviated because librarians could unblock sites for adults on request. The Rochester Public Library says that they attempt to be in compliance with CHIPA and Multnomah.
The Rochester Library (and others) have addressed the public obscenity issues by the use of screens that can’t be viewed from a distance or by putting computers that have access to objectionable sites in places that can’t be viewed by passersby. From what I’ve read, the specific case reported in Rochester stemmed from a patron who was viewing a website with photographs of children in bathing suits. What caused outrage was that he was a sex offender, and he was in relative proximity to the children’s section on the second floor. I’m not sure that the filtering software addresses the main problem with that story.
In Japan, while I’m unsure of the legality, socially it’s perfectly normal It’s always strange to see a businessman reading dirty comic books while sitting next to a group of high school girls o_o;
Okay, what about phone sex? Can I have hot, explicit phone sex on my cell phone on a bus?
Is this stuff the reason porn mags are sealed in plastic and opaque paper nowadays? I remember 20 years ago you could get Penthouse from the airport kiosk, right next to Sports Illustrated and Road and Track, unsealed and freely perusable.
Depending on the venue, I wouldn’t want to buy a porn mag that wasn’t sealed in plastic. Not for propriety, for hygiene.
You have to remember that it’s an election year in Rochester with County Executive Maggie Brooks trying to get re-elected. The legality of the case hardly matters. The newspaper headlines of her fighting “child porn” are the main point. She is a Republican trying to make the “liberals” in the library the villains for endangering children and outraging decent adults by placing first amendment rights ahead of all that is good and pure.
I wish I were exaggerating or politicizing the issue, but a careful reading of the many articles on the issue reveals no commentary at all by Brooks on the nature of the law. (She also announced the threat to withhold funding in a press release before talking to the library and made sure to be out of town and unavailable for comment when it hit the front page.)
She seems to have massive support from the public on her stance. And the Democrats have yet even to announce an opposing candidate.
Smart politics. But totally irrelevant to any discussion of law.
What case are you referring to?
This looks pretty toothless, to me… It doesn’t say it applies to all libraries which receive federal funding, only libraries which use federal funding for Internet access. Net access is cheap; it seems that if it were an issue, the local Friends of the Library club or some other nonprofit could cover the full cost of the Internet access, and let the library use any federal funding for buying new books, or maintaining the building, or paying staff, or whatever other costs they have.
Not to get too politicky in GQ, but it’s the potential first slippery step down a big slippery slope. Substitute “books” for “internet access” in the legislation and then have 50,000 librarians across the country trying to decide what does or doesn’t constitute “harmful to children.” But the general public might raise a stink about the feds trying to restrict access to books in a way they won’t when it comes to “protecting” children from the big bad internet.
See posts #8 and #11.