Juvenile Justice

A recent study shows that about 20% of U.S. teenagers (including 11% of teen girls ages 13-16) admit to producing and distributing nude or semi-nude pictures of themselves. This article considers whether people, particularly teenagers, have a constitutional right to record and document their own legal activities, in particular, sexual conduct and nudity. Such "autopornography" may sometimes be considered legally obscene, a category that is not, of course, protected by the First Amendment. But even pictures and videos that are not obscene may still be illegal if they fall into the broad constitutional category of "child pornography.