The laws we are allowed to break and why

The laws we are allowed to break and why, by Columbia Law professor Tim Wu at Slate. One noteworthy example:

In the Unites States, using a computer to download obscenity is a crime, punishable by up to five years in prison. Federal law makes it a crime to use "a computer service" to transport over state lines "any obscene, lewd, lascivious, or filthy book, pamphlet, picture, motion-picture film, paper, letter, writing, print, or other matter of indecent character."

Under the plain reading of the statute, most men in the United States may be felons. Statistics on the downloading of "lewd pictures" are notoriously unreliable, but according to some surveys, 70 percent of men have admitted to visiting pornographic sites at some point. Many such sites are probably obscene under the Supreme Court's definition of obscenity—that is, they, according to community standards, "appeal to the prurient interest," depict "sexual conduct" in an patently offensive way, and lack "serious literary, artistic, political, and scientific value."

Today, despite these laws, there are very few prosecutions centered on mainstream adult pornography. Over the last decade, and without the repeal of a single law, the United States has quietly and effectively put its adult obscenity laws into a deep coma, tolerating their widespread violation with little notice or fanfare. Today's obscenity enforcement has a new face: It is targeted against "harmful" porn (that is, child pornography and highly violent or abusive materials) and "public" porn, or indecency in the public media. This enormous transformation has occurred without any formal political action. And it illuminates just how America changes law in sensitive areas like obscenity: not so much through action as through neglect.