Cite as: 513 U. S. 64 (1994)
Scalia, J., dissenting
course, upon fully protected speech: one can shout "Down with the Republic!," "Hooray for Mozart!," or even "Twenty-Three Skidoo!," whether or not that expression is joined with something else of social value.) And whereas what is on one side of the balance in the present case is this material of minimal First Amendment concern, the Court has described what is on the other side—"prevention of sexual exploitation and abuse of children"—as "a government objective of surpassing importance." New York v. Ferber, 458 U. S. 747, 757 (1982).
I am not concerned that holding the purveyors and receivers of this material absolutely liable for supporting the exploitation of minors will deter any activity the United States Constitution was designed to protect. But I am concerned that the Court's suggestion of the unconstitutionality of such absolute liability will cause Congress to leave the world's children inadequately protected against the depredations of the pornography trade. As we recognized in Ferber, supra, at 766, n. 19, the producers of these materials are not always readily found, and are often located abroad; and knowledge of the performers' age by the dealers who specialize in child pornography, and by the purchasers who sustain that market, is obviously hard to prove. The First Amendment will lose none of its value to a free society if those who knowingly place themselves in the stream of pornographic commerce are obliged to make sure that they are not subsidizing child abuse. It is no more unconstitutional to make persons who knowingly deal in hard-core pornography criminally liable for the underage character of their entertainers than it is to make men who engage in consensual fornication criminally liable (in statutory rape) for the underage character of their partners.
I would dispose of the present case, as the Ninth Circuit did, by reading the statute as it is written: to provide criminal penalties for the knowing transportation or shipment of a visual depiction in interstate or foreign commerce, and for
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