124 STAT. 3177 PUBLIC LAW 111–294—DEC. 9, 2010 Public Law 111–294 111th Congress An Act To amend title 18, United States Code, to prohibit interstate commerce in animal crush videos, and for other purposes. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Animal Crush Video Prohibition Act of 2010’’. SEC. 2. FINDINGS. The Congress finds the following: (1) The United States has a long history of prohibiting the interstate sale, marketing, advertising, exchange, and dis- tribution of obscene material and speech that is integral to criminal conduct. (2) The Federal Government and the States have a compel- ling interest in preventing intentional acts of extreme animal cruelty. (3) Each of the several States and the District of Columbia criminalize intentional acts of extreme animal cruelty, such as the intentional crushing, burning, drowning, suffocating, or impaling of animals for no socially redeeming purpose. (4) There are certain extreme acts of animal cruelty that appeal to a specific sexual fetish. These acts of extreme animal cruelty are videotaped, and the resulting video tapes are com- monly referred to as ‘‘animal crush videos’’. (5) The Supreme Court of the United States has long held that obscenity is an exception to speech protected under the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. (6) In the judgment of Congress, many animal crush videos are obscene in the sense that the depictions, taken as a whole— (A) appeal to the prurient interest in sex; (B) are patently offensive; and (C) lack serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value. (7) Serious criminal acts of extreme animal cruelty are integral to the creation, sale, distribution, advertising, mar- keting, and exchange of animal crush videos. (8) The creation, sale, distribution, advertising, marketing, and exchange of animal crush videos is intrinsically related and integral to creating an incentive for, directly causing, and perpetuating demand for the serious acts of extreme animal cruelty the videos depict. The primary reason for those criminal 18 USC 48 note. 18 USC 1 note. Animal Crush Video Prohibition Act of 2010. Dec. 9, 2010 [H.R. 5566]
