The ruling stems from the 2024 arrest of a Wisconsin man who faced federal charges over allegations that he generated child sexual abuse material using artificial intelligence.
WASHINGTON — A federal appeals judge in Wisconsin ruled Tuesday that the First Amendment protects the private possession of AI-generated child sexual abuse material when it does not portray an actual person and is kept inside the home.
Judge John Z. Lee of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit, addressing a case from the Western District of Wisconsin, also warned that rapidly advancing technology is making it harder to apply existing laws and court precedents. “Evolving technology complicates the lines drawn,” he wrote.
Tuesday’s decision centers on the May 2024 arrest of Steven Anderegg. The Justice Department alleged that Anderegg used an AI image-generation tool to produce thousands of explicit images involving minors. Prosecutors also accused him of communicating with a 15-year-old boy and sending the images to him.
Anderegg asked the court to dismiss the possession and production counts, arguing they violated his First Amendment rights. A judge in the Western District of Wisconsin dismissed the possession charge last year, finding that the federal law barring the possession of virtual child sexual abuse material was unconstitutional under the First Amendment.
The remaining charges against Anderegg are still pending.
In affirming the lower court’s decision, Lee pointed to two earlier U.S. Supreme Court rulings, issued in 1969 and 2002.
In Stanley v. Georgia (1969), the ruling said people have a constitutional right to possess obscene material in the privacy of their own homes.
The other, Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition (2002), found that content that “appears to be” and “conveys the impression” of being child sexual abuse material is protected under the First Amendment.
Lee urged the Supreme Court to reconsider the issue of virtual abuse material of children in the age of AI.
“We now live in an age where GenAI models can render images depicting the abuse of virtual children that are virtually indistinguishable from those depicting the abuse of actual children,” he wrote in his opinion. “Given the relentless advancement in artificial intelligence models, we have some concerns about the lines these cases draw, but we are not free to redraw them ourselves.”