united-states pornography customs-law import
What laws prohibit the importation of pornography into the US?
<p>I don't quite understand why in the San Francisco Airport, when people land, the sign says, &quot;No pornography is allowed to be brought into the US&quot;, when you can leave the airport, drive 15 minutes to an adult video shop and put in coins and watch all you want, or go to a hotel 10 minutes away and also watch hundreds of pornography videos for $9.99 each.</p>
<p>Also, people can go home, and order pornography subscriptions either from a US company or from a foreign company using the internet.</p>
<p><strong>What law does this sign refer to?</strong></p>

<p>This refers to the prohibition found at <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/19/1305" rel="nofollow noreferrer">19 U.S. Code § 1305</a></p>
<blockquote>
<p>(a) <strong>Prohibition of importation</strong></p>
<p>All persons are prohibited from importing into the United States from any foreign country [...] any obscene book, pamphlet, paper, writing, advertisement, circular, print, picture, drawing, or other representation, figure, or image on or of paper or other material, or any cast, instrument, or other article which is <strong>obscene or immoral</strong>...</p>
</blockquote>
<p>What constitutes &quot;obscene or immoral&quot; is subjective and determined on a case-by-case basis, for example by applying the <a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miller_test" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><em>Miller test</em></a>, being:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>the United States Supreme Court's test for determining whether speech or expression can be labeled obscene, in which case it is not protected by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution and can be prohibited.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The <em>Miller test</em> has three &quot;prongs&quot; which have to be satisfied for the material to be considered obscene:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>1 Whether &quot;the average person, applying contemporary community standards&quot;, would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest,</p>
<p>2 Whether the work depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct or excretory functions specifically defined by applicable state law,</p>
<p>3 Whether the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.</p>
</blockquote>

<ol>
<li><p>You think this law makes no sense. But actually, you have two sets of laws, one about acquiring porn in the USA, one about importing, and each on its own is perfectly reasonable. It’s just the combination that is “interesting”. But you could as well complain about the other law.</p>
</li>
<li><p>Assume if creating porn in the USA was extremely well regulated, that is all actors are well paid, well looked after health wise, free to quit at any time and so on, and that’s why buying porn is legal. And assume that in other countries this is different, actors are forced to work, not paid and do on. Now it makes perfect sense to make imports illegal.</p>
</li>
</ol>
