United States v. David Hilton

BOWNES, Senior Circuit Judge.

In 1996, Congress enacted the Child Pornography Prevention Act (the “CPPA”), 18 U.S.C. § 2252A, to attack the rise of computerized or “virtual” child pornography. These images may take many forms — a photograph of a real child may be scanned and replicated, an innocent picture of a child may be manipulated by computer to create a sexually-oriented photo, or a fake child (ranging from a simple cartoon character to a high-resolution image resembling a real child) can be generated wholly by computer graphics.

The law prohibits, inter alia, knowing possession of visual…