At last, an issue that I feel competent to contribute on (I'm a professional lobbyist/policy analyst). This is no urban legend. This bill has actually been introduced, although it doesn't go nearly as far as the original posts suggested it did. For all you political junkies out there, here's link to the text of the bill: http://thomas.loc.gov Just type "child modeling" into the word/phrase search box and you'll get a link to the bill. This is not to say that this is a good idea, or even that it wouldn't be twisted by the courts beyond all recognition. But the sponsor (Foley, a Republican from Southern Florida) and the text of the bill draw a distinction between child modeling for legitimate purposes and "exploitative" child modeling not connected with the market of a product. So using children in advertisements for clothing or food or things of that nature would not, apparently, be affected. Here's a clip from Rep. Foley's press release: "Specifically, this legislation, that will be co-introduced by Rep. Nick Lampson (D-TX), will ban all web sites that charge fees to view models 16 years of age and under that do not promote products or services beyond the child. "If a child is modeling for Gap or Gucci, it's legal. If the site is selling nothing else than the child via photos or video clips, it's illegal," Foley said." With that as background, I'll say two things about this particular effort. First, there are thousands of bills introduced in Congress that never go anywhere, indeed never even get the benefit of a hearing. Whether or not this is one of them, I can't say. Second, and most ominous: Congress has always had trouble dealing with the "Law of Unintended Consequences." They pass bills from time to time, a lot of them actually, that do things that they never even thought about while they were voting on them. Foley's bill could easily be extended by the Justice Department and the courts to go far beyond his original intent. Or there could be a lot of confusion about the "grey area" between extremes and where particular things might fall. (Could a photographic artist sell prints containing the image of a child under this law?) And no one can figure these things out beforehand. Incidentally, there's a pretty interesting irony on Foley's website. Foley is actually the Co-chair of the 2002 Congressional Art Competition, as is indicated by a link on his home page. I wonder how much he's considered the potential impacts of his bill on the artistic process. Rick Moore
