United States v. Anderegg (7th Cir. 2025)

FALA and FIRE filed this joint amicus brief in the Seventh Circuit urging the court to affirm the district court’s dismissal of a federal obscenity charge against Steven Anderegg for privately possessing AI-generated images of nude boys. The brief argues that Stanley v. Georgia (1969) protects private possession of obscene material in the home, and that the Supreme Court’s ruling in Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition (2002) makes clear that the child pornography exception to that rule applies only where real children are involved. Because no actual child was harmed in creating AI-generated images, the government’s interest in prosecuting Anderegg amounts to impermissible thought control. The brief methodically dismantles the government’s arguments — grooming risk, market demand, normalization — showing that each was already raised and rejected in Free Speech Coalition.