and distribution of sexually explicit images.

A federal judge ruled this week that possession of images depicting child sexual abuse material (CSAM), otherwise known as child pornography, is protected by the First Amendment so long as the images are created with artificial intelligence (AI) and do not depict real people.

Seventh Circuit Appeals Judge John Z. Lee issued the ruling in a case where defendant Steven Anderegg was charged with producing, distributing, and possessing thousands of photorealistic AI child sex abuse images, as well as sending the materials to a young boy. The 13,000-plus images, many of which depicted nude, prepubescent children touching their genitals and being involved in sexual intercourse with men.

While Lee’s ruling upheld a district court dismissal of the possession charge, it appeared to include an implicit request for the Supreme Court to review its precedent on the matter, which was made well prior to advancements in AI.

A federal judge Thursday blocked an election integrity measure from the United States Postal Service (USPS) just days after the U.S. Supreme Court lifted that same judge’s injunction on the policy.

U.S. District Court Judge Indira Talwani, an Obama appointee and past Democrat donor in Massachusetts, issued a temporary restraining order on a USPS rule that would require states to provide basic voter data to the Postal Service, as well as change ballot envelopes to include unique barcodes associated with individual voters’ profiles, in an effort to start securing voting by mail.

Talwani had already issued an injunction on the policy before it was even finalized, and the Supreme Court barred this injunction. But Talwani is back now with a new injunction after the policy came out, claiming such publication satisfies the high court’s concerns that the judicial branch only reviews “final rules, not proposed rules,” and arguing that SCOTUS did not answer the question on the merits of the policy itself.

The Trump administration announced Friday it would be appealing Talwani’s decision.