<P> Personal possession of obscene material in the home may not be prohibited by law . In Stanley v. Georgia (1969), the Court ruled that "(i) f the First Amendment means anything, it means that a State has no business telling a man, sitting in his own house, what books he may read or what films he may watch ." However, it is constitutionally permissible for the government to prevent the mailing or sale of obscene items, though they may be viewed only in private . Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition (2002) further upheld these rights by invalidating the Child Pornography Prevention Act of 1996, holding that, because the act "(p) rohibit (ed) child pornography that does not depict an actual child" it was overly broad and unconstitutional under the First Amendment and that: </P> <P> First Amendment freedoms are most in danger when the government seeks to control thought or to justify its laws for that impermissible end . The right to think is the beginning of freedom, and speech must be protected from the government because speech is the beginning of thought . </P> <P> In United States v. Williams (2008), the Court upheld the PROTECT Act of 2003, ruling that prohibiting offers to provide and requests to obtain child pornography did not violate the First Amendment, even if a person charged under the Act did not possess child pornography . </P> <P> In some states, there are Son of Sam laws prohibiting convicted criminals from publishing memoirs for profit . These laws were a response to offers to David Berkowitz to write memoirs about the murders he committed . The Supreme Court struck down a law of this type in New York as a violation of the First Amendment in the case Simon & Schuster v. Crime Victims Board (1991). That statute did not prohibit publication of a memoir by a convicted criminal . Instead, it provided that all profits from the book were to be put in escrow for a time . The interest from the escrow account was used to fund the New York State Crime Victims Board--an organization that pays the medical and related bills of victims of crime . Similar laws in other states remain unchallenged . </P>

How does the first amendment protect individual rights