Revenge porn is the practice of uploading an individual’s intimate, typically explicit photographs or videos without their knowledge or permission, as an act of vengeance.

As of publication, 46 states and the District of Columbia now have revenge porn laws in the U.S., but a national law could soon arrive. The issue: the constitutionality of revenge porn on First Amendment grounds. The U.S. Constitution protects freedom of speech, even when it is offensive. But obscenity isn’t covered, and neither is the disclosure of private information.

We’ve seen many documented cases of revenge porn: In 2018, several Los Angeles Police Department officers were under investigation for allegedly distributing explicit images of one of their female colleagues—her ex-boyfriend had taken photos without her knowledge and then shared them in revenge after they broke up.

Unfortunately, revenge porn is also regularly posted online to dedicated websites. Staff within the U.S. Senate, the U.S. Navy, and even President Donald Trump’s Executive Office have accessed revenge porn websites.

In the U.S., there is no national law banning revenge porn, but that could change this year. The U.S. Supreme Court may decide to take up a case involving a woman who, after learning that her fiancée had an affair, sent a four-page letter to family and friends detailing text messages and explicit photos of the mistress. She was charged with a felony for violating Illinois’s strict revenge porn law, and she later argued that the law was unconstitutional.