Japanese Lolicon Anime - legal status

Disclaimer:
Okay, hopefully this message will be received under the topic of Anti-Pedophile Hysteria and its encroachment upon the Anglo nations. I understand there is a tendency to interpret posts like this as advocacy from a person who has a gigantic stash of said material on their hard drive. Being aware of this interpretational tendency, I will first talk about this subject matter, and in a closing paragraph describe my personal interaction with this type of artwork.
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(For the sake of brevity, lets have the word Lolicon be a placeholder for "Japanese erotic cartoon characters drawn with child bodies". Being aware that the word has a wider definition in other contexts.)

I am aware that Japanese erotic cartoon characters made to look like children are already illegal in Canada. However, what is its legal status in the USA? I have read over the PROTECT Act of 2003 nearly a dozen times. The legal mumbo-jumbo is so thick that I don't understand precisely what it is saying. I have had recent interaction with some acquaintences who are webmasters of an image board that caters to posters of lolicon. (I am not a regular visitor -- more on this later). They have been complaining that they need to move their server to a place overseas. I find this quite disturbing. I invite the reader to compare and contrast that story with a healthy googling of PROTECT Act of 2003.

Just to state my position. I already find the law in Canada to be patently and ridiculously absurd on every level. If it has been adopted in the USA, I would feel disappointment but not be surprised. In no uncertain terms, if a man were to serve prison time for possession of naked cartoon characters, I would see that as a miscarriage of justice. I hope that there are at least a few people here at GC who share my feelings on this matter.

Disclaimer cont'
((I find naked anime girls to be ridiculous. The don't look human. Their eyes are physically impossible. I'm perfectly aware that this artwork is drawn by chubby, pimple-faced Japanese guys in basements. I don't collect it, and I don't find it sexy. If I have any naked cartoon characters laying around on my hard drive, they are there for humorous reasons, not prurient ones. Years ago I had only a tiny handful of things called doujins, which are black-and-white graphic novels. They are mostly a string of sex scenes but have a sort of semiplot and storyline to them. Of course I don't have them anymore. Maybe there were teen girl characters in a few of them, and they had male genitals? I don't know, whatever. Certainly there were no preschoolers in the few I saw.))