Rick Falkvinge On Child Porn and Freedom Of the Press 580
bazorg writes "Rick Falkvinge of the Swedish Pirate Party blogs on the subject of freedom of the press and foresees how users of Google glasses could be charged for possession and distribution of illegal porn. 'Child pornography is a toxic subject, but a very important one that cannot and should not be ignored. This is an attempt to bring the topic to a serious discussion, and explain why possession of child pornography need to be re-legalized in the next ten years.'"
On a philosophical level its just bits (Score:5, Insightful)
Possession of bits of any source or type out not be a crime. What you have here is a thought crime, and it doesn't actually deter actual abuse against children to criminalize or attempt to criminalize the thoughts or track down the bits. Chasing bits does not keep flesh and blood children safe from flesh and blood predators but I suppose it keeps pictures (bits) safe from creepy thinking adults.
A lot of laws are going to have to change with the advance in technology. Neuroscience will soon reveal all about the brain, making our paranoid about child predators seem about as effective as the paranoia about witches or communists. It's 2012 and at this time Google probably has everyone's thoughts...*cough* search records in a database. At the same time with neuroscience and in specific FMRI we will know what other humans are thinking, this technology does exist and ought to completely change the justice system.
The main problem with crime in the past is we assumed we would never know what anyone else is thinking, never have complete understanding of motives, never know the best forms of deterring certain events but imagine for a moment that its some point in the future and we know what everyone's thoughts were before they committed the criminal act? Would we view the acts in the same way if we knew the exact thoughts behind the act? If a criminal could not lie and an FMRI lie detector test has 100% accuracy could we change the justice system completely? What about detecting psychopaths, sociopaths, and others who aren't capable of remorse, empathy or guilt prior to sentencing? As far as I'm concerned we should be moving toward abolishing prisons altogether not because we wont have dangerous people but because eventually our understanding of human behavior will be such that we wont need so many prisoners and also if we wanted to we could probably just use house arrest on the non-violent.
We have to do away with the concept of good and evil. There is no good and evil. There may be smart and stupid or competent and incompetent but there is no good and evil. A sociopath or psychopath is not evil, they are simply retarded in a particular physical area of brain development. It hinders their decision making in the same way that any other disorder can hinder decision making in that it makes them less emotionally intelligent. This has been proven by neuroscientists when under FMRI we can see sociopaths brains aren't capable of experiencing empathy, remorse, and have trouble detecting or interpreting fear in the face and body language of others.
If we were talking about artificial intelligence we'd be talking about it like it's a bug that the AI cannot detect fear, or cannot properly make use of the empathy functions or subroutines, but because it's a human being we call the problem sociopathy and in human beings the problem is physical and not a matter of programming so it cannot be easily fixed. For these sorts of individuals we need prisons, but according to most estimates they only represent 1% of the general population yet 20% of the prisoners. This would mean 80% of prisoners aren't sociopaths or psychopaths, even if we assume 50% of that 80% are violent it still leaves 40$ or so of prisoners who aren't sociopaths or psychopaths and who aren't violent.
The most radical idea I'm going to propose is that we get rid of the idea of criminal responsibility. This probably wont happen until far into the future but if we make it into the future with powerful AI and technology, and we understand human thinking and feeling, at least theoretically we will eventually know the true motivations behind all actions. If the universe is predetermined and a lot of actions are based on genes, consequences, what brain type you have, environment, and situations, none of which an individual has full control over, just what is responsible for crime? The role of suggestion, of subliminal triggers, the role of desperation and poverty, the role of lack of intelligence, a lot of different things can convince a person that
Re:On a philosophical level its just bits (Score:5, Interesting)
Woah, I just got deja vu reading that post. It must mean some kind of plot development.
"The most radical idea I'm going to propose is that we get rid of the idea of criminal responsibility."
It's called mens rea, try to understand criminal law before you go about fixing it. Everything you babbled about is already handled by the present system.
Re:On a philosophical level its just bits (Score:4, Interesting)
"The most radical idea I'm going to propose is that we get rid of the idea of criminal responsibility."
It's called mens rea, try to understand criminal law before you go about fixing it.
I beg to differ !
Mens Rea - "The act does not make a person guilty unless the mind is also guilty"
That alone does not proof anything, until the prosecutor can proof the validity of Actus Reus
Re:On a philosophical level its just bits (Score:5, Informative)
RTFA. He's right: child porn is one of the situtations where mens rea is not necessary. You are absolutely 100% wrong on this one. Possession, regardless of means, circumstance or intent, is a criminal act. I know this first-hand, from engagements where we deployed network-centric DLP solutions in a consulting role and were briefed in advance by a law enforcement official AND a lawyer as to what to do if we came across child porn in our systems. It's you who needs to learn about criminal law, not him.
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Possession, regardless of means, circumstance or intent, is a criminal act. I know this first-hand, from engagements where we deployed network-centric DLP solutions in a consulting role and were briefed in advance by a law enforcement official AND a lawyer as to what to do if we came across child porn in our systems.
I think you are saying that they told you to report any child porn found to authorities no matter what the circumstances. They want you to do that so that someone with the proper qualifications can investigate to see whether a crime has been committed.
There is a common mistaken belief that legal posession begins when the supposedly possessed object comes to be on the person or property of the possessor. In reality, possession referes to the control which the possessor excercises over an object. In other wor
Re:On a philosophical level its just bits (Score:4, Insightful)
"there is no good and evil. A sociopath or psychopath is not evil, they are simply retarded in a particular physical area of brain development"
I agree. I'd go even further: they are not retarded, they are just different.
But at the same time, I'll say, put them away, preferably before they cause trouble.
I'm thinking it's a mistake to give everyone full civic rights at 18 and then see where that leads. People should gain civic rights gradually and at an individual pace, much like your car insurance premiums.
Re:On a philosophical level its just bits (Score:4, Funny)
I'll say, put them away, preferably before they cause trouble.
Precisely. Just throw everyone in prison because they might or might not commit a crime in the future! Everyone in group X, that is. A foolproof plan!
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and depending on your zip code.
Re:On a philosophical level its just bits (Score:5, Interesting)
People should gain civic rights gradually and at an individual pace, much like your car insurance premiums.
Sounds like a good plan if you're aiming for a police state.
Re:On a philosophical level its just bits (Score:5, Insightful)
People should gain civic rights gradually and at an individual pace, much like your car insurance premiums.
There is one major problem with this and other suggestions for ways of "earning" the right to vote. There's gotta be people who determine who passed and who doesn't, and those people will inevitably yield to corruption. And because their victims can't vote, there's no way to get rid of them.
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"earning" the right to vote
Every adult should have the right to vote, even death-row inmates. Disenfrachasing felons is much worse then gerrymandering.
But other rights like right to "hang," loiter, drive a car, stay outside after curfew, go to the shopping mall etc could be conditioned on good behavior, underwriters and such.
Re:On a philosophical level its just bits (Score:5, Insightful)
Now maybe the answer isn't to legalize CP completely. Maybe it's simply to revise under what conditions possession of CP is a chargeable offense. But to say that possession of a physical object is equal to the possession of a recording of a physical object is just wrong.
Re:On a philosophical level its just bits (Score:5, Insightful)
If Ted Bundy were a pedophile (Score:3)
If Ted Bundy were a pedophile then we would ban all child porn. Since Ted Bundy is not a pedophile we should ban all the porn which produced Ted Bundy's behavior?
I think one critical error that the pro-ban crowd makes is that they assume anyone who views child porn is a psychopath like Ted Bundy. This is under the assumption that because they wouldn't want to view it, what kind of sick twisted person would want to view something like that? They have to be a psychopath to even think about it, but is that nec
So you want to stop the next Ted Bundy (Score:5, Insightful)
But you know, thanks to the internet we have more access to violent porn than ever yet there hasn't been an explosion of Ted Bundys. In fact rapes have gone down and violent crime in general has gone down. Explain?
I want to stop the next Ted Bundy too and I want to prevent rape, murder, torture, just like you do. I just don't think banning any kind of pornography will make a difference. People either have the ability to behave or they don't, they have impulse control or they don't, they have empathy or they don't. If we are dealing with psychopaths then they probably don't have any of that but what if the majority aren't psychopaths?
Why are we locking people up who clearly aren't psychopaths? If they aren't psychopaths how do you know they are capable of child molestation? It's not like everyone is equally capable. It's like with rape, why assume everyone is equally capable of rape?
You can take two people and put them in bad environments and one could turn into a serial killing rapist and the other could become a priest and the difference would be in the brains of the individuals not the environment. The same could be said about porn, while some people would view child porn or have rape fantasies and ultimately be unable to resist their urge to act on it, the vast majority of people would be able to resist the urge. I'm willing to bed the vast majority of people have had dark fantasies of some sort, or just dangerous thoughts, whether thoughts of murder, rape, torture, or anything else, but we don't condemn them for these thoughts so why do we make a special category for people with pedophile thoughts?
If you can think about killing your wife, your boss, or raping someone, and not get arrested, why should anyone else get arrested for whatever sick violent thought they think about? Creation of child pornography is not merely thinking about it so arrest people who create it but possession is just equal to thinking about it.
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That presupposes the driving force between pedophilia and rape are the same. According to those who study the two, they are not. Rape is overwhelmingly about power, while pedophilia has a much broader range of driving forces. Those who crave control rarely wish to temper their drives, while many, many pedophiles have talked openly about fighting a sometimes losing battle to overcome their drive to watch (or engage with) children. Access to pornography helps curb the drive to be gratified sexually. The size
Re:On a philosophical level its just bits (Score:5, Insightful)
just how the fuck did the child get in the photograph in the first place.
CP covers a lot more that actual photographs of criminal acts. Depending on where you are, photos of merely naked children, photos of adults that look or are make to look young, CGI renderings, drawings/paintings, stick figures with captions, and even pure text can legally be counted as CP.
I think that one of the main problems with discussing this issue is that one side hears "child porn" and thinks "actual video of someone anally raping an unwilling, kidnapped 8-year-old", and the other side is also including "topless pix my first girlfriend sent me when she was 16", "xkcd-style drawings with creepy captions", or "that Der Spiegel cover from the 60's".
Re:On a philosophical level its just bits (Score:4, Insightful)
Thank you! My issue with CP is this exactly. At some point, some child WAS dragged into this issue. There is nothing that can defend placing a child into this potentially life shattering situation. They can not willingly opt into participating as a minor--for a reason. SICK SICK SICK people. "Outlet for the peds" Please. Medication, counceling, and/or jail time YES.
As much as you might hate the facts, the facts are the facts. Taking pornography as an example, Japan has very few restrictions on the content of pornography short of genitals, and is home to very depraved (value judgment) pornography featuring very realistic rape and apparent violence towards women. Yet Japan enjoys some of the lowest incidence of rape in the world.
Now consider nations with heavy restrictions or prohibition of pornography, like Saudi Arabia, which has some of the highest incidence of rape in the industrialized world.
The fact is that outlets are better than just harmless, they're keeping actual living and breathing people safe. Huge collections of people are safer when potential attackers are abated.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
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Actually, no. What matters is keeping people, including but not limited to children, safe. Making sure "sickos" don't get any satisfaction is at the very least orthogonal and quite possibly counter-productive to this goal. In no case is it justified to pass laws that hurt someone just because you don't like him.
That said, it can certainly be argued that the continued circulation of real CP continues making a victim of the people depicted
Re:On a philosophical level its just bits (Score:5, Insightful)
No. A pedophile is sexually attracted to children. A child molestor molests children. I can't believe your comment was rated "insightful".
Re:On a philosophical level its just bits (Score:4, Insightful)
A pedophile is someone sexually attracted to prepubescent children.
The incidence of pedophilia is estimated to be around 1%, only slightly lower than homosexuality.
Don't muddle pedophile/molester/rapist. Someone who molests a child is a child molester, not a pedophile.
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at least ten times lower than homosexuality
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in this case, I want my hermbot. That way I don't have to decide which way I want to swing tonight
Re:On a philosophical level its just bits (Score:4, Insightful)
No. "technically" you are correct. Philosophically you are way off target. Philosophy requires that you think more deeply about imlications, causes and effects. You do know that child porn is created because there is a demand for it, right? Your argument about the flesh and blood predators is just wrong. Maybe not all, but children I deed ARE exploited because of that demand. One might not be paying for it, but by swapping, downloading, and arguably by mere possession, they are enabling contributing to the ecosystem that helps the underground economy thrive.
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No. "technically" you are correct. Philosophically you are way off target. Philosophy requires that you think more deeply about imlications, causes and effects. You do know that child porn is created because there is a demand for it, right? Your argument about the flesh and blood predators is just wrong. Maybe not all, but children I deed ARE exploited because of that demand. One might not be paying for it, but by swapping, downloading, and arguably by mere possession, they are enabling contributing to the ecosystem that helps the underground economy thrive.
You're assuming there are child porn sites selling child porn for a profit. In that case yes it would be produced on demand to meet the supply in a very business oriented manner. The pedophile child molester on the other hand is not doing it for business reasons, they are doing it merely to get off. There is no reward for them to share it with others and risk going to prison. Yes there are child porn rings in existence and there are also serial killers who film it and put it on the internet but that doesn't
Re:On a philosophical level its just bits (Score:5, Insightful)
Make it possible to trace any image or film from any camera
Worst. Idea. Ever.
Well, not the worst, but just... no. This is the exact same reasoning as strip-searching everyone at the airports or the government putting cameras inside your house filming everything you do. Because if it's not illegal you've got nothing to hide, right?
And criminals *will* find a way to strip that information from their videos. Does that flag it as illegal? Sure. But it was already illegal to begin with.
All this will do is take away the privacy of legitimate users.
Re:On a philosophical level its just bits (Score:5, Interesting)
There is no reward for them to share it with others
But of course there is a reward!
You said it yourself, they are sharing, i.e. they expect something in return which is a form of trade.
Because it's implausible these paedophiles would/could be forced to only share already existing depictions without new ones, = new abuse taking place, such a system is doomed to fail.
Compare it to the world wide ban on trade in Ivory, even though there is an excess of elephants in S. Africa we need to ban all trade to protect the elephants in areas where they are still threatened by extinction.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
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As with alcohol and narcotics, the result of banning is massive financing of the illicit industries. IE, the ban on cp is what actually creates a huge profit incentive where there may have been little to none before. Non-payers reduce that financial incentive.
The only sort of coherent argument for banning possession that I've heard is that the existence of the images themselves can in some cases conceivably be traumatic for those exploited, and thus can be regarded as some form of perpetuation of the abuse.
Re:On a philosophical level its just bits (Score:5, Insightful)
Philosophy doesn't cover instinctive urges, except to rationalize their suppression. A person will satisfy their desires, no matter what. Those desires become distorted and perverted when puritanical prohibitions against normal, healthy sex, including play 'sex' amongst the kids, are imposed. Prohibition against regular sex actually aids and abets kiddie porn, makes the desire stronger, because of the religious guilt imposed on adults, and they pass it on to the kids. We need more intimate conjugal visits in the work place, seeing as they can always call you at home during suppertime...
A psychopath will satisfy their desires no matter what. Most people aren't psychopaths and do suppress the vast majority of their subconscious urges.
You may have had a dream about murdering your boss but it doesn't mean you'll go do it because you'll think of all the risks and consequences and weigh it out. A psychopath would be unable to resist the urge and would go do it without any thought for the consequences and the lack of empathy would make it much easier for them to enjoy the nature of the act.
So once again I don't think you're correct. I don't think prohibition is correct either because suppressing peoples urges can bring risks of its own, this is why we have violent movies, video games, combat sports, so people don't have to kill their boss.
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Most people aren't psychopaths and do suppress the vast majority of their subconscious urges.
Suppressing them would be like suppressing the need for sleep. No, what most people do to redirect them, and even project them onto others. Literally 'the assassin accusing the assassin'. And, dare I say it, most people, as a group, do show a notable lack of empathy.. as they send out their armies to do their dirty business. Sociopathy runs a bit deeper than most people want to admit.
If people are allowed to harmles
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We have to do away with the concept of good and evil. There is no good and evil.
Only someone that has never experienced evil could possibly say something like this. Oh, I assure you there is such a thing as evil, although that is perhaps a euphemism for the phrase "conscious intent to do harm". Some people are simply astonished to realize that there are people that wish them ill and do so on a scale that is difficult to imagine. We have a tradition of calling such people "evil".
We aren't talking about people with difficulties relating to others or to the real world. We are talking
Re:On a philosophical level its just bits (Score:5, Insightful)
The main problem with crime in the past is we assumed we would never know what anyone else is thinking, never have complete understanding of motives, never know the best forms of deterring certain events but imagine for a moment that its some point in the future and we know what everyone's thoughts were before they committed the criminal act? Would we view the acts in the same way if we knew the exact thoughts behind the act?If a criminal could not lie and an FMRI lie detector test has 100% accuracy could we change the justice system completely?
This should never happen because anyone in their right mind should be fighting against someone being able to probe their thoughts. Evidence is one thing, however what you suggest is far worse than evidence. Better stand up now, make sure you keep the separation or else we are doomed.
What about detecting psychopaths, sociopaths, and others who aren't capable of remorse, empathy or guilt prior to sentencing? As far as I'm concerned we should be moving toward abolishing prisons altogether not because we wont have dangerous people but because eventually our understanding of human behavior will be such that we wont need so many prisoners and also if we wanted to we could probably just use house arrest on the non-violent.
This statement reeks of the same issue we have with "Monitoring tweets to detect sociopaths" and "DNS testing to determine future crimes". We see both already being discussed and both are rather poor attempts at Eugenics. A person's psychological state is not determined by DNA, or any what they may be typing now, but rather a result of sociological impact. Ever see the movie "Trading Places"? This would be a good start, but remember something. Eddie Murphey's character would have been jailed long before he was on the sidewalk by Eugenics if they could have tested his DNA. Walt and Mortimer would still be making $1.00 bets at the expense of fellow humans.
This brings me to your next point.
We have to do away with the concept of good and evil.
Absolute idiocy. Those two concepts are how we have, and maintain, sociological morals which are required for us to survive as a society. Without those two concepts we would still be running around with sticks trying to steal each others women and food, and would have never progressed to the point we have. Does that mean perhaps that "Good" and "Evil" should be defined in to something more socially acceptable to atheists like yourself? I'm okay with that, but you can't do away with morality and maintain society. If you believe it's possible, I will simply point you to the US's decline. Since it's ugly to look at and you may see nothing wrong, how about Rome? Greece? Germany? The UK? Pick a history to study, and you will see that when morality no longer addresses "good" and "evil" even (and perhaps especially) for some people, society begins to decline in all areas. Remember that the goals of Governments for over 3000 years was setting and maintaining a set of morals and virtues, which in essence _are_ good and evil.
Again, you are plain old telling a fable with your comment "A sociopath or psychopath is not evil, they are simply retarded in a particular physical area of brain development.". This is not true at all, since anyone is capable of being either of those, and worse. This is based on evidence, not speculation. Why do you neglect the impact society has on a person's psychological state, except that it would harm your argument?
If you understood this, your next statement of " This would mean 80% of prisoners aren't sociopaths or psychopaths, even if we assume.." would be completely unnecessary. Society creates way more sociopaths and psychopaths than birth order. People are not always psychopaths or sociopaths, people do have the ability to repair damage caused by society and be "normal". This again is verifiable and well documented in psychology and sociology. You
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I agree with some of your arguments.
Thoughts should *never* be a crime.
Child porn that already exists is just bits--the crime of creating it has already been committed.
Here's what I see with having possession of child porn illegal:
1) some people will have a fettish/fantasy of sex with minors--you *cannot* change that in them and hoping to do so is futile--and like you said, it's not a crime to think it.
2) I'd much rather those people satisfy their urges in private with porn, leaving actual children safe
3) i
Not a troll (Score:3, Insightful)
You had me interested until "There is no good and evil".
VERY elaborate troll, good work.
I hope you don't actually want me to elaborate, since you're so much off on so much levels; I'll just point the most obvious:
Pedo material (on a computer) are just bits => pedo material on a printed medium is just paper? Oh, have I already mentioned that to have pedo material on your pc someone, somewhere a child has been harassed (at the least), AND someone, somewhere has harassed a child? There is still "no good and evil"?
2nd: If someone exterminated your family that would be bad, wouldn't it? Still no good and evil?
3rd: Choice. You're ignoring the very root of human nature. "Getting rid of the idea of criminal responsibility" is like removing human nature from human beings. What's left are automata (which is in line with your post)
Bonus Ponts: "Neuroscience will soon reveal all about the brain" HAHAHA! No. Don't count on it anytime soon ("soon" as in my "grandchildern lifespan"). It actually might be impossibile, but who knows.
Anyway, a very good troll, cheers.
There is no scientifically objective basis for determining "evil". We can say destructive and replace that with "evil" in our discussion if you'd like. In that case psychopaths are more destructive not because they are "evil" but because their brains are literally retarded in areas which would prevent them from being destructive. They lack the ability to resist their urges, lack inhibition, lack remorse, guilt, empathy, compassion, pity. Their frontal lobe development is like that of children and in some ca
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I don't think so, Tim.
Re:Really?! So, let's google, shall we .... (Score:4, Informative)
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/247321.php [medicalnewstoday.com]
http://spectrum.ieee.org/geek-life/tools-toys/this-is-your-brain-on-fmri [ieee.org]
http://gizmodo.com/5922208/scientists-invent-mind+reading-system-that-lets-you-type-with-your-brain [gizmodo.com]
http://www.aclu.org/blog/technology-and-liberty/high-tech-mind-readers-are-latest-effort-detect-lies [aclu.org]
http://www.hlntv.com/article/2012/04/06/mobile-brain-scanner-ibrain-stephen-hawking [hlntv.com]
Do more research. It's already here even if you don't know about it.
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I'll disagree with you on one point. Good and Evil. Let me give you some definitions first. "Ethical code" or "morals" is something that people ascribe to a group but are more properly defined as belonging to an individual (although "groups" make some of these ethics into laws). An individual has a moral code. Everyone's is different. But, within your own moral code, when you do something that you, personally believe is "bad" or "wrong" (again, you believe - not some group), that is a good definition of evil. And trust me, by that definition evil does surely exist. Partly remorse exists because of evil (although certainly some of remorse is about lost opportunity). Good on the other hand comes from putting the welfare of another above your own. We as a species are good at doing this for our immediate family. Not too bad at doing it for our close "tribe", and get progressively worse at it the farther the relationship / political entity is from us. Trying to say that good and evil don't exist is simplistic. It may well be true that people have misconceptions about where and how they apply - but they do exist and do apply.
I don't feel like we need to think in good and evil. It's not about morals it's about consequences and an action can be perceived by society to be morally good and produce horrible consequences. We cannot objectively measure good and evil but we can measure consequences. Utilitarianism ethics would say child pornography possession and distribution is good because it produces happiness in a large segment of the population without harm, but it would also say child pornography creation is bad because it produc
Re:On a philosophical level its just bits (Score:5, Interesting)
Take your "philosophy" and shove up in your ass, you fucking pedophile! Are you reallyh that STUPID you imbecil? Any criminal could say "it's only atoms" in your world, coulnd't they? Fuck you, dumb ass.
This ^ is the exact kind of reaction that I'm against.You're emotionalism doesn't belong in the law, if you're upset or pissed off because of what happened to you then seek therapy like everybody else who has had a difficult childhood or a difficult adulthood. The fact that you would label someone a pedophile out of anger is exactly why we need to change these laws.
Is this really a problem? (Score:2)
Aren't there existing protections limiting prosecution to knowingly and intentionally committing crimes? I can't see how legalizing possession completely will "fix" the "problem" of accidental prosecution in an effective way. Baby/bathwater and all that.
Re:Is this really a problem? (Score:5, Informative)
Aren't there existing protections limiting prosecution to knowingly and intentionally committing crimes? I can't see how legalizing possession completely will "fix" the "problem" of accidental prosecution in an effective way. Baby/bathwater and all that.
FTFL:
Re:Is this really a problem? (Score:5, Insightful)
One likes to think the person would be considered a hero rather than be charged, but I can see it going wrong for them.
These are the same people who brought you marijuana residue on walls not being evidence of past use or possession, but the vanishingly small amounts of THC in the wall residue was possession in and of itself.
These are the same people who, when presented with more intrusive powers to track terrorists, claimed, golly, no, we will never, ever, not no way, not no how, ever use it for anything but terrorism, then, immediately after the law was passed, started using it against drugs, saying, "The law doesn't specifically state terrorism only, sorry!" They didn't even bother trying to conjure up the meme that drug selling is "a kind of" terrorism. They didn't have to.
These are the same people who are trying to get teenagers registered as lifelong felony producers of child porn who must register as sex offenders wherever they go for the rest of their lives because they took a nude shot of themselves and sent it to friends.
So...with these common horror stories as the tip of the iceberg, I wouldn't put it beyond some prosecutor to try to jail a guy who accidentally filmed a child rape then took it to police as a producer of child porn.
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Aren't there existing protections limiting prosecution to knowingly and intentionally committing crimes? I can't see how legalizing possession completely will "fix" the "problem" of accidental prosecution in an effective way. Baby/bathwater and all that.
No there aren't. Lets say you didn't know the law prior to committing the crime so you didn't even know you were breaking a law? You'd still be convicted.
Not in the case of child porn (Score:5, Interesting)
Just possessing it, regardless of the reason, intent, etc is criminal. The law is very unbending on it. It gets applied pretty draconian at times too. A good example is a teenage couple sent naked pictures of themselves to each other via e-mail. They got out, and both were tried and convicted of child porn charges (and it was upheld on appeal). Doesn't matter that the pictures were of themselves, it is illegal, intent and any other factors are just not part of the law.
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What you describe is a broken legal system that needs fixing because the world cannot be painted in black & white alone.
Re:Is this really a problem? (Score:5, Insightful)
Aren't there existing protections limiting prosecution to knowingly and intentionally committing crimes? I can't see how legalizing possession completely will "fix" the "problem" of accidental prosecution in an effective way. Baby/bathwater and all that.
Unfortunately, possession of child pornography is a crime regardless of the reason you have it, regardless of whether or not you intended to possess it, regardless of whether or not you were even able to access it, regardless of whether or not you even knew you had it. Even cartoon depictions of child sex abuse are illegal in the United States.
As for prosecution, the point here is that possession alone should not be a crime at all -- the original concept was to attack the producers of child porn by attacking their customers, since the producers themselves were so hard to find. The Internet has changed things: people can just download child pornography without paying for it. The law should at least be revised to reflect that fact, perhaps by making it a crime to pay (by money or by barter) rather than to possess. Yes, that means the police will have to actually gather evidence that a person was paying i.e. encouraging child rape, otherwise known as doing their jobs.
Re:Is this really a problem? (Score:4, Informative)
Injecting a bit of law might help the discussion. Even CP has defenses. The following is from 18 USC 2252, Certain activities relating to material involving the sexual exploitation of minors.
Paragraph 4 deals with possession in federal jurisdictions or possession obtained by way of mail or computer. All of 2252 requires the accused to knowingly possess such materials.
There is still the issue of distribution if you're live-streaming it, but this is a (very tiny) risk in any live stream that happens in public. Anyone who sees it (the original witness and any stream viewers) is required to report it to law enforcement. Someone who, as TFA suggests, turns and runs while deleting the images then is guilty of destruction of evidence, may be guilty of failing to report a crime, and may be charged as an accessory after the fact since the witness saw the crime and covered up the evidence which in some cases results in some extremely harsh penalties akin to what the attacker gets.
More complex than even he makes out (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:More complex than even he makes out (Score:5, Insightful)
And fringe cases, where the person in possession is underage themselves, or barely older... Teenagers often have sexual relations with each other these days, and 15 year olds sending pictures to each other, or someone who's just turned 18 having pictures of his 17 and 11 months old girlfriend etc... This is clearly a whole different situation than a 40yr old having pictures of a 10yr old.
Philosophical thought experiment (Score:5, Interesting)
For all who support the current child pornography laws which criminalize possessions of bits, is there a significant difference between that and a thought crime?
If you still support the ban on child pornography then why isn't there a ban on obscene "teen erotica" literature? Why not ban text descriptions, or ban stories which encourage child abuse?
Lets say for argument a corporation decided to produced a hand drawn manga series of lolicon (child porn) erotica and marketed it to an adult population, should the behavior of this corporation be banned? Should purchase or distribution of this material be criminal? Should the website be shut down and all the visitors raided?
Why or why not?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
If you still support the ban on child pornography then why isn't there a ban on obscene "teen erotica" literature? Why not ban text descriptions, or ban stories which encourage child abuse?
No actual people are physically harmed.
Re: (Score:2)
If you still support the ban on child pornography then why isn't there a ban on obscene "teen erotica" literature? Why not ban text descriptions, or ban stories which encourage child abuse?
No actual people are physically harmed.
Who is harmed when bits are exchanged over the internet? Possession of child pornography doesn't do any direct harm to children just as possession of virtual child porn, lolicon or whatever else doesn't do any actual damage to children. So what exactly makes images and video so different from text descriptions or stories? To computers both are just bits.
Re:Philosophical thought experiment (Score:4, Insightful)
Are we really arguing that no actual people are being physically harmed when children are being forced to engage in sexual activity?
No. Only in the making of the child pornography is a child actually harmed.
Re: (Score:3)
Just because you KNOW the evidence is on the internet.
It's futile to try to censor it. Once it's on the Internet, it's likely there for good. Not only that, but the fact that they don't like it being on the Internet doesn't mean we should resort to censorship in the first place. There are plenty of things on the Internet that people don't like, but I don't believe that means we should censor it.
(s)He may think (s)he enjoys it, but their brain is damaged
I think that's too ambiguous.
Re:Philosophical thought experiment (Score:5, Insightful)
How you wish that the children had only been tortured and murdered on tape. Then you could have turned it in without fear. Stop confusing possession of evidence of a crime with COMMISSION of a crime. Also stop confusing recording of a crime with the crime itself.
Re: (Score:3)
what if the stories were graphic true first person accounts of the events? How would that story differ from a photo of the event?
Re:Philosophical thought experiment (Score:4, Informative)
Why not ban text descriptions, or ban stories which encourage child abuse?
They are already banned, see Manga Collection Ruled “Child Pornography By US Court [io9.com].
Re:Philosophical thought experiment (Score:4, Insightful)
The main distinction is that one of them is proven to create victims and one of them is not.
Creating child porn by actually filming/taking pictures of or otherwise documenting the sexual abuse of a child absolutely is not just a thought crime. A real child is being victimized. Some people who create child porn do so because it gets them off, but some others do so for financial gain to be had from selling it to people who like viewing it. Because of that, simply owning it means that it is possible that one owning child porn is contributing to the financial incentive behind those creating it, and adding to the problem. The main point here is that a direct causal link can be reasonably drawn: If you have a real photo of a child really being sexually abused, it is absolutely the case that a child was sexually abused to create that photo.
So, with real child porn it absolutely is not a thought crime - it's an actual crime, and people who possess it should be charged with a crime because they are to some extent intentionally facilitating the abuse of children. It may be an incredibly slender connection, but it is absolutely a connection to a child being sexually assaulted.
With fictional stuff - drawings, photoshops, stories - there is absolutely no proven causal link between people writing and consuming those things and actual children being abused sexually. It may be that drawings, photoshops and stories about child sexual abuse encourage some people to do it, but it can't be proven because there are no children directly involved in the creation of those things. It would be roughly the same as saying that violent video games lead to murder sprees and as such should be banned. The problem here is that some people think that their own personal distaste for such things means that there must be a direct link between those things and children being hurt - that is not so. The main point here is that if you have some fiction about a child being sexually abused, you cannot say that absolutely a child must have been sexually abused to make that fiction.
So, because there is no direct link between fictional child porn and children actually being hurt, THAT would be a thought crime. It would be roughly equivalent to putting someone up on charges of attempted murder because they spent all day playing Call of Duty and so clearly they must be about to kill someone. There's no actual child being assaulted/no person being killed, so there's no actual connection to a child being assaulted/person being killed. No link.
There's also a grey area: Does fictionalized child porn create a culture in which child sexual abuse becomes more acceptable or more likely? Proponents of bans on fictionalized child porn say yes it does, while opponents either cite free speech or theories that fictionalized child porn reduces the likelihood of people seeking real child porn or actually abusing children themselves. Depending on how convincing one finds the arguments, one could go either way.
Personally, I find any kind of representation of child sexual abuse presented as a form of sexual gratification (fictionalized or real) to be disgusting, but I'm at least willing to acknowledge that my being disgusted by something doesn't mean it should be criminalized if it can't be shown to actually cause harm to innocents. That's something all too many people who are on a "think of the children" crusade don't get: their personal distaste doesn't automatically change the facts to suit their opinions.
Re: (Score:2)
Because they can be created without raping an actual child.
So target the actual molester and not the bits. Someone could tell stories about how to molest children and maybe they write from experience and heck for sake of argument lets say a prisoner in prison for serial child molestation writes stories and books, should those books be banned?
My point is the event already took place. The crime was already committed. The bits on the computer at best are digital representations of evidence of the crime but they aren't the crime. The bits did not molest the child.
Re:Philosophical thought experiment (Score:5, Funny)
Then the rapists put it on youtube.
I don't think that type of content is even allowed on Youtube.
Oh no! I can magically feel when each person is looking at a video, and with each view, a part of my soul is stolen! I'm entitled to censor content because I don't like the way people are looking at a video!
That said, your comment needs to be censored. I can feel myself getting violated just reading it.
Re:Philosophical thought experiment (Score:5, Interesting)
So can "simulated," entirely computer-generated CP, yet that's also illegal. Explain THAT one!
Some good arguments, some bad arguments. (Score:3, Insightful)
Some of his arguments are good, while some of them are stupid. Yes, I admit that, in a moment of weakness, I actually read the linked article. I promise never to do this again.
His first point is probably his weakest and stupidest. It's a paranoid fantasy (involving some kind of uber-nerd/uber-hipster cross) about the government coming down harder on witnesses of a crime than the actual perpetrator. He also loads it with emotional appeals. It's not really very compelling, and it almost caused me to stop reading the article right there. It reminded me of the over-the-top, paranoid fantasies and fallacies that were popular during the time of SOPA. Anyone who dared to call people out on that was labeled a fascist sympathizer, or sometimes just a "concern troll". It bothered me a lot more to be labeled a "concern troll", because the underlying message was that it was perfectly OK to use logical fallacies and propaganda in the service of a greater good. I reject this, and I think using these techniques just hurts a movement. There's always a better argument against authoritarianism than simplistic logical fallacies, such as the slippery slope or appeal to emotion. It's lazy.
The rest of his arguments were actually a lot better. He made some pretty decent points, including the fact that free speech necessarily opposes censorship of even the most offensive speech. He also brings up age of consent laws and the recent spate of "no tolerance" cases against teens who have sent naked pictures to each other. Obviously, there are some problems with the law here. My own personal solution is to lower the age of majority, but I think that's going to be way too contentious. Since nobody is likely to support that, I'd say that we should enact so-called "Romeo and Juliet" laws, which allow teens to screw around with each other without fear of being charged with rape or child porn.
Anyways, it's pretty much standard for progressive politics, and I've seen the same arguments from many people. As a progressive, I generally agree. This wasn't a particularly insightful or well-written example, but it's still good to see that there are progressives out there, spreading the message.
Re:Some good arguments, some bad arguments. (Score:5, Informative)
If you also read the comments they mention two cases where this actually happened. They are in Swedish, but Google Translate does a fairly good job on them.
Relying on government's discretion to prevent people from being prosecuted for something that the law says is illegal will only work until you run into someone with an agenda, or a mindless bureaucrat. or a fanatic who happens to be in government.
Here's an example in english (Score:5, Informative)
Simon Walsh: How bodged arrest and 'profoundly damaging' false charges have ruined my City Hall career
http://www.standard.co.uk/lifestyle/london-life/simon-walsh-how-bodged-arrest-and-profoundly-damaging-false-charges-have-ruined-my-city-hall-career-8046087.html
The enemy of your enemy is not your friend (Score:4, Insightful)
Defending child pornography will just make it easier for copyright lobbyists to claim that all pirates are pedophiles. This is a bad strategy.
Re:The enemy of your enemy is not your friend (Score:5, Insightful)
Defending child pornography will just make it easier for copyright lobbyists to claim that all pirates are pedophiles. This is a bad strategy.
Pedophile has become communist. It's like being a witch. You're guilty until proven innocent and it can be used as political weapon to oppress all sorts of different groups of people. If you're part of Occupy Wallstreet, Anonymous, or just a rogue journalist you can be framed by a child porn virus and made to look like a pedophile.
So if the fear is you can't be an activist because you fear looking like a pedophile, you're appealing to fear and basically saying don't fight for free speech at all because they'll make you into a pedophile. Of course they can also make you into a rapist or make you dead given the right set of circumstances and if they knew how to get away with it.
Good luck with that (Score:5, Insightful)
We can't even get Cannabis legalized here, and the arguments for that are much more overwhelming. When children are involved, people shut off their brains.
Re:Good luck with that (Score:4, Insightful)
When children are involved, most animal species shut off their brains; why should homo sapiens be an exception? This is pure instinct at work, instinct that developed in millions years of evolution. Without it, we wouldn't belong to the survivors of Nature, and wouldn't even be here. Of course, this deeply rooted instinct is easy prey for populist politicians and a prime tool of political manipulative scare tactics. It has always be, it will always be.
Re:Good luck with that (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is calling 17 year olds "children."
brave new world (Score:2)
It's very simple, no - really - it is! (Score:4, Interesting)
You may not like the answer, but it's very straightforward and logical, some may even call it cynical:
Child porn, as defined, a naked child depicted on a photo, drawing, animation or film in a sexually provoking pose or situation is illegal in most of the world because of religious beliefs, nothing else. And if you imagine that 95% of the population is religious, then you can forget about this becoming legal at any point soon.
You may even think that the picture of a naked child is totally disgusting, immoral, horrible, or the fact that someone out there are "having a good time" imagining or watching an image depicting your or anyone's child, even a fantasy child that doesn't exist, simply because you find it so disgusting. Some think it's the most natural thing in the world, but not for others to see etc.
Fact is: It's a human body, yes, it's young, and vulnerable. And here is where the two world splits and unfortunately combine because of religion and moral to a sort of smorgasbord of "take whatever you feel is right, and so it shall be and make it law", even though it doesn't make any logical sense whatsoever.
Fact is: If you sexually abuse anyone, be it a child, animal or fully grown human - it's abuse. It isn't more or less terrible if it is a defenseless child. You are defenseless if you where raped anyway, why is another human more or less worth than you?
Fact is: If you "please" a child, and the child was not hurt, but enjoyed it - then you have not per see hurt the child. However - the child is in a learning stage of life, and because we see this as immoral and it's against our religious beliefs or otherwise, the child will come to know this when the child grows up, and therefor the risk is there that the child will at a later stage in life - feel abused and dirty, and thus have it's life "mentally" destroyed and disturbed.
So you see, even though this may have felt right for the both of you - at the time - time and moral and religion both can and will make this a crime and destroy lives. So for that reason alone, this is dangerous.
However, in a perfect flawless world where people have the capacity to think for themselves, where love is favored in front of war and hatred, where being nude is as natural as eating food, where masturbation whether mutual or mono is as natural as a kiss or a greeting, then no harm will come of this - it is ALL mental.
Depicting such fantasies, dreams, wishes (to some) or horrors, infidelity, abuse (to some) on pictures, spreading them around the world, is of course dangerous because of this.
In reality, unfortunately - there are a lot of people making child porn for profit, actually abusing kids for real, and we're talking taking kids from poor families, taking pictures of them against their own will, abusing them, and depicting this with REAL kids with REAL suffering, now THAT IS HORRIBLE, and it happens much more than you may want to think.
Why? Because of money!
If this "nude" hysteria wasn't so blown out of proportions that half the planets a-sexual people have to go undercover just to keep their jobs (and no, not with kids) but just to survive in a hostile territory, there would not be such a demand for it, and a picture like that would be worth no money at all, because it was easily available.
So you see, it's very simple. How can something that feels good, and is good be so bad? Read the above, and put it into perspective, then you can easily see how it could be so bad, and how it could be good. Not that complicated really...
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I was taught that the most essential role of government was to protect the rights of the minorities against the will of the majority. I have also understood the smallest minority to be the individual. If 95% of a population can get their way, then so can I, just without them and their support. The government is there to stop them from taking away that right, not to join in on the madness in order to curry their favor by tacit support through inaction.
If I wanted to be ruled by a majority, I would just join
Re:It's very simple, no - really - it is! (Score:4, Insightful)
I'd like to take issue with this point. While it is a fact that "if you abuse someone it is abuse", it is much more a matter of opinion the severity of its horror. You can pretend this isn't true. You can pretend that the act of abusing an adult, who has better means of resisting as well as an understanding of what abuse is, is the same as abusing a child, who is easily exploited due to reliance on adults and in many cases is unable to communicate that they have been abused. Also, you can pretend that all rape victims were "defenseless" leading up to the moment of their abuse, but this is another fallacy.
Re: (Score:3)
Fact is: If you "please" a child, and the child was not hurt, but enjoyed it - then you have not per see hurt the child.
I'd really love to see if you have studies that address this issue. Because it sounds like you are 'guessing' on a lot of things there.
Re: (Score:3)
Here's a mind cookie for you.
What if that child was me. Would that make me a bad person?
Wow is this guy wrong.... (Score:4, Interesting)
Another thing is how the heck do these laws prevent the media from reporting? Gee you never hear some journalist say something like "Oh man I really wanted to show some B roll of some nude 13 year old in this story but I can't because of these laws". Really??!?! This is just nonsense. The part about the Google Glasses was also a bunch of nonsense as well. The only thing I agree with him on is the teenagers sexting part. I think that teenagers shouldn't be charged with a crime for victimizing themselves. Because once these images get out there on the internet, all of the sudden these kids have pedophiles stalking them. Instead parents and schools need to teach kids about the risks associated with sexting. Other than that, what a complete loon this guy is. I've never really thought much about the Pirate Party before this. Mainly because they're not that big here in the US, I think the Libertarian Party(Which I gladly support) covers most of their views. But I've just lost all respect for the Pirate Party.
Re:Wow is this guy wrong.... (Score:4, Insightful)
A high percentage of sexual abuse crimes committed against children are never reported.
I've always wondered... How the fuck do they gather statistics about how many unreported crimes occur, if they were never reported? It's this kind of bullshit that has idiots claiming that 1 in every 3 children will be molested! The average child molester molest over 300 children in his career!. It makes no fucking sense. They've got to be just assuming some number occurs, then throwing in a Coefficient of Molestation or something until they get what they want, or what will alarm Senator Hardoncrime the most.
Re:Wow is this guy wrong.... (Score:4, Interesting)
The problem with the idea of people pleasuring themselves with the images is there is a very small distance from silently pleasuring yourself alone to inviting the neighborhood girl in and showing her the pictures with a "doesn't that look like fun?" comment.
How are most people possessing child porn caught? Does someone come and break their door down while they are silently pleasuring themselves at home? Or could it be that someone turns them in? Could it be that the neighborhood girl decides that while it looked like fun, it wasn't so much and tells her mother? Imagine all the cases where the girl doesn't tell anyone.
If you think this doesn't happen, you are wrong.
Re:Child exploitation (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Child exploitation (Score:4, Insightful)
He didn't say that (intentional) production should be legalized, just possession. Laws against possession of anything are ridiculous, because someone can just mail the offending item to you and suddenly you're a criminal even though you didn't do anything.
Re:Child exploitation (Score:4, Interesting)
So if I am in possession of a Stinger missile and am nicked for the illegal possession of dangerous weapons that is a ridiculous thing to do? If I am in possession of large quantities of sarin gas It's ridiculous to arrest me and charge me for possession of dangerous chemical weapons?
Your examples are not analogous. The missiles and the sarin gas allow you to cause harm to others at some point in the future. With the porn you're talking about evidence of abuse (ignoring the sexting, etc... cases) that has already occurred. It'd be like arresting someone for having pictures of the results of your stinger missile or sarin gas attack. Not something most of us care to see, but it's not obvious how additional harm is being caused by the pictures.
It's actually kind of ironic if you think of it in the bigger crime context. How much easier would most crimes be to prosecute if pictures of them were readily available, yet here we have a case where possession/dissemination of evidence that a crime was committed is itself illegal. The law basically "If you're going to abuse children keep it quiet."
if making possession of such material illegal gives police leverage then need to force me to tell them who supplied it or even to force my cooperation in stinging the perpetrators?
If the person giving you such material is dumb enough to give you any information that can lead back to him, the police don't need your help. And besides, Obstruction of Justice is a crime itself.
Re:Child exploitation (Score:4, Insightful)
The law basically "If you're going to abuse children keep it quiet."
Joining the catholic church also helps a lot. Let's not ignore in all this hysteria that the vast majority of child abuse does not originate with strangers looking for more material for their kiddie porn collection. Most culprits are known to the victim and often very close. Family members are the largest group, priests and other persons of implicit trust the second largest.
Re:Child exploitation (Score:5, Interesting)
Given most child pornography being produced these days is probably kids sending naked pictures of themselves to each other, I'm struggling to understand the exploitation element.
Anyway, the article didn't demand the legalisation of creating child pornography. It demanded the legalisation of possessing it.
How about you read, understand and discuss the arguments being made, not dismiss it based on your prejudice and ignorance?
Re:Child exploitation (Score:5, Insightful)
Legalized possession of images of child abuse allows a market for such things to grow larger that it would be otherwise, creating a demand for more child abuse. There could still be laws against profiting from child abuse, but the drug market has proved that where there is money to be made there will be supply.
Someone who has evidence of child molestation could also be considered an accessory if they don't alert the authorities.
That said, the article raised a point that's not at all hypothetical. Not long ago, here on Slashdot, an ISP mentioned occasionally finding kiddie porn on their servers. At first they tried notifying the police. After getting threatened with prosecution, they switched to a policy of quietly deleting it.
Another key point that should be beyond argument is that the rape of a young child has *nothing* in common morally with a 17.9 year old sexting and the law should treat them separately.
Re:Child exploitation (Score:4, Interesting)
Because trying to hide it behind a curtain isn't helping anyone, and attempting to do so gets hundreds of innocent peoples lives ruined every year, if not more.
Because every time some random idiot posts child porn on a forum or youtube or imageboard, a child gets raped.
That's not how things work.
Nobody is saying legalize child exploitation. You are changing the subject.
From teens getting labelled as sex offenders and child porn producers for sharing nude pictures of themselves with each other WHILE IN A RELATIONSHIP at the age of SEVENTEEN to teens themselves using their age as a weapon, I can safely say any child porn laws are plain retarded, if they even exist.
Let's not even get in to the fact that they aren't even CHILDREN in these cases, they are TEENS. But nope, who cares about logic, "they are my CHILD, not my TEEN"...
Don't even bother citing those times where "oh but these people had those charges dropped against them" stories, their lives in every single case have already been ruined simply by the ACCUSATION of it.
Even people who have been accused of murder get less of a beating about it.
He is completely right. Distribution should be illegal, NOT the possession. Possession laws are always awful since they are open to interpretation in every single case. (while some judge might be sane and view a stupid drawing of Lisa giving it to Bart just as something obscene, another would probably want to kill the person drawing it with their own hands. Interpretation from 1 persons opinion should never be in law. Ever. Exact rules or back to the drawing board, DSM isn't exact in the slightest, so don't bring it up)
The laws need to be tidied up, things need to be done to limit damage simply from the accusation itself, and anyone ever abusing their position should be punished severely.
As someone who has a "cousin" who abused her age to lure people in, I speak with experience in saying that people like her deserve to be locked up.
Sadly she got off with it because those people are shit-scared for their own lives to even come forward. Another sex-fiend age-abuser gets off yet again.
She has been disowned from the entire family.
The law IS THE PROBLEM. It lets people like this get away with shit while innocent people get wrecked or scared in to submission.
Actual child porn with actual children is barely within the scope of this. (by children I mean pre-pubescents, the actual definition that law seems to have forgotten)
Re:Child exploitation (Score:5, Insightful)
RTFA! Nobody is claiming that actually exploiting a child should legal. Quite the contrary, there is a fear that if mere possession of evidence that someone ELSE exploited a child is illegal, the child will get no help because anyone who could alert the authorities will be too busy destroying the evidence.
Consider, bad guy robs a bank. That is clearly a crime, no matter why he did it. Imagine if like child exploitation, possession of a video of someone robbing a bank was a crime of strict liability. Great, now the bank cannot even have cameras inside (just in case) much less give the police a video of the robbery where we clearly see the face of the robber. In the name of not glorifying bank robbery (as if the video somehow does that), we have made bank robbers everywhere safer against prosecution.
Re: (Score:2)
OOPS sorry i smashed your window i'm not responsible
Yes, that's exactly what was being argued. People who are directly responsible for the damage shouldn't be punished. That was surely it.
Re: (Score:3)
A good lawyer could indeed argue that the filmed rape in the park is not pornography at all, but instead a dispassionate capture of evidence of a crime.
And the violent intrusion of the person recording it into the scene, as they forcibly remove the rapist from the 12 year old.
In the UK they wouldn't get charged with possessing child pornography.
(They might get charged with assault if they hit the rapist).
Subjectivity (Score:4, Informative)
The problem is who decides what is or isn't pornography? It's entirely subjective. It's based on how we think the person interprets the information, it's basically about what we think the viewer is thinking. A child could be naked in one context, hell a baby could be naked, and it's not considered child pornography but then in another context viewed by a different set of brains and it's child pornography. It's entirely subjective as to what is art and what is child pornography.
For example if a child actress plays out a rape scene in a movie that is not child pornography. If a child models in a beauty pageant that is not child pornography even if the child is dressed like a hooker on a street corner. If a child is in the "sexual positions" and naked then it's child pornography. How do we decide on those "sexual positions"? That part is subjective. Obscenity laws in general are subjective and different communities find different words, body language or levels of nudity as obscene.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Because, like WHAM, we can not make a distinction between being witness to a crime and being participant in a crime? When did that happen?
It's because it's a "strict liability" offence, like speeding. You might be doing 90mph up the high street to get a little old lady to the hospital, but you're still going to get done for speeding.
Re:lolwut? (Score:5, Informative)
It happened when they made the law that was poorly worded to do exactly this.
Sure, judges will sometimes be smart enough to realize the law is wrong. But consider this ...
I read about a case many many years ago when PCs were just becoming common, and some internet thing was just emerging. A man had trouble with his PC not working so it takes it to the PC store to have it fixed. They find his hard drive died so they put in a replacement. Being cheap bastards they grabbed a HD known to be working from another PC (not sure why) and put it in the PC to be repaired. The man got the PC back, and there was still another issue, so he went for repairs again. This time they detected child porn on the HD that had been replaced in the previous visit, and called police (as the law required them to do). This man's life was ruined. He wife divorced him. He lost his job. He spent a few weeks in jail. His finances were wiped out by legal fees. In the end after a couple years the judge cleared him of all charges. He never even saw the child porn until a printed copy of one was shown in court. He never even accessed the files involved. He didn't even know they were there.
It is wrong to have a law that even allows this to begin to happen, since we can't have a law that makes everyone forget that it did. There are real things that are wrong enough that we do needs laws against them. But the laws need to be written by people who can thoroughly figure out all the effects. Our existing politicians aren't spending the time to even try, if even they were smart enough to do so (I'm absolutely certain 99% of them are not).
Re:Why!? (Score:4, Interesting)
Well, those are the arguments I'd expect. "If someone disagrees, they're not a True Parent! If someone isn't a parent, their arguments are incorrect because ad hominem attacks are arguments now! Also, I don't like it, so the images themselves should be banned!"
I cannot think of anything worse than someone having Child porn.
What about murder? Then they're dead forever, and they'll have no 'innocence' (whatever that ambiguous term means).
Re:Why!? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Absurd (Score:4, Interesting)
Let me give you another "absurd idea".
In the last 10 years, porn to suit every possible desire has become widely (and very easily) available online.
In the last 10 years, the incidence of rape [i'm talking about the crime, not the conviction rate] has fallen.
Is it just possible that these two might be correlated?
What does this suggest about the crackdown on "child pornography", even of the teenage-consensual variety, or of the purely digital animated variety? Is it just possible that it's going to *increase* the rate of child abuse, rather than reduce it?
Re:Absurd (Score:5, Insightful)
The author then invents a fairy tail where a person with eye glasses with a built-in camera turns a corner and records a child being raped. He then makes the erroneous conclusion that video recording a crime in process would be a crime itself. It would be illegal if the person who caught it with his camcorder just walked away and didn't report it or worse yet posted the recording on the Internet.
Given that people have been arrested for illegal firearm posession for reporting a gun dumped on their property, your dismissal of the hazards here are, frankly, absurd.
However, if turned over to the police it would NOT be pornography it would be evidence of child molestation. It would only become pornography if it were kept by the individual.
ALL posession is illegal without special dispensation given. All possession. If you have some, for whatever reason it's up to the good grace of the police and prosecutor not o nail you for it.
You are a very trusting soul if you are heppy for them to have that power.
Re: (Score:3)
It is related because in order to create child pornography a child must be molested.
Wrong. Two 17 year olds filming or photographing themselves naked or (God forbid!) having sex is child pornography per the law.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
I work with people involved in investigating child porn cases.
One image is not sufficient in any jurisdiction in the US and probably not in any country on the planet. One hundred images in the browser cache isn't going to result in prosecution in the US, although it may be a while before you get your computer back. However, if you have one hundred images in a directory named KiddyPorn you are going to be prosecuted, probably plead guilty and go to prison for a long while.
How are most possessors of child p