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"The law covers indecent images of children. They must be engaged in, or appearing to suggest, a sexual act."

That is not true at all. An indecent image of a child is a photograph or pseudo-photograph which offends against the recognised standards of propriety*. Figures collected by Garda, the Irish police, showed that 44% of convictions for indecent images did not involve images depicting any suggestion of sexual activity**. Some people have even been successfully prosecuted for possessing images of children which contained no erotic posing; just nudity*.

Don't believe the claim that UK law only criminalises images of child abuse. CEOP, the IWF, the NSPCC and others make a lot of money by untruthfully claiming that they require significant funding to fight a massive industry which systematically abuses children.

The images produced by airport scanners are likely to offend against the recognised standards of propriety and will therefore be illegal under UK law.

* http://newgon.com/wiki/Indecent_images_of_children#Indecency
** http://newgon.com/wiki/Research:_Child_Pornography#The_Nature_of_Child_Pornography

"The law covers indecent images of children. They must be engaged in, or appearing to suggest, a sexual act."

That is not true at all. An indecent image of a child is a photograph or pseudo-photograph which offends against the recognised standards of propriety*. Figures collected by Garda, the Irish police, showed that 44% of convictions for indecent images did not involve images depicting any suggestion of sexual activity**. Some people have even been successfully prosecuted for possessing images of children which contained no erotic posing; just nudity*.

Don't believe the claim that UK law only criminalises images of child abuse. CEOP, the IWF, the NSPCC and others make a lot of money by untruthfully claiming that they require significant funding to fight a massive industry which systematically abuses children.

The images produced by airport scanners are likely to offend against the recognised standards of propriety and will therefore be illegal under UK law.

* http://newgon.com/wiki/Indecent_images_of_children#Indecency
** http://newgon.com/wiki/Research:_Child_Pornography#The_Nature_of_Child_Pornography

"Those who have those urges towards children may feel prodded seeing the depicted acts to try them in the real world."

Research suggests otherwise. People need a harmless and legal outlet for their urges; for teleiophilic adults, options include sex with another consenting adult or adult pornography for those who can't find a partner. For paedophiles, the already short list of harmless and legal outlets is becoming ever shorter due to the moral crusaders who seek to ban everything which they find offensive. Shotacon/lolicon are one of the few outlets which are still legally available in some countries (although cartoons are quickly being criminalised). If you ban everything which may arouse paedophiles, you'll be left with people who simply ignore the law or people who are dangerously bitter, angry and hostile towards society.

Policy advisors would benefit from actually doing research with responsible paedophiles rather than making assumptions about the effects of certain stimuli. Listening to childrens' charities is a huge mistake, as charities have a motivation to make things worse in order to encourage further donations from naive, shallow citizens.

"from the child-porn-world-needs-more-suicides dept."

Several people who I know have been victims of child porn laws, despite not having paid for or traded anything and having therefore not encouraged or facilitated production. Rather than making assumptions about child pornography, you may consider researching the issue. You should also remember that visiting websites which are alleged to contain illegal images - without loading the images (by disabling images in the browser) - is not illegal and can provide significant insight into the issue.

I'd also suggest a critical consideration of the FTC's statements. The war on child pornography is often used as a cover for wars on slightly more popular content which happens to offend the state. I find it rather bizarre that so many people who are critical of the state tend to believe whatever the state and its subsidiaries says about child porn.

"Germany's government has passed a draft law for censorship of domains hosting content related to child pornography."

I don't know whether the summary was inaccurate, but the phrase "related to child pornography" is extremely disturbing. I run a website which frequently criticises child pornography laws, but doesn't contain child pornography. Will that be censored too?

Even if child pornography is the only material which is blocked, I still don't agree with the filter. Studies have shown that the majority of prohibited material involving children does not depict sexual abuse. It is also ridiculous to claim that simply accessing freely available child pornography encourages the sexual abuse of children (the music industry certainly doesn't take kindly to people downloading their content without paying, so why should child pornographers?). In Germany, possessing a non-photographic "pornographic" depiction of a character who appears to a virtual child can result in a lengthy prison sentence. Will the filter "protect" cartoon children too?

The methods which the authorities used to push this filter are somehwhat suspect. Germany has, for some time, battled to persuade its citizens to accept internet filtering, however there is a fairly large civil rights community and a strong belief in the freedom of the internet, resulting in much opposition to such censorship. Just a week before the vote on the draft legislation to implement filters, German police coincidentally "broke up" a huge "child pornography ring", allegedly involving 9000 people. This was presumably a sting operation which involved the logging of the IP addresses of every visitor to a police-operated website, followed by raids on the properties linked to every IP address which had been logged. It doesn't matter that only 50 or so people will be convicted, because the authorities have already won....

Anyone who now opposes internet filtering will be reminded of the huge "child pornography ring" and accused of supporting the horrific sexual abuse of children for huge child pornography networks. Nobody can check the police's evidence because that would be illegal and a child would be "revictimised", while anyone who wanted to check would obviously be a paedophile. And so the draft legislation passed.

As soon as you use those words, you have lost your argument in the eyes of the general public. Studies have shown that most illegal images of children do not involve sexual abuse. Data from Garda (linked above) shows that the most serious image possessed in 44% of "child pornography" cases in Ireland (whose child pornography laws mirror those of the UK) decpited no sexual activity whatsoever.

Pictures of naked children, which presumably comprise the majority of blocked images, should not be called "child abuse images". That term is just newspeak designed to justify the vast powers of censorship and funding which are handed to the IWF.

"That's a common explanatory gloss, but it is not correct. "Indecent" isn't defined in the legislation (or any legislation) at all. It is for a magistrate or jury to decide as a matter of fact."

You are correct when you say that indecency is not defined by statutes, however its meaning is defined by precedents set in previous indecency and obscenity cases.

"They are aided in such decisions by the prosecution experts or police witnesses, who purport to grade material from their special experience and expertise in 'child protection'"

The grading of images is performed to aid sentencing, but not for deciding whether an image is "indecent". Images which do not meet the criteria for level 1 images have still been declared indecent; see my article here.

"Coincidentally, on Wednesday the UK introduced legislation that would make it an imprisonable offence to possess sexually explicit drawings that appear to be of minors."

Do you have a link to the text of the Bill? I can't find it at Parliament's website.

"I would suggest otherwise and so would Sir Elton John, Nan Goldin and the CPS, who were all involved with an image that was seized by police, who considered it obscene, but which was later returned, despite showing a young naked girl doing the splits in front of the camera"

Cases which become "high-profile" are generally not prosecuted if the images depict only nudity, for the simple reason that a prosecution or conviction would cause outrage amongst some members of the public. I also suspect that the authorities didn't want some of the UK's best lawyers challenging their laws against "child pornography", hence the refusal to prosecute images owned by Elton John.

People have been convicted of making, taking, or possessing indecent images of children ("child pornography") for images depicting mere nudity. See http://newgon.com/wiki/Indecent_images_of_children#Indecency

"If that wasn't obscene, then it raises the question of what criteria the IWF are using to censor the internet."

They should "apply the recognised standards of propriety". For what it's worth, a jury of several members of the IWF would be considered to be as representative of the population as a typical jury.

"Nudity is not pornography and no well balanced jury is going to rule otherwise."

The test of illegality is one of indecency, not pornography. An image is considered to be "indecent" if it "offends against the recognised standards of propriety", even if it is not pornographic.

People have been convicted of making, taking, or possessing indecent images of children ("child pornography") for images depicting mere nudity. See http://newgon.com/wiki/Indecent_images_of_children#Indecency

Under UK law, an image of a naked child is usually considered child pornography; context is irrelevant. Garda (the Irish police) reported that, between 2000-2004, 44% of "child pornography" cases in Ireland involved images which depicted no sexual activity whatsoever*. Child pornography laws in Ireland are very similar to those of the UK.

In a strict legal sense, this censorship is justified; the problem is the law itself, which should not define nudity as "pornography". The frequently used term "child abuse images" is used to invoke strong emotions and discredit those who disagree with the current laws. Don't forget that if the IWF fail to maintain outrage over child pornography, they'll lose their funding.

I have written a detailed summary of UK child pornography laws, here

* The content of indecent images

"When you're part of a community or group which encourages a behaviour such as child sex via fantasy then all you're doing is encouraging that behaviour to become more common within someone's daily lives."

The community doesn't encourage people to engage in child sex, whether through fantasy or in real life. Paedophiles will, however, fantasise about sex with children regardless of external factors, so the communities in which we participate are irrelevant in that respect. Although such communities don't encourage illegal behaviour - meaning that your argument has failed - the idea of paedophilia (an attraction, not a behaviour) becoming a central feature of the life of someone with a paedophilic orientation is very relevant. The reason why paedophilia may become a central feature of a paedophile's life is because of the insane public obsession over paedophiles; society treats a paedophile as having an identity comprised purely of sexual urges. More disturbing is the assumption that all paedophiles will offend and are unable to control their "monstrous" urges. The latter may have a dangerous effect on some paedophiles, though I personally treat the assumption as the bullshit which it is.

"The members get twisted into their own delusions into believing that this kind of behaviour is normal, at which point it escalates from not just reading child sex novels but perhaps to something more such as child pornography."

You're conflating behaviour with fantasy; don't underestimate the ethical, social and legal barriers between the two. I would like to point out that the website in question is not a repository of sex stories, it's a discussion board. You clearly haven't even read the website which we're discussing.

Furthermore, I question your assumption that viewing child pornography is harmful (though I feel it should be avoided for legal reasons). Child pornography is created for the purpose of profit and trade, not for people who view freely available images. The suggestion that viewing freely available images encourages producers of child pornography is like suggesting that downloading free music helps the recording industry. The recording industry doesn't like their music to be freely downloaded (hence the outrageous lawsuits), so it is ridiculous to assume that the child pornography industry wishes for their images to be viewed without purchase. Simply viewing child pornography is not harmful, although I would second an argument that paying for abusive child pornography is harmful.

You should also consider the nature of child pornography.

"At some point their desires transition into the real world, where other people are effected."

Where is your evidence for this? You may be able to provide random cases of this happening, but there is no evidence of this happening to the majority of paedophiles, or even to a significant minority of paedophiles.

"You consider things to be morally just."

I believe in ethics (which is one of many barriers between fantasy and reality), however I have never subscribed to moralism. Moralism is a selfish concept which is concerned purely with pushing one's own beliefs and instincts onto others.

"Look at that child molester in Australia, I forget the name. He never admitted doing anything wrong, because by his standards he didn't. He fantasised about having sex with children for so long that his brain just swung the moral compass right around to the point where he was deluding himself and just went ahead with having sex with children."

How can you possibly know why he abused children?

A study published by the British Psychological Society found that "fantasy deficit may be involved in contact offending against children" (Sheldon & Howitt, 2008). The study compared paedophilic non-contact child sex offenders with paedophilic contact child sex offenders. It suggested that paedop

These quotes are interesting: http://newgon.com/wiki/Research:_Child_Pornography#Child_Producers - "Teenagers are becoming major makers of child pornography in Victoria[Australia]." (taking photos of themselves in the mirror, or of their girl/boyfriends)

"...we learn about under-age producers sharing their self-made images with other young people for recreational use, thus making prohibitions unworkable and pronouncements concerning who is "exploiting" who extremely hard to define."

If you take a photo of your 16-year-old self naked, who are the police supposed to arrest?

"Child porn is one thing, and that is reprehensible"

It is disturbing that someone can make such a bold statement about something which they have never seen. How can anyone form a conclusive opinion about child pornography when their only source of information is the mainstream media and government-sponsored advocacy organisations such as the NCMEC?

I and three other people have compiled a list of quotes about the nature of child pornography, here.

You contradict yourself....

"Viewers of adult porn don't usually go out and become rapists do they?", then "your implication that blocking child porn would increase child abuse doesn't seem credible, in fact it is more likely to reduce it. The current situation probably tends to lead pedophiles to believe that their mindset is relatively normal which is far more dangerous to children."

In reality, most paedophiles don't molest children for the same reasons that most men don't rape women. Even those who think that sex with children is inherently harmless avoid sexual contact because of the effects of a socio-legal response for both themselves and children. From Freel (2003):

"[..] an expressed sexual interest in children does not infer actual perpretation. Indeed, the empirical evidence suggests that a much smaller number of men actually abuse children. There are significantly more men who express a sexual interest in children than there are actual perpetrators. This suggests the presence of inhibitors that stop men acting on their sexual interest."

I suspect that blocking internet access to child pornography would increase rates of child sexual abuse, but not necessarily in the way many would imagine. Digital storage and distribution means that any scannable or digital material can survive forever and be distributed on a much wider scale than would be possible without the internet. This means that there will be less interest in new material being produced, which is obviously a good thing if the material in question is child pornography.

There will clearly be some paedophiles who would abuse children regardless, but they are in a tiny minority of what is a large but hidden demographic of paedophiles.

"The current situation probably tends to lead pedophiles to believe that their mindset is relatively normal which is far more dangerous to children."

What "current situation" are you referring to? I am a paedophile, I know that paedophilia is normal, but I don't molest children. Believing that a fantasy is normal doesn't mean that one considers acting on the fantasy to be acceptable. Freel's research also shows that:

"If someone is fully inhibited from sexually abusing children, no amount of emotional congruence, sexual arousal, or blockage will lead them to abuse children."

From Hall, et al (1995):

Consistent with previous data (Barbaree & Marshall, 1989; Briere & Runtz, 1989; Fedora et al., 1992; Freund & Watson, 1991), 20 % of the current subjects self-reported pedophilic interest and 26.25 % exhibited penile arousal to pedophilic stimuli that equaled or exceeded arousal to adult stimuli.

[..]

Eighty subjects completed the study. [..] Twenty-six subjects [approximately 33%] exhibited sexual arousal to the child slides that equaled or exceeded their arousal to the adult slides.

[..]

a sizable minority of men in normal populations who have not molested children may exhibit pedophilic fantasies and arousal. In recent studies, 12 to 32% of community college samples of men reported sexual attraction to children (B &R, 1989, H,G & C. 1990) or exhibited penile response to pedophilic stimuli (B&M, 1989, F et al, 1992, F&L, 1989, F & W, 1989). Thus, arousal to pedophilic stimuli does not necessarily correspond with pedophilic behavior (Hall, 1990; Schouten & Simon, 1992), although there are arguments to the contrary (Quinsey & Laws, 1990).

"citation needed"

If you're referring to the argument that most child porn viewers don't molest children, see a collection of quotes here

The criminalisation of "non-photographic visual depictions of child sexual abuse" was first proposed by "children's charities" - who are forever desperate to encourage donations by exploiting people's emotions - in 2006. In 2007, the campaign was backed by low-importance MPs who wished to elevate their profile, but who were most likely uninterested in the issue in question.

The campaign became irrelevant when, earlier this month, any image derived from an indecent photograph or pseudo-photograph of a child became illegal under Section 69 of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act. It is also illegal to distribute any obscene publication under the Obscene Publications Act, and despite the contrary claims of the Ministry of Justice, it is illegal to take, make, distribute, show or possess a pseudo-photograph, which means that all efforts to a implement this new law will have only one effect: the possession of material which is not derived from photographs of 'abuse' and which is clearly not photographic will be criminalised.

Unfortunately, the UK economy is heading for recession and the criminal justice system is under attack due to a lack of space in prisons (the latter is ironically due to silly, politically-motivated legislation). The Labour government recently suffered a horrendous defeat in the recent by-elections, due to their drastic inability to deal with these issues. They have no choice but to use distraction techniques to divert attention from their incompetency.

Paedophiles are being used as pawns for political and economic reasons, simply because they are currently the weakest minority who nobody will speak out for.

The pathetic irony of this situation is that someone who is convicted of possessing a cartoon derived from a photograph of a child masturbating will get the same sentence as someone who is convicted of making a photograph of an adult molesting a child, because the person in the former case would be charged under the recently amended Protection of Children Act and the new law (Protection of Proper Thoughts Act?).