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Appeals Court Upholds Ban On Pseudo-Kiddie Porn
bmasel writes "The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has become the
third federal appeals court to uphold a federal law expanding the definition of child pornography to
include computer-generated images of minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct -- even if the images only appear to be of a minor." Once upon a time, the justification for bans on child pornography was that such a ban would reduce the abuse of children. Now the justification has changed to something along the lines of "These are ugly pictures, and so we should ban them." It's a major change, but the courts are supporting it.
Saying that there is nothing wrong with certain strings of 1's and 0's is like saying that there is nothing wrong with the certain way that light-waves bounce off a surface which retains certain waves and prevents them from escape so as to display what appears to be child pornography.
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seumas.com
I thought that the problem with morality and ethics is that I'm always right? (Apply to each individual who comments on their own morality or ethics).
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seumas.com
RE: :) I just wanted to demonstrate your misunderstanding of the term.
:)
I'm sorry to burst your bubble, but your attempts at being sympathetic to the devil are lost on me. Totally. If your friend has a picture of a little girl (or boy) being sexually interfered with or even if it's just she or he being exploited for erotic purposes, that means that somewhere there is a little girl or boy in the hands of people who are doing this to him or her. And if he's collecting, trading, enjoying, whatever said material, he's contributing to it. I don't know why you're having difficulty understanding this.
RE: In this, I expect that you will stop equating the word pedophila with 'abusers of children', because that can cause innocent people to be persecuted for the abuse of children.
And is he really innocent? He's somehow managed to get hold of child porn. I don't think it's something you wake up one morning and magically find on your hard drive. He's gone looking for it. Innocent is the little child who has no idea why the man with the camera is taking her clothes off, not the guy having totally inappopriate thoughts while looking at the picture.
RE: Here's the problem: I like my friend. I get drunk with him.. we go to clubs and talk about chicks.
Well, there are things about him you didn't know.
RE: He pays his taxes.. he loves his girlfriend.
Does SHE know there are pictures of little girls on his hard drive? I don't think so. Wow, this just gets better and better.
RE: He has lots of friends at work, and writes damned fine code.
I'm a fan of Java as well (bada, boom, ching), but this has nothing to do with the fact that he is involved in something very dark and abusive. Did you expect rapists and murderers to look like hunchbacked, evil people? Guess what, they're next door. There are children out there who are being physically abused and noone would ever guess cause Daddy's a fine upstanding pillar of the community active in his church etc etc etc dosen't fit the stereotype of the alcoholic in the trailer park.
--- Jump!! Fire!! Bullet time!! - Lego version of the Matrix
You see, the idea of harm reduction comes into play, here. Someone on heroin has problems, and should be treated as such. Speech, depending on what it is, doesn't cause harm. Kiddie porn does cause harm, a lot of harm, a lot of irreperable harm. Stopping some kids from showing off they can copy a DVD is trivial. Stopping people from abusing and humiliating children for fun and profit is paramount. Most dangerous criminals were abused as children and there are proven links between abuse and violent behaviour later on in life. This isn't just some little girl's problem, it's everyone's problem.
--- Jump!! Fire!! Bullet time!! - Lego version of the Matrix
Granted, images of child pornography have always been illegal, but the difference is that in the past it was impossible to create such images without actually abusing children.
What about drawings and paintings?
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Men with no respect for life must never be allowed to control the ultimate instruments of death.
GW Bu
Pictures of genital or anal region of any person under the age of 18.
It can't be literally so. How does the police document cases of abuse on children if they can not take pictures?
And it was also pointed the case of medical training.
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Men with no respect for life must never be allowed to control the ultimate instruments of death.
GW Bu
In the not-so-ancient China, you are married off when you are 13 or 14. And have kids by 15.
I think this story is replicated many times through many other cultures : Sumerian, Egyptian, Greek etc..
Then came along Judeo-Christeo ethics, and there goes the neigbourhood.
You can say that out current cultural norms, of which the laws are based on, has the last say.
Not that that's anything bad of course : it's just a fact of life. If you want to whine about it, you had better start a new culture, or a new religion.
Mode (3) smart-aleck mode. Press * to return to main menu.
When I was a kid I used to have toy guns that looked for all the world like Uzis, Colt 1911s, Beretta 92FSs, HK MP5s, you name what else too. Now they are all made using silly colored plastic, it's sad that things have changed so much that it's necessary to do that because it's now possible that a cop could encounter a kid with a REAL Beretta. Several kids have been killed over the years for brandishing real looking toy guns.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
This will be a surefire way to assure molestation and child-rape continues on under the blankets of Canada. If you can't even write about it, then it's difficult to make people aware of it. Maybe the next step is to ban the publication of any books which talk about crimes. If people don't know that crimes are committed, they won't occur!
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seumas.com
What one person finds essential free speech someone else will always find offensive. Persecuted and paranoid individuals will always find something sick and disgusting about what you love. Kiddie porn is one case where almost everyone agrees that it is offensive. If you want to see what "offensive" means, take a look at this review of the Truman Show (actually the viewer responses). The site is full of them. Chip away at your freedoms and soon you will have none in the face of people like this.
How we know is more important than what we know.
"tax-evasion, recreational drug use, bootlegging, copyright infingement, etc. all victimless crimes, all being prosecuted at this momment"
Is tax-evasion a victimless crime? Everyone else who pays taxes is a victim if someone fails to pay over an extended period of time, because budgets have to be adjusted and taxes have to meet those budgets.
Recreational drug use has arguments both ways. For example, if a person who is a parent with children home is using recreational drugs while their children are running about, Child Protective Services has every right to intervene citing the illicit and imparing substance is interfering with being a parent. I feel the same way about excessive alcohol consumption around kids. I don't know of very many situations like in "Eyes Wide Shut" where the couple engages in drug use because they can afford it and don't have to do anything f*ed up to get them...
Bootlegging and copyright infringement can be seen as turning the copyright holder and/or artist into a victim. If I were performing, I don't think I'd want people taperecording my performance and selling it, they didn't DO anything to deserve money from that. Copyright can be applied the same way. I do think there are abuses on the other side too, like CSS and the like, but these ALL generally have victims.
"Titanic was 3hr and 17min long. They could have lost 3hr and 17min from that."
IBM had PL/1, with syntax worse than JOSS,
And everywhere the language went, it was a total loss...
Simply target these groups or remove them from society.
I realy hope that you're joking. Virtually ALL rapists are male. Do you wish to remove most of them from society and place the rest under constant police monitor to prevent them from raping anyone?
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
I despise Child Pornography as much as the next person. However, consider the following. If you have your closet pedophile, would you rather he A: look at pictures, whack off, and get it out of his system, or B: go find a child, violate him/her, and get it out of his system.
In case A, this person could otherwise be a functional, safe member of society. He has a problem and he has found a way to deal with it without hurting anyone in the process. He can't go to a psycologist about it anymore, because doctor/patient confidentiality in such cases isn't very solid. I could tell my doctor that I murdered 10 people and he couldnt' say anything about it. But if I tell him I touched a child he HAS to report it.
The REAL issue here isn't regarding actual porn but benign pictures of minors that aren't in any way involved in sexual situations, but someone PERCEIVES them to be sexual and a braindead judge agrees. Its not too hard in today's society of the easily offended that someone could look at a picture of a girl in a bikini and find it offending. To make matters worse, it doesn't even have to be a minor.
-Restil
Play with my webcams and lights here
AFAIK (I haven't used that in a while) Japanese hentai has a bunch of 15, 16 year old girls pretending to be barely 18 being gang raped by aliens. Isn't that also "against the law" or are drawings any different than CGI? Also, does that mean that if someone gets a Britney fake and says that she was 17 when that was made is it a crime? Damn, does that mean that everybody has to throw out their favorite Britney fake where Eminem is 'taking her roughly'?
Anyway, on a similar note, when two 16 year old kids are caught having sex should both of them be acused of abusing a minor? Times have changed people, 15 year old girls ARE NOT the same 15 year old girls of 15 years ago!
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Age of consent for vaginal intercourse is 14.
Age of consent for anal intercourse is 18. (Although this is being appealed as unconstitutional, apparently a guy thinks it discriminates against gay men)
Under bill C-128 (currently before the Supreme Court for being unconstitutional), the following is illegal:
The parts in bold are (supposedly) the reasons the laws are under appeal - in reality, the guy who took this to the supreme court got busted for real kiddie porn, but he's claiming that the law is unconstitutional (which it is), so he can't be charged under it.
There was a national cop convention last year, in which Chiefs of Police of various cities across the country said they are going to petition the government to raise the age of consent to 16 - whether they'll succeed or not is anyone's guess
I don't think anyone would disagree with the statement that its wrong to abuse children...
But kiddy porn, is, just data. its 1's and 0's ... the fact that the court choses to view some 1's and 0's as kiddy porn, others as constitutionally protected speach, others as renegade code for pirating DVD's, and yet others as pattented (ie gif's) -- is wrong.
I feel in the long run its an abridgment of my rights not to be able to have ceartin types of data in my posession ... its all just data! If they want to stop child abuse -- stop drug use, which is responsible for something 80% of child abuse. It always easy to ring the kiddy porn bell for political reasons ... most people hate it, and those who don't, aren't very vocal :)
I'd like to see a couple ammendments to the constitution, something along the lines of the universal turing principle right ... the right to execute any algorithim! And the right to have to have any bit string (with modest exemptions for copyrighted material for say, 5 years :)
The measure of our freedom is now how we treat the speach we like, but how we tolerate the speach we hate.
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On a strictly moral or ethical standpoint I can understand the prohibition on kiddie porn. In cases of actual pictures, some child must be abused to create the images. In the case of cgi, it will be pedophiles who are seeking it out and it may embolden them to to take the step of making their fantasy reality.
On the other hand we have free speech issues. If we can decide that one type of image is illegal, how long until someone tries to draw a link between all types of images and sexual violence?
I can only resolve these two by thinking that each incident should be considered on a case by case basis.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
What next? Because murder is illegal, should we criminalize first-person shooters like Quake and Unreal because they contain computer-generated images of people being murdered? This ruling sets a dangerous precedent.
If you don't set the standard of proof in child pornography cases so that the offence is of possessing or making images of what appear to be children, those who have to detect and prosecute this stuff are left in the invidious position of, every time they bring charges, having to prove that Exhibit A is of an actual child or of someone who was a child at the time rather than something mocked up in PhotoShop or similar.
It's not about ensuring that ugly pictures get prosecuted, it's about denying those who make such pictures a plausible defence that'd get them away with it given a sufficiently suggestible jury (ie about 90% of them).
-- AndrewD
A Maze of Twisty Little Laws, All Different.
In the states, you become a legal adult at 18. You still can't drink or run for president, but you can certainly buy cigarettes, sign contracts, vote, or have nekkid pictures taken of you.
Mod down posts with a "Free Mac Mini/iPod" sig, they're spam!
Also, since the law is open to interpretation but the judge/jury, I doubt either of you would have gotten in any trouble.
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"I personal[ly] think Unix is "superior" because on LSD it tastes like Blue." -- jbarnett
The dose of reality is that you have a friend who is sexually interested in children. He should get help. I know in this permissive age we seem to think everything's OK, but children do NOT have the same headspace as adults, and the taboo against exploiting children exists for a reason. Ask anyone dealing with the childhood trauma of abuse.
Child pornography is used to excite people who have an interest in molesting children. I refuse to use the term "pedophile" because that means "lover of children" and people who have TRUE love of children do not want to use them for their own gratification nor exploit them.
Child pornography is also used by abusers to lure children into performing certain acts. The rationale is "See, it's OK. Look at these pictures. These kids are doing it too."
Go read up on the issue, like I did (check out Andrew Vachss' web site, the Zero) and it'll become clear as to why every effort MUST be made to stamp out child pr0n. It is NOT an "alternative lifestyle" (there are not two consenting adults), it is NOT something cool or remotely healthy. Yes, call the cops. Because wherever that guy got those JPGs or whatever from, there are some little girls and boys being abused.
--- Jump!! Fire!! Bullet time!! - Lego version of the Matrix
There is no evidence suggesting that pedophilia can be "cured" any more than homosexuality, which most rational human beings don't consider a disease.
I know in this permissive age we seem to think everything's OK, but children do NOT have the same headspace as adults, and the taboo against exploiting children exists for a reason. Ask anyone dealing with the childhood trauma of abuse.
Huh?
Why are you intentionally blurring the lines between sex and abuse? This is exactly the type of shit that causes hateful agression in the first place! Dude - chill. Some times bad things happen to good people. People get shot, people get beaten, people lose all of their money, and sometimes people get raped. I don't dispute that. But the solution to this problem is *not* to redefine what we consider abuse! Just growing the set of actions which we consider "abuse" does not prevent it!
Child pornography is used to excite people who have an interest in molesting children.
It's also used by pedophiles. What's your point?
I refuse to use the term "pedophile" because that means "lover of children" and people who have TRUE love of children do not want to use them for their own gratification nor exploit them.
Child pornography is also used by abusers to lure children into performing certain acts. The rationale is "See, it's OK. Look at these pictures. These kids are doing it too."
Oh.. I get it.
Look. I don't think there's anything that I can say to inspire some sort of reason. You've been so hard-wired by 80's / 90's society that any citation of historical beliefs, situations, etc., would be of little relevance.
There AREN'T any children actually in this at this point, that's what the entire basis for the discussion IS! Last time I checked, victimless crimes weren't crimes... The only major abuse of this that I am aware of is when recreational mary-jane users get busted. I have seen some really interesting character models and skins for Poser, and many of the images that people are making for the CGI erotica sites ARE of 'appearing underage' people. The thing that is ironic is that there were never any children involved in the first place. Yeah, I find some of the pictures distasteful, and I have been offended by some, but I don't have the right to not be offended. In fact, I don't even have to frequent sites like these if I don't want to.
/.
I personally doubt that images like these contribute to the criminal psyche, though not being a psychologist I cannot say definitively either way. I wish the court would join us and educate itself about technology and how technology works, so stupid judgements become less of a topic on
"Titanic was 3hr and 17min long. They could have lost 3hr and 17min from that."
IBM had PL/1, with syntax worse than JOSS,
And everywhere the language went, it was a total loss...
If people don't know that crimes are committed, they won't occur!
Wasn't that one of the themes of the book? With Newspeak, there wasn't enough vocabulary to commit thoughtcrime, thus thoughtcrime would be abolished when Newspeak was completely adopted as the only language for communication.
It may look like I'm doing nothing, but I'm actively waiting for my problems to go away.
--Scott Adams
If they can crack down on anything that resembles kiddie porn, it makes it easier to crack down on kiddie porn. The purpose of this it so that the authorities don't have to find the poor kid in the picture to get a conviction.
WARNING: there is a trojan on your
This is one more step toward American society becoming a police state. As the news post says, this is a major shift in the intent of the law here. I fully agree that child pornography should be illegal and that those who abuse children should be punished severely. However, the law has shifted from criminalizing abuse to criminalizing imagery. Granted, images of child pornography have always been illegal, but the difference is that in the past it was impossible to create such images without actually abusing children. Now that's all changed, yet the law does not recognize the distinction. I guess I'm not too surprised, though, as my understanding is that any images that appear to depict children in sexual situations - even if the models are of legal age - are illegal. The courts are basically attempting to criminalize being sexually aroused by children. Sure, it's easy to argue that that's a good thing, but where does it end? Whose rights to free thought will be taken away next?
The children!!!
Imagine you have a multimedia authoring tool that lets you, at your own screen, adjust some controls and visualize whatever you specify.
Lets say you can tweak the age and appearance of each actor independantly. Also, you can play back "script templates", which tell the virtual actors what to do.
If the scripts include sexual scenarios (which would by far be the biggest market for this!), some states of this dynamic simulation could be illegal.
Are you a criminal if they bust on you when you have a dynamic kiddie-porn image on your screen?
What if its not up on the screen, but the log file shows you had the controls both set to "12" and "Fuck" at some time before?
The point I am driving at here is there is a subtle boundary between your fantasy realized in multimedia and in your own mind.
To me, if no child was actually exploited in the physical world, then there are no grounds for prosecution.
Look, nowhere at all do I suggest jailing someone for BEING anything. And you can knock off the "pedophiles are misunderstood, snif, they're people, just like you and me" crap for a moment.
There are also people who have homicidal urges. And strangely enough, when we identify people who do these kinds of things, we take em out of society. I'm waiting for you to bleeding heart that "homicidal people are people too, snif, they're people just like you and me."
RE: Why are you intentionally blurring the lines between sex and abuse? This is exactly the type of shit that causes hateful agression in the first place! Dude - chill.
Sexually interfering with a child IS abusive. Period. I know that some lib lefty thinktank has said that it's OK, but lib lefty thinktanks have also produced reports saying that it's an act of violence to teach your child to read. I suggest quite strongly that you wake up. Whereas I wasn't sexually interfered with as a child, I went to a school where it went on. And some of those people tried to kill themselves. One tried to kill someone else.
It repulses me that while there's ample evidence that using a child for sexual gratification is wrong and hurtful, we like to use "nicey nicey" words like FONDLING rather than SEXUAL ASSAULT, and "paedophile" rather than "sick bastard who wants to diddle kids."
--- Jump!! Fire!! Bullet time!! - Lego version of the Matrix
If the police ask this man whether he has ever seen dirty pictures in that house, he might be legally obliged to answer truthfully, but he is NO required to report every possible crime.
Since possession of images of immoral acts is so terribly wrong, by the way, I take it you have ripped out all the pages in your history texts that picture, or even describe, Nazi death camps, the Inquisition, etc? Obviously you can't read the paper or watch TV news, because all sorts of crimes are displayed there.
This next song is very sad. Please clap along. -- Robin Zander
According to the Webster's (online) pedophile: one afflicted with pedophilia: Pedophilia: sexual perversion in which children are the preferred sexual object.
Now, this technically in and of itself doesn't warrant censure - the person is mentally ill (note that you suggested Webster's, and it says perversion - not quite what you anticipated!). However, your friend (assuming it's you - you AC's look all alike) who collects pedophilic material is contributing to the abuse of children, (if noone buys it, then they won't make it) and has evidence of a crime in his house. You are enabling him by supporting his position and not reporting him to the authorities, just like not reporting a drunk driver who hasn't killed anyone yet. Intervene for this person's own good, and because there are children in the area.
--- Jump!! Fire!! Bullet time!! - Lego version of the Matrix
Sorry, explain who benefits again?
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pedophiles are not a problem. pedosexuals are. it's perfectly alright to love kids. it is not alright to fuck kids.
//rdj
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
--Sheikh Abd-Al-Kadir, 1587
the dominant characteristic of which is the depiction, for a sexual purpose, of a sexual organ or the anal region of a person under the age of eighteen years;
That would except abuse documentation and medical teaching, in my understanding.
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Men with no respect for life must never be allowed to control the ultimate instruments of death.
GW Bu
If you are offended by people's opinions which differ substantially from the norm, please move along to the next comment. You may become as ill as I did, reading the article. :)
This law is almost beyond comprehension to me, a person who identifies with people stricken with pedophilia. You see, I used to be a gay basher. I used to make fun of fags all the time. They seriously used to scare me. One day, I found out that one of my best friends was gay.
It was like a blow to the mind. I was like.. holy shit. Man.. what should I do? This faggot .. this stupid shitpacking faggot is my best friend. Does that make me a fag too?
You have to understand. I was only 15.. and people made fun of me for being slightly overweight. Any chance I'd get to poke fun at a group of people, I'd do it - this raised my own status. Anyway... In the course of a few seconds (which seemed like an eternity).. I realised that I was a stupid person. I was the one who was derranged - attacking something because it was popular to do so. My friend told me what it was like. And I accepted that. Bam.. just like that. It's like.. something you believe in your heart - something you'd beat up someone for.. something which inspires your hate so much.. it was all so wrong.
I'm grown up now. And I found out that one of my other friends I had known for years has an attraction to young girls. I was searching through his hard disk for mp3s (while he was out pickin up a case of beer) and found some .jpg's that were poorly hidden. You know what?
I used to hate on pedophiles too, cause that was the hip thing to do. But instead of barfing at the thought, I checked them out. Hmm. Not much to comment on. Most were pictures of girls, clothed, non clothed, a few engauged in 'sexual acts'. None of them violent, or even what (if it were older people) any would consider reprehensible.
Ok.. so I'm faced with a decision. Do I pick up the phone and call the cops on a friend? No. Cause that .. just .. ain't .. cool. Instead, I closed it all, sat on his couch, waited for him to get home, then carefully asked him about it.
You know what I found?
He's still a pretty decent guy.
He told me about this realization that he came to when he was like 16. That he found younger girls more attractive. He told me about the frustration he went through for years; something this horrible beyond comprehension is nigh impossible to even *discuss* with other people. I mean... not confess, discuss .
I was the first person (outside the Internet) who found out about this hidden reality.
Were this channel .. this.. doorway of the Internet, unfettered, private communications, unavailable, he would have lived his entire life in miserable silence. No one deserves that, for being something. Not niggers, not faggots, not jews, ... not anything that people, without provocation, are able to hate. Like that.
My friend has never, and does not plan to ever have sexual contact with a real child, with or without consent.
Ok - so.. the moral of the story. :)
Please. Stop the hatered. Stop the propaganda. Stop the fanatacism. Not all 'fags' are rapists. Not all niggers are counterproductive banes on society, and not all pedophiles are child molesters.
This law is intended to punish people for what they are . Not what they do. - Posting anonymously, for obvious reasons.
When I was 17 and my girlfriend at the time was 22, I was a minor. If she and I both posessed a picture of us half-nude, nude or even just sexually suggestive, she would technically be in trouble with the law over this.
However, in the states, you are a minor until the age of 21. You may be old enough at 18,19 or 20 to smoke, drive, vote, pay taxes, be charged as an adult in any crime or even die for your country -- but you can't drink or appear nude in a photo?
So to continue the story above into something real.
When I was 20, the girl I was with at the time was 25. We were playing around at a party and some friends snapped a few incriminating photos. Again, being 20 -- I'm a minor and she's an adult. Does this mean that I'm being sexually exploited and that she (who posesses a few copies of these photos) and our friends (who also posess them) are sick pedophiles?
I'm not arguing with anything else here, although I think we have to draw the line of criminalization while the act being criminalized is still a crime and not (although potentially detestible) speech. I'm just curious of the wording they used in this.
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seumas.com