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'Virtual' Child Porn Act Ruled Unconstitutional
wiredog writes "The United States Supreme Court, in a 6-3 ruling, has found the Child Pornography Prevention Act to be unconstitutionally vague and far-reaching." You might read the Act. There were a number of cases challenging the constitutionality of the Act; I believe three Appeals courts eventually upheld it, and one ruled it unconstitutional, guaranteeing that the Supreme Court would take one of the challenges for review. A summary of the decision is available, and see that pages for links to the majority opinion and dissenting opinions.
I hate child pornographers as much as the next man - but the language in the act was so broad as to make teen movies like American Pie possible targets for example.
I understand the difficulty of proving that an actual child was involved in making a picture / movie / whatever - but isn't it always necessary to prove that a crime has been committed before you can get a conviction ?
That being said, the part of this law that always terrified me was that part that stated you can't depict an adult as a minor in pornography. We shoot girls who like to wear their hair in pigtails. Could they have come after me for that?
I am very against Child Pornography, but this law really worried me that I might go to jail sometime for someones interpertation of something.
yes i run a goth/punk/emo porn site.
if I took pictures of myself masturbating when I was 14, is it ok for me to sell them now I'm 30?
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
On Photoshop-faked child porn (I hope GIMP isn't used for this):
The law was an expansion of existing bans on the usual sort of child pornography. Congress justified the wider ban on grounds that while no real children were harmed in creating the material, real children could be harmed by feeding the prurient appetites of pedophiles or child molesters.
Pedophiles (sic) thus have their appetite fed by faked kiddie porn? Well all those fakes of Anna Kournikova never wet my whistle for real porn... desire for real porn is just there :)
On the act:
prohibiting the possession and viewing of child pornography will encourage the possessors of such material to rid themselves of or des troy the material, thereby helping to protect the victims of child pornography and to eliminate the market for the sexual exploitative use of children;
Sorry? Because it's against the law to abuse children, I don't believe that stops them. Even less a law against pornography. After all, banning alcohol just increased consumption, and in countries where porn is illegal (like the one I happen to inhabit) it just raises the price for crap porn which really exploits the subjects.
I do totally agree, however, that Kiddie porn should be banned, it should never exists, it is repugnant and vile. But the law is not going to help sick people who abuse children...
Incidentally, where I live (Morocco) it is socially acceptable (for the natives) in some villages to offer young girls for sex to tourists. Young boys too. The law can't do squat in remote places anyway.
Conversion Rate Optimisation French / English consultant
People should be free to express themselves anyway they want
Virtual child porn isnt harming any chilren so it should be legal.
In fact it will protect children because children wont need to be harmed anymore due to the virtual child porn.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
Let me summarize for all the weak minds among us.
The law basically said "if it vaguely resembles child porn, or if we think you were intending to produce/traffic/consume child porn, then we throw you in jail just because we can".
Let's generalize to see how stupid this was : "If it vaguely resembles an act of crime, or if we think you were intending to commit a crime, we throw you in jail just because we can".
_NOW_ is it obvious enough ? Child porn disgusts me as much as the next guy, but this decision isn't so much about child porn as it is about basic civil rights. Innocent until proven guilty, someone should plaster that quote all over the parliament's walls.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
I disagree. This may protect some children from child porn, however "virtual" child porn will still feed a pedophiles sexual desire. It will make him more likely to seek some sort of sexual encounter with a child. "Virtual" child porn may protect children from being in pornography, but it won't help the ones who get molested by people who feed off of it.
The reason child pornography is illegal is to protect children. To protect children from being sexually abused in the act of creating child pornography.
Lawmakers tried to limit pedophile's access to images of child pornography. They did this because they felt it was morally right. There's no evidence to support the argument that pedophiles will be more likely to control their behavior if they are unable to see images depicting their desires.
I'm really disgusted with myself for taking the side of pedophiles, but it's a question in black and white. Do we control artistic expression for the sake of morality? No.
XJS*C4JDBQADN1.NSBN3*2IDNEN*GTUBE-STANDARD-ANTI-U
But this is good for other "virtual crimes". If this had passed through, how long would it take the overprotective mothers of the world to rally up support for banning other virtual depictions of crimes. Will I go to jail because I virtually murdered a player in Quake 3? Or perhaps go to jail for selling drugs in Dope Wars.
..There's a-dooin's a-transpirin'
There was a huge discussion concerning this on Kuro5hin. My uncle is a convicted pedophile. However, he never did anything. He turned himself in. Didn't work. His fantasies are still there. He claims he is no different than homosexuals. If his desire is considered sick, than the desire of homosexuals must be sick as well. He said that since society is more accepting of homosexuals, it is no longer a sickness (since 1967). I'm not saying I agree with him, it's just that it's an interesting topic of discussion
If you're not a Liberal in your 20's, then you have no heart.If you're still a Liberal in your 30's you have no brain.
Saying porn makes pedophiles abuse children is like saying Porn makes males rape women, or porn makes women turn into sluts.
People dont copy what they see in porn videos, they watch the porn video to fantasize about what they could never do in the real world.
its the people who dont look at porn that you need to worry about.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
In the March 1994 issue of Wired (2.04), there's a speculative article about what the arguments among the Justices would be if such a case ever came up. Interesting to compare Samuel Gelerman's speculation to the real arguments in the decision:
Herd Not Obscene, by Samuel Gelerman, from Wired 2.04
What does this have to do with the matter at hand? Well, in one chapter the author discusses in passing how Turkish romantic poetry goes on at great length about the beloved's eyes, and claims that this is because of Islamic restrictions on women's clothing--the eyes were all one could see! (He didn't go into whether there was a difference between pre-Ataturk and post-Ataturk literature, which would have been interesting...)
The point is, obsessed people will always find something to feed their fantasies. The children's underwear section of the Sears catalog or the Sunday paper Target inserts, Parents magazine, Sesame Street...you can bet that somewhere, someone's clipping those out of the paper and keeping a scrapbook or taping them and building up a video collection. Do we need burqas for children?
Careful, taking a logical derivation and applying it to a different problem, no matter how related that problem may seem may render the logic incorrect. Robbery and child abuse are different in so many ways. The biggest being that the majority of people don't need nor want to become a robber (there is no initial desire), whereas people who look at child pornography tend to have an initial desire. Does this make a difference, I don't know, but it may and it highlights the fact that you must argue this in terms of child abuse, not robbery because the situations are different.
Enforce the laws against child explotation to the fullest, make the penalties tougher
What makes you think that and is there any evidence that this is the case? Here's some complete heresay reasoning to give people somewhere to start researching. I have been informed by a friend who was studying the effectiveness of Australia's reform system (read: jails) and who had a real passion for solving these problems. Her comment was that in countries where the punishments were very lenient, the crime rate was lower and there were fewer reoffenders. I also have a comment from a tourist to Dubai that punishment was either deportation or death (I have a feeling that was exaggerated a little) and that there was virtually no crime. Perhaps both ways work and the only wrong answer is to sit in the middle ground. I don't know, but don't assume that harsher punishments will help.
never, never, never believe the government is your babysitter and will protect you from all the ills of the world
Agreed. Parents should take care of and protect their children (including educating them about these things - "if anyone touches you in a way you don't like, tell them no and tell me straight away" and similar speeches), and people should be responsible for their actions (including realising that sex makes babies and that contraception is not 100% effective). If you are having sex make sure you're prepared to take care of the child and protect them like a parent should.
It just won't happen, and selective enforcement will put your liberties at risk.
Australia and America both have selective enforcement on various issues. You Americans (or /.ing Americans at the least) seem to be quite upset, but we Australians seem to be happy with the way it's working. I'm not saying your wrong, but your not right just because you state it, you need to back it up.
All in all, you make some good points and they appeal to the kind of thinking that is prevalent on /. but be careful not to believe the rhetoric that "the /. collective concious" produces, just as you should be careful not to believe the rhetoric that the government puts out. Finally, I realise I haven't backed anything up in this post, it's merely intended to suggest other views that may or may not be correct.
Here's an essay I wrote about child pornography--not the virtual type, the real type. I wrote this essay not because I support the production of child porn--I don't, and I neither have nor want any--but because of my philosophical principles. I believe in straightforward, absolute freedom to do anything which does
;-)
not cause direct, measurable harm to another human being. I believe that once you start making exceptions, even if you think they're for a good purpose, you've irrevocably ruined the foundations of freedom. Either somehing causes harm, or doesn't--if it's morally objectionable, but causes no harm, then it should still be permissible.
Those are my libertarian precepts and I stick to them. This essay was posted to USENET inresponse to a thumper who was droning on about how he was an evil evil person for viewing pictures of nude young girls. It's even more applicable now in the case of virtual child porn, where no children were harmed in the making.
*Why Viewing Child Pornography Isn't Inherently "Bad"*
You know, just looking at images harms no one. Images are not actions,
they are mere information, binary ones and zeros just like anything else in
cyberspace. There is a huge difference between passively looking at an
image and actively doing whatever an image may depict.
An image is not good or bad. It may depict something good or bad, but the
image is neutral. Images depicting torture and genocide have won Pulitzer
Prizes and other awards, and are not considered illegal or evil just
because what they depict may be illegal or evil. We do not feel remorse
for looking at images, even if they depict horrors such as the famous photo
of the nude Vietnamese woman running from her burning village as her flesh
is melting. This is because the image just shows a moment in time; we are
not responsible for that moment just because we have seen a representation
of it.
So, if you have been looking at images of children in sexual and possibly
abusive situations, then why should you feel bad for it? That
moment would have happened whether or not you looked at the image 20 years
or 20 minutes after whatever happened, happened. You are no more
responsible for that moment just because you saw an image of it, than I am
responsible for war crimes for looking at that famous image of a North
Vietnamese man with a gun to his head, crying as he was about to be
executed. And what if you enjoyed looking at an image of a girl in a
questionable situation? You have no more engaged in the situation than I
have engaged in the situation whenever I watch Annette Haven get reamed in
the classic porn film *Co-Ed Fever*--although I wish it were me reaming
Annette Haven, but I digress.
The fallacy so many people--particularly overzealous LEA--fall for is
believing that child pornography promotes child abuse. But it's untrue,
and a notion founded entirely on emotive propaganda not fact. As I said,
the things depicted in images would go on whether or not you view the
images. Do you really think a child molester would stop molesting if no
one would look at his pictures? Of course not; most child molesters do
what they do without posting images on the Net. The motivation is primal,
sexual, and the images are mostly for his own enjoyment, and sharing them
with others is entirely secondary. So where is the harm if someone sees
such an image and is excited by it? They are not vicariously contributing
to the scene depicted--that would have happened no matter what.
Another argument some make is that seeing child pornography may make people
more likely to emulate what is depicted. Well, that argument is quite
groundless. In a society which condems adult-child sex as much as ours
does, no one is going to think sex with children is OK just because they
run across, or even collect, some pictures of it. Do people who see that
picture of a Vietnamese man with a gun to his head suddenly start thinking
that it's okay to go around killing people? Heck, our films and television
shows and video games are laden with more pure violence than ever before,
and despite right-wing propaganda and rhetoric, the Justice Department's
own aggregate statistics say that violent crimes among teenagers--surely
the most impressionable demographic--have been on the decline overall for
10 years. The only thing that causes people to think there's a problem is
media exploitation--the media broadcasts disproportionately about crimes
involving youngsters because it increases their ratings. The statistics
show the truth. Likewise with child porn--people believe it's a problem
because the media tells them so. But the reality is that no one is going
to go out and have sex with a 10 year old just because they see it in a
picture or film. Would you go out and have sex with a dog if you see that
on film? Of course not, unless it were something you were going to go out
and do anyway.
That last statement is the key. There is *no* causal link between child
porn and sex with children; the only reason some people may think so is
based on the fact that the type of people who would collect child porn are
the type of people who are attracted to children sexually in the first
place. So, naturally a percentage of them are going to have sex with
children; the child porn they may happen to possess is merely an indication
of their attractions--not a cause, an effect. And it cannot be denied that
child porn is for some pedophiles the same as adult porn is for some
heterosexuals--a release valve for sexual tensions, something to masterbate
to which ultimately decreases sexual desires, not increases them. Hence,
child pornography (in a limited, semi-underground form, at least) is good
for society, not bad, since it provides people who might otherwise seek
juvenile sexual partners with a healthy, inanimate outlet for those needs.
The other argument against child pornography, and the one most often touted
by law enforcement agencies, is that child pornography can be used as a
"recruitment tool" for pedophiles and child molesters who may try
to convince children that adult-child sex is OK by showing them such
images. This last argument is perhaps the thinnest, least believable,
because anything can be used for a nefarious purpose--just because plastic
baggies can be used to hold drugs, does not mean they don't have more
positive uses, or that they need to be made illegal. I'd concede fully
that child porn can and has been used in that capacity; just the other day
I watched a news program about a guy who used it that way. But regular
adult pornography is just as effective a recruitment tool, because people
interested in seducing young girls (or boys) don't rely on being able to
convince them sex with adults is all right--they're taught at school if not
by their parents that it isn't--but rather they rely on the youngster's
natural curiosity about sex and natural desires to do things that feel
good. Adult pornography arouses curiosity and desire in the potential
subject just as much. A child rapist is just going to rape, regardless of
what the child wants, so he does not usually use any pornography in finding
a victim, and it is not at all important in enabling him to do what he
does. Pornography is only really used in this context by non-rapists who
want to seduce or otherwise broach the subject of sex with children. This
can just as easily--if not more easily--be done with adult pornography as
with child pornography. It is also safer, since the adult can leave
regular adult pornography in places the child is sure to find it and wonder
about it, and if the child reports the porn to his or her parents, the
adult can make an excuse about accidentally leaving it in an accessible
place; the same is not true of child pornography, which the parents are
going to report if their child reports seeing it. My researches into the
subject (for a book, which may or may not ever get published) indicate that
adult pornography is used for seducing children far, far more often than
child pornography is. Therefore to blame such seductions on child
pornography is ludicrous, since adult pornography, which is perfectly legal
to possess, serves exactly the same purpose. In this context, child
pornography is not at all different from or more useful than regular porn.
If there are any other arguments for why merely possessing or viewing child
pornography is somehow inherently "bad", bring them up and I'll refute
them. Face it: the only reason you feel bad about looking at what you say
you've looked at, is a pathological Puritan guilt about sex. That's why
the U.S. has such a high rate of sex crimes compared to the rest of the
world--an unhealthy Puritan outlook on sex leads to an unhealthy sex life
and a potential for sexual pathologies.
Chasing Amy
(We all chase Amy...)
"The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws"-Tacitus
I subscribe to the competing theory that pedophilia, like homosexuality, is an innate sexual orientation present from birth to one degre or another. It may remain latent or it may surface, but I believe it's part of a person's genetic make-up.
There is no scientific evidence that supports this belief. Nor would any serious psychologist buy an explanation involving a genetic predisposition. This is dangerous ground you're treading as it provides apologia to child molestors.
As for the rest of your argument concerning prehistory, there is not a single solitary shred of evidence for this either. It doesn't make any biological sense and it isn't mimicked by any mammal alive, including our closest relatives - primates. On the other hand, homosexuality is. This provides some scant evidence to believe that orientation could be in part genetic, while at the same time disproving it for pedophilia.
There is nothing good about pedophilia. This is not an 'orientation'. I'm disturbed by your willingness to provide child molestors with excuses or rationalizations. If they touch a child they deserve - and rightly so - to be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.
Personal fantasies don't enter into the equation unless they're acted on, so that point is irrelevant.
Max
My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?
> There is no scientific evidence that supports this belief.
:-)
There's no definitive scientific evidence that homosexuality is genetic, either. And yet, that is a valid theory that scientists are working to prove or disprove. Unfortunately there's no active research trying to prove or disprove the corralating hypothesis about pedophilia being genetic, unlike with homosexuality. Let's not forget that homosexuality was also defined by the psychological community as a mental disease just like pedophilia, until relatively recently.
> This is dangerous ground you're treading as it provides apologia to child molestors.
I'm interested in the truth, and the Truth, both scientific and philosophical. Who cares where it leads, if it's the truth? I'd rather not be an ignorant bigot, thank you.
> As for the rest of your argument concerning prehistory, there is not a single solitary shred of evidence for this either.
There's not a single shred of evidence for a lot of theories regarding prehistoric evolutionary behaviours. But ask any anthropologist, and he can give you a lot of likely theories that make sense and are generally thought likely, though there's no solid evidence for them. That's the trouble with talking prehistory--no one was writing stuff down, you know.
> It doesn't make any biological sense
I explained exactly why it makes biological sense. Men attracted to prepuscent girls in prehistory, back when evolution was still actively going largely according to natural selection, would probably take a prepubescent girl as a mate. Her first offspring, when she reaches menses and is capable, will almost surely be his, unlike if one takes an older postpubescent mate. In addition, any psychologist should be familiar with the phenomenon that a girl very often bonds closely to her first sexual partner, in ways she does not typiclly bond with other lovers aside from the first. A real devotion, consuming, often develops in these young romances. Therefore, a pedophile in prehistory who takes a young girl as mate will likely have a level of emotional attachment from her unlike what normal adult women display with their non-first-partner mates. This can be a very important bond, particularly in rough prehistoric cultures.
> it isn't mimicked by any mammal alive, including our closest relatives - primates.
Absolutely incorrect. Our closest [primate relatives are Bonobo monkeys, related to chimps--theres a bit of a debate as to whether they should be considered a subset of the chimp population, or a species in their own right; but that is unimportant. What is important is that they display the whole range of human sexual behaviors, including sex or sexual play with prepubescent partners. Some adult males show preference for sex play with very young partners. So ys, our closest primate relatives sometimes display pedophiliac behaviours.
> There is nothing good about pedophilia.
I just told you why it *may* have been useful in prehistory, just as homosexuality was and remains today. Pedophilia, however, is no longer a viable or acceptable orientation.
> This is not an 'orientation'.
It absolutly is. Just because the same mental health professionals who until relatively recently classified homosexuality as a mental disease, still classify pedophilia as one (child molesting should be the disease, for there is a difference in having desires and having too little conscience to prevent oneself from acting upon them), does not mean that it is. I'm confident that the real, "hard" sciences will eventually present a concrete genetic explanation for pedophilia and homosexuality as well.
> I'm disturbed by your willingness to provide child molestors with excuses or rationalizations.
As I said, I want the truth and Truth, both scientific and philosophical. I don't care what the results in the short term are, because in the long term the more we know about ourselves and our world, the better. You seem more concerned with whether a pedophile thinks of his affliction as an orientation rather than a disease, than with knowing the truth. For shame.
> If they touch a child they deserve - and rightly so - to be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.
I never disagreed with that. Again, pedophile is to child molester as heterosexual is to rapist--not all pedophiles molest children, just as not all heterosexuals rape adults. There can be and are "normal" pedophiles who realize that they must remain celibate and have the slf-control to do so. Those lacking in self-control and empathy may touch children inappropriately and become child molesters, in which case they must be punished. But being attrcted to chuilden is neither a disease nor a crime, as long as one never acts upon those desires.
Chasing Amy
(We all chase Amy...)
"The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws"-Tacitus
All of which stems from having binary verdicts and "beyond all reasonable doubt" conditions. Lawyer (in which I include judges) argue technicalities. They don't argue about what did or didn't happen, or about right and wrong. They argue that their clients are law abiding, and that's a completely separate and largely irrelevant issue.
That's the problem. Not bad laws, but a bad system that places laws above facts.
There are no circumstances that I can think of where I wouldn't rather handle my own case in front of a jury of my peers and have then come to a consensus greyscale decision based on balance of probabilities. It's only when you have a lawyer instructing and feeding the jury, and arguing over what's admissable and what isn't, that the system becomes farcical and self serving.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.