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Porn Found On L.A. Obscenity Case Judge's Website
Stanislav_J writes "In a bizarre revelation, the judge who is presiding over the Isaacs obscenity trial in Los Angeles was found to have sexually explicit material on a publicly-accessible website. Alex Kozinski, chief judge of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, acknowledged that he had posted the materials, but says he believed the site to be for personal storage only, and not accessible to the public (though he does acknowledge sharing some of the material with friends). The files included images of masturbation, public sex, contortionist sex, a transsexual striptease, a photo of naked women on all fours painted to look like cows, and a video of a half-dressed man cavorting with a sexually aroused farm animal. The latter two are especially ironic in that the trial involves the distribution of allegedly obscene sexual fetish videos depicting bestiality, among other things, by Ira Isaacs, an L.A. filmmaker."
Stanislav_J continues:
"The judge has blocked public access to the site (putting up a graphic that reads, 'Ain't nothin' here — y'all best be movin' on, compadre').
Isaacs' defense had welcomed the assignment of Kozinski to the case because of his long record of defending the First Amendment, but the startling news about his website (the revelation of which seems to have been interestingly timed to coincide with today's scheduled opening arguments) now have many folks calling for him to be removed from the case. There is no indication that any of the images on Kozinski's site would be considered obscene or illegal. But certainly, one has to believe that most would consider this at the very least to represent a serious conflict of interest given the nature of the trial."
Isaacs' defense had welcomed the assignment of Kozinski to the case because of his long record of defending the First Amendment, but the startling news about his website (the revelation of which seems to have been interestingly timed to coincide with today's scheduled opening arguments) now have many folks calling for him to be removed from the case. There is no indication that any of the images on Kozinski's site would be considered obscene or illegal. But certainly, one has to believe that most would consider this at the very least to represent a serious conflict of interest given the nature of the trial."
Now with animal acts.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Well, this will be interesting. I wonder if this will get used against him (i.e. he gets called a hypocrite), or if it'll affect his judgment regarding the case he has right now.
Cynical Idealist
I would certainly want judge Kozinski presiding over my case. Just as if the RIAA was on my case I would want a judge who was familiar with and used bittorrent.
Tsk, tsk. Bad submitter. How could you have posted this without the URL? I mean... we need to be able to judge the material for ourselves, right?
- David Stein
Computer over. Virus = very yes.
More of a coincidence, really.
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"a photo of naked women on all fours painted to look like cows"
*blink*
*blinkblink*
*blink*
What?
I dare you to find a public servant's computer with out porn in it. I'm pretty sure computer shipped to the government by contract are to come with porn.
Live by the ... er ... sword, die by the sword.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
If you are a judge presiding over a case involving the illegal distribution of fetish porn, you should probably take down your own web site illegally distributing fetish porn first.
Definitely irony, I'd be willing to bet the article is on Fark right now with the ironic tag and the irony police haven't found issue with it yet.
Base 13 FTW!
I bet the reaction of the community would be much more drastic if
"his long record of defending the First Amendment" was not mentioned.
Where is the irony? I do not see it. Porn-loving judge defends "first amendment". I would call it "integrity".
The wolf was appointed to herd the sheep. Call me back when man bites dog.
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
This is going to provide great fodder for all the comedy shows and FOX News. Especially considering the judge was telling jurors that there were about 4 hours of video and he'd be watching it with them since it's part of his job.
What better way to become a better judge of obscenity than to immerse yourself in relevant material. Makes sense to me in an admittedly warped way.
- Toby
Don't get too titillated now
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
I would have to say that the defendant's attorney definitely got his client into the right court. Sadly for said defendant, the judge will have to recuse himself now. Unless,the judge rules that it is not pornography, and then everybody goes home happy; except the prosecutors, of course.
Some mornings it's hardly worth chewing through the restraints to get out of bed.
Uhm, I think you are forgetting the part about where he did nothing illegal.
Relax, I'm sure it was all there for research. It's all part of his job.
Was the content viewable by minors? Did it have age verification before showing said content?
Well then...
Contributing to the delinquency of minors, and whatever statutes cover providing pornography to minors as well.
Who is general failure, and why is he reading my hard drive?
Irony implies you wouldn't expect judges to have midget transexual transpecie gay porn.
The hyperlink to the site (http://alex.kozinski.com/) is in the sentence that indicates that the judge took the stuff down. Nothing to see there. The Wayback Machine shows several versions of the site dating back to 2004, none of the juicy stuff is there.
"Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket." -- Eric Hoffer
good one universe, good one...
I used to be with IT..now IT seems strange and scary to me.
...a judge will actually be an expert in the specialty area the case deals with.
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself no matter what they say
Nothing from the site was illegal however. (aside from possible copyright infringement if he didn't have the rights to distribute the photos, which I don't think was your idea of illegal)
Should a judge also recuse himself from presiding over auto theft cases if he should happen like cars?
Does liking porn predispose him to favoring the defendant in an illegal porn case? More importantly, does it do so to a greater degree than being a defender of the First Amendment?
censorship is a special wonderful combination of hypocrisy and a lack fo self awareness and a lack of awareness of true human nature
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Good luck finding a judge who can truthfully say they have never had any interest in pornography.
The pursuit of absolute tolerance leads to the most rigorous and ludicrous intolerance. - REX MURPHY
Pics or it didn't happen.
(Had to, sorry.)
Colin Dean Go a year without DRM
The ninth circuit is about to lose a defender of free speech because he had the savvy to run a web site but not enough to know how it really works. His collection of "porn" are things that other people sent him, the kind of crap that clogs email systems everywhere. It is impossible to have an email address and not have it sent to you. Someone you know will send it along. His mistake was putting it where it could be seen by the same kinds of fanatics that are pushing the "war on porn" in the first place. Ignore the fact that they routinely get busted like Jimmy Swaggart did. Kozinski thought people would not find it because there was no link to the directory ... ugh! He's exactly the kind of level headed person the courts need to rule fairly on these kinds of cases.
Like the fine article quotes him saying:
Those were fine sentiments when he was appointed by Ronald Reagan, but it's bad news under a regime that wants to be above the law. There you will find your animals, those who want to live by tooth and claw.
Assumptions and Conjecture don't mean he did anything wrong. A common exercise in law classes is to take a situation and state all the laws that could have been broken.
IE: A guy is walking down a street.
Well really the example doesn't lend itself to any laws being broken but here are the responses you'd get anyways.
1 - Maybe he is walking IN the street in which case he is Jaywalking
2 - He also might be obstructing traffic
3 - If he isn't wearing any clothes then he might be arrested for public indecency
I could go on but I won't.
I fail to see where the conflict of interest is here. So he likes porn. Yeah, he's MALE.
What would be the 'right' judge to preside over this case? A known prude who prays to God at least seven times a week and has publically stated that pornography is a sin?
So he has a life outside the court room. Big fucking deal. There's no money involved in it for him, I'm sure, and he probably doesn't know the defendant either. Where is the conflict of interest?!
-=This sig has nothing to do with my comment. Move along now=-
Isaacs should have checked his billing system... He could have been found "Not-Guilty" by now. Well at least "case dismissed" due to a threat of certain info getting released to the press and his Wife :D:D
Laters Sol "Have you found the secrets of the universe? Asked Zebade "I'm sure I left them here somewhere"
A couple of lawyer buddies of mine tell me that they are coached in law school to take anything from the 9th Circuit Court with many grains of salt. That may be the most overturned legal entity on the planet. So a foolish pervert is the chief judge. Huh. What do you know?
Carry on (and mirror please).
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Are you sure about that? The man cavorting sounds awfully close to bestiality, which is, in fact, illegal most places as it constitutes animal abuse.
It's rare that you're presented with a knob whose only two positions are Make History and Flee Your Glorious Destiny.
Politicians (judges included since they run for office via the same dog and pony show as legislators) are a screwed up bunch of people. They assume everyone else is as screwed up as they are, so they come up with laws to take away our rights. They're like clergy who abuse children and in their guilt scream "Sinners!" from the pulpit at everyone in the pews, assuming they are also doing disgusting things. What else do you expect from people who just want to extract money from the rest of us while creating nothing. It takes a strange mind to pass out a collection plate while calling you a sinner, or tax you while taking away your rights.
Run and catch, run and catch, the lamb is caught in the blackberry patch.
Something comes to mind about stones and glass houses... Now what was that again...
The contest for ages has been to rescue liberty from the grasp of executive power. -- Daniel Webster
The bad news: the site is down. "Safari can't open the page 'http://alex.kozinski.com/' because it could not connect to the server 'alex.kozinski.com'"
The good news: it's in the Wayback machine.
The bad news: the Wayback machine just shows "Ain't nothin' here. Y'all best be movin' on, compadre" on the main page, from 2004 through the last snapshot in 2005. (The news story saying that this is a recent change is apparently wrong).
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
Do it yourself, because no one else will do it yourself. [beta blockade 10-17 Feb]
In this case, I think 'irony' is the appropriate term, although possibly not for the reason that the poster of the GP thinks. The irony here is that the behaviour is different from what one would expect from a judge; it is a coincidence that the judge is presiding on an obscentity case.
A One that isn't cold, is scarcely a One at all.
Uhm... Judge not, lest ye be judged?
I bet 100% of the material on the website is the same material that moves around the "have you seen this" emails forwarded on by every unknowing idiot new to the Internet. I recognize the description of the animal video as the one where the drunk guy is trying to get away from the donkey that is trying to mount him. I also know the woman wearing the cow body paint circulated in a similar email. The vague descriptions on the others also sound as if they are the same type of material that gets forwarded around. I wouldn't be surprised if every adult who has ever used the Internet has seen the material in question, that the judge has some online storage with the material in question isn't surprising to me, and certainly not a reason to dismiss him from the case.
At the bare minimum I would suggest the material in question makes him much more applicable to judge a case involving bestiality because he should be able to recognize the difference between protected speech and images (those emails classify as such) and obscene material.
you don't judge porn, porn Judges, er, cows?
E
Eric Aitala
www.f1m.com
Uhm, I think you are forgetting the part about where he did nothing illegal.
Actually I would say if it fails the Miller Test and he was publicly distributing it he should be charged like anyone else. I have not seen the pictures, but I think it feasible to launch an investigation as to whether or not he broke the law with pictures that possibly do not pass a Miller Test. Remember ignorance is not a valid excuse for breaking the law.
If i had one dollar for every brain you dont have, i would have $1.
...the Aristocrats
If my call is important, why am I talking to a recording?
Perhaps the porn was there as a benchmark (no pun intended). Anything freakier than what the judge had is obscene, anything less exotic is simply porn. Even if that wasn't it's intended purpose, it would make an interesting point to argue. After all as a judge, Kozinski is a moral compass, and he is sharing this material with his friends whom we can also assume are pillars of the community, so by them accepting this material,we can conclude that it is not "Offensive to accepted standards of decency or modesty." because the standard-bearers of our society have already show to find it acceptable.
We are all just people.
Well you bring up a good point. But my reply is that SHOULD it be illegal to just distribute something (not for profit) that shows an illegal act? Shoot if that was the case the Police should start scouring YouTube for every Police Camera video showing a crime that surfaces on there and arresting the poster.
I'm betting the judge does too. Often.
The case is about fetish porn, he has fetish porn in his wonderful collection.
Anonymous Coward
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; ..."
I am not a lawyer, but if the Defendant was selling the stuff, was it with the permission of the copyright holder? and did the Defendant have a business license? Other than that, which part of the First Amendment did the Defendant ignore? And the Judge for that matter? It also sounds like the Cruelty part was with a "happy camper?"
I don't get how a government can even try to 'standardize' on something like sex. Isn't that what's so great about sex, that it's *not* like a lunch line, where everyone gets the same food? Variety is the spice of life.
P.S. Before you judge my own sexual desires and fetishes, I ask you to let it go and ask yourself if it's even necessary. It's not my point to try and "legalize" beastiality or anything of the sort - I just think it's kind of lame to try and tell someone what is "ok" sexually, and what isn't (as long as nobody/nothing gets hurt or is forced to do something against their will - that's a completely different story). It reminds me of the "old days" when certain sex positions were illegal.
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
1. The case is about public obscenity.
2. The case itself would provide a precidence for the judge's own defense in his ensuing criminal public obscenity trial.
3. Conflict of interest established.
Remember ignorance is not a valid excuse for breaking the law.
IANAL... but that said, AFAIK:
Ignorance *of the law* is not a valid excuse for breaking it. I doubt he was ignorant of the law. Ignorance of the ramifications of your actions is a variety of excuse. It still leaves you open to anything that is negligence related (I won't even try to speculate as to his potential degree of exposure in that realm). A very large number of statutes have the words 'knowingly and willingly' or other words to that effect in them. He's off the hook for any of those.
William of Ockham had no beard. The most likely explanation is that it was chewed off by squirrels every morning.
I find that America will be better off when we soon realize that we as adults are children afraid of our own sexual fantasies and the most important action we must take is to simply act as if the naughty naughty doesnt happen. That way we can legally penalize anyone that dares enjoy sex in ways we ourselves wished we could. This judge clearly has a sexual organ, and i move to have him removed from the bench and the legal justice system as we know it. What will the world think of us, when they find out this judge enjoys sex! WHAT i ask you?
Oh yeah... and dont forget... We do not wipe our own asses... that is dirty.
Probably.
Doesn't sound like it. Not that it matters. Not even commercial* porn providers require age verification.
The only major problem with that is, you'd have to actually show (a) the actual minors whose delinquency was contributed to (the "making available" argument doesn't fly) and (b) almost certainly show there was good reason to believe that the judge new he was distributing said content to minors (otherwise most porn mags would be shut down, since obviously if the porn mags weren't printed, you couldn't find minors with them).
In short, you have to consider the judge's position as if he were any other major publisher. Given the repeated attempts to try to "protect" minors on the internet in the past involving porn and how few laws have stood up to Constitutional scrutiny (the only one that comes to mind as accepted is ones involving libraries accpeting federal funds in exchange for having to include anti-porn filters; and assumedly that has to do with it being voluntary to accept funds), it just doesn't seem likely that yet another contorted attempt would work. But, obviously, it's all a matter of taking the judge to court and spending several years until the Supreme Court decides.
*Commercial in this context doesn't just mean "and we want your credit card number". The second one starts receiving money as a result of ads on one's website, one can be called commercial (just like broadcast TV). Assumedly this was a major reason that the age verification laws were discarded, as it would be very unreasonable to have every last website showing a nipple with an ad on it to request a credit card number. And odds are, most people *wouldn't* give a credit card number to the site. The last part, then, severely cripples freedom of speech by abridging the legitimate right of the vast majority to access a site without undue burden. Now, if there were some way to age verify someone in a more trivial fashion on the internet, the courts would probably have a much different interpretation on things.
Eurohacker European paranoia, gun rights, and h
Let the FCC control broadcast obscenity. Anything subscribed or unicasted on demand is fine.
Seriously, I get offended when people back off and hide things or pause to hold back words in the middle of a sentence while they do a quick replacement. I never say anything because it's futile and the world is a threatening place in that context anyway.
I once knew a girl that could curse really well. Like, she didn't hold shit back, she didn't throw "fuck" or "ass" or "shit" in every third word; but when she had something to say, she threw every emphasis in right where it belongs, actually using those words as intensifiers, creating interesting and amusing combination and even in some cases short streams of nonsense that still conveyed the proper emotion. It's like someone actually turned streams of obscenities into a fine art; I've never seen anyone else communicate so comfortably or so clearly.
We live in a world where sending an e-mail to your boss stating you "don't know what's wrong yet because there's too much shit to wade through" can instantly get you fired. We just use euphamisms to indicate obscene concepts rather than single "obscene" words. The concept of isolated obscenity is obscene; preventing people from sharing shit you don't like is an aberration and we should be ashamed as a people for supporting this sort of behavior.
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Y'know... every time I come across the acronym IANAL, I have the same thought. It's particularly apt in a thread about pornography.
If you believe everything you read, you'd better not read. - Japanese proverb
"Everyone that has pr0n less nasty than mine is a prude. Everyone that has nastier pr0n than me is a freak." - Based on that driving quote.
"I do have a cause however: obscenity. ... I'm for it. Unfortunately, those who are fighting for this have to do it on the basis of free speech, but we all know what's really involved - dirty books are fun, that's all there is to it."
I am officially gone from
"terrorism" and "pedophilia" are the root passwords to the Constitution
Absolutely. At the risk of incurring a "think of the children!" response, I'm going to use child porn as an example. By allowing distribution of child porn, you would be creating a market for it. People may discover their interest in it by viewing material that they wouldn't otherwise have been able to do, and that would in turn increase demand for the materials.
Whether it's illegal or not to possess or distribute it is ancillary at that point: once there's a market, and demand, there will be people trying to fill the demand. It will naturally lead to increased production of the stuff.
You may see it as a slippery slope argument, but I see it as wanting to punish everybody who's responsible for the market for the material in the first place. Something like that is exploitive and very harmful to children, and the punishment for it should be meted out at all levels on the distribution and consumption chain.
Now... you can probably think of a counterexample. I can think of a counterexample. But be careful making blanket statements, because I think that most of us would agree that for the example I've given, those people should have the book thrown at them.
If you believe everything you read, you'd better not read. - Japanese proverb
Are you recusing yourself or are you just happy to see me?
I hope he throws the book at himself!
My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my Father! Prepare to die!
Now gallop!
Yechh.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Age verification (through a warning page) isn't a legal requirement for a website, it's just common practice.
The content was in an unlinked directory. He didn't provide the address to anyone he didn't know. You would have to prove he intentionally gave it to people he knew were underage. That's why porn sites don't get sued for delinquency of a minor: they don't intentionally target underage users.
doing some searches i found many of his website's domains documents in google cache and way back.. dont forget yahoo. evidentally someone had linked it to the public at one time.
Yep. Perhaps though it was there because he liked whacking off to it. And that should be fine too!
I mostly agree, except for judges as moral compasses. Morals and laws are very different things.
Laws are meant to prevent a person from infringing another person's rights. Morals are meant to tell a person what's right or wrong. The confusion comes from all the situations where the two overlap, such as murder, rape, robbery, and fraud.
I would expect a judge to be lawful. I wouldn't necessarily expect them to agree with my morals.
Maybe not
Hahaha, I see what you did there!
Is there anyone on Slashdot who HASN'T seen Goatse multiple times?
see? there is justice in the world.
since all archive.org has for all the archives of alex.kozinski.com is pages saying
Ain't nothin' here.
Y'all best be movin' on, compadre.
...the future crusty old bastards are already drinking the Kool-Aid.
Of course not. Only if the judge's website had illegal porn should he be considered to have a conflict of interest.
Almost anyone can be gotten for a felony on a daily basis for nearly any action or inaction.
We have IIRC over 40,000 Federal felony statutes, and hundreds of thousands of regulations. Combine that with prosecutors and cops who take an "expansive view" of the definitions of the words in the code and someone committed a felony last night in their sleep.
Wow I love reading these kinds of case studies. I would love it if you would blog / rcord this somewhere so that the rest of us could learn from it.
http://projectleader.wordpress.com
not to mention lack of proper record keeping according to 18 USC 2257. Admittedly part of that law got stuck down(rightfully), but I think he'd still need some kind of records of anybody with funparts on his website.
Pain lasts, kid. Its how you know you're alive. Sometimes I think this growing up thing is just pain management-TheMaxx
Are any of these images copyrighted? If the judge posted them on his web site, could the copyright holders sue him for infringement - "making available" copyrighted material?
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
Wow! Somebody in the world enjoys sexual material! Who would have thought it?!
Honestly guys, who the hell cares if somebody watches porn. If that's what he wants, it's what he wants. Fuck off, you.
:(){
So, I see that not one amongst our libertarian crowd has yet taken you to task for your kmee-jerk 'think of the blinkin' children' response. Perhaps because they know better than to feed the stinkin' trolls. Regardless, I'm just dumb enough to bite.
Here goes: Are you frackin' stupid? It's illegal to show someone speeding? Or running a red light? It's illegal to show OJ failing to pull over? Or to show Martha Stewart committing perjury?
Those were all 'silly' examples. More seriously, the crime in child pornography resides in the person abusing the child. It does not reside in the viewer. Next you'll tell me that I'm guilty of terrorism for having read about how to manufacture a bomb? Or guilty of illegal immigration for having learned some Spanish? Look, if a crime was committed, go after the perpetrator, not everyone to whom you can draw a line with your purple crayon.
This judge needs to be removed. What if a neked woman cow shows up in the courtroom? How's he going to react? Will he be distracted searching for his camera phone?
"I guess I'm gonna fade into Bolivian."
Cryptome posted a Yahoo cache of Kozinski's directory on its site.
Some of the more interesting file names include:
a.day.without.jews.wmv
BBCCopsUndies.wmv
Colo-rectalSurgeon.wav
isitmanisitwoman.pps
jewsdontcamp.mp3
piss_diver.wmv
Sheep_guy.jpg
show.them.to.me.wmv
testicle.interview.wmv
Looks like Jewish groups may not appreciate his sense of humor as well as the anti-porn crowd. At any rate, I don't see much of anything there that looks from the file names alone to be hardcore. It really does look like a directory of miscellaneous stuff that came in "Look at this!" and "Check THIS out!" e-mails from friends that he just stored on the site for easy access.
"Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket." -- Eric Hoffer
Mmm. love a good strawman.
No. You wouldn't be guilty of those. If, however, you were one of a million people downloading a video of some kid getting beaten up by his classmates, then *yes*, you would be, to an extent, guilty. His classmates wouldn't have done it if they didn't think they would get their 15 minutes out of it. By creating a market for it, you're encouraging it.
You apparently missed the part where I said I could think of a counterexample, too.... My point wasn't that it should always be illegal to distribute content like that, it was that it shouldn't always be legal.
If you believe everything you read, you'd better not read. - Japanese proverb
-- Don't Tase me, bro!
I guess you missed this where the Bush administration is trying to revive COPA the law that already got smacked about for being unconstitutional (as did all the follow-on acts that followed in its mold).
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
http://www.tobyyoung.co.uk/440/how-long-before-zlist-stars-pay-to-get-on-tv.html
try googling Rebecca Loos masturbating a pig on The Farm.
While I don't know what was going on exactly in the judges photo this was broadcast on Ch4 in the uk (probably after 9 pm) on a regular terrestrial tv channel.
so 'cavorting' with a sexually aroused animal, given that a dog can get turned on by his owner scratching his ears probably isn't as obscene as what was legally broadcast in the uk.
also was that the sum total of pictures on the site or a small percentage of 'humorous' pictures found on the site.
context is everything.
http://www.word-gems.com/humor.herriot.html (text only) but peter davidson (a former dr who) had the dubious pleasure of recreating this scene for sunday evening tv -arm up a cows vagina no less.(bbc)
plus countless comedic video clips of animals humping anything in numerous home video shows or the bbc news website with pictures of a seal trying to hump a penguin
The judges pic's may be quite tame indeed. but i guess when janet jackson's nipple popped out at the superbowl causing a major incident, standards may vary.
Blarney Quality Restaurant, Plants
18 USC 2257 applies to producers, not distributors. So, unless you're trying to argue that the judge produced some of the mentioned material...
Eurohacker European paranoia, gun rights, and h
Is it a market if the distribution is free, as in this case? And as for the rest, it's thought crime, entirely conjectural "may discover", etc., are what you imagine might be consequences. Exactly the same argument would lead to banning almost all news reporting.
A while ago I picked up American Psycho and read a few chapters. It turned my stomach (it's full of extreme sexual violence, in case you haven't heard of it). But while I wouldn't want my 10-year-old daughter to read it, I wouldn't want it prevented from being distributed. And despite reading about it, personally, I haven't felt the urge to cut off womens' heads and use them as masturbation toys. I really doubt you can suddenly have perverse urges switched on by being exposed to depictions of it. We'd all be in very deep shit if that were the case. By all means, punish the people who actually DO these things. The rest is just expressing your disapproval without helping anyone, the children least of all.
You're special forces then? That's great! I just love your olympics!
It wasn't on his home/work computer. It was on a remote server that was open to the internet. RTFS?
Along the same lines, if priests are moral compasses then them molesting our children must be a benchmark to test the standards of the church and their faith.
Obviously no, and to even suggest that any authoritative figure naturally abides by their own rules is grossly overrating the human condition.
Wouldn't they have to check the porn archives of any judge that takes over the case? Just because they don't advertise their tastes, it doesn't mean they don't have any.
Looking back at the archive, it's said that for several years: http://web.archive.org/web/20050122134257/http://alex.kozinski.com/
[citation needed]
I believe the judge is novelist Jerzy Kozinski's son...and I seem to recall novels by the latter where women's lust reached new (for adolescent me, then) extremes :-)
With all the clamor of protest I hear, though, I cannot help wondering: just WHO, then, visit by the thousands all those extreme-porn sites, or buy Master Baiter Ira's videos?! :-P
Someone cache the website before it's too late!
Finding porn on a 9th circuit court judges computer is liking finding a playboy at a porn stars' house. Is this really news? The 9th circuit court is the most liberal court in the whole nation, and thus we presume, progressive. Judges looking at porn is a given, would you be a judge and not look at porn?
Don't be so anal.
My other account has a 3-digit UID.
In an updated version of the story, the L.A. Times now reporting that the trial has been suspended:
Alex Kozinski, chief judge of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, granted a 48-hour stay in the obscenity trial of a Hollywood adult filmmaker after the prosecutor requested time to explore "a potential conflict of interest concerning the court having a . . . sexually explicit website with similar material to what is on trial here."
One new wrinkle is that the good judge is at least partially trying to shift blame to his own son!
After publication of an latimes.com article about his website Wednesday morning, the judge offered another explanation for how the material might have been posted to the site. Tuesday evening he had told The Times that he had a clear recollection of some of the most objectionable material and that he was responsible for placing it on the Web. By Wednesday afternoon, as controversy about the website spread, Kozinski was seeking to shift responsibility, at least in part, to his adult son, Yale. ["Yale??"]
"Yale called and said he's pretty sure he uploaded a bunch of it," Kozinski wrote in an e-mail to Abovethelaw.com, a legal news website. "I had no idea, but that sounds right because I sure don't remember putting some of that stuff there."
Or maybe it was one of his brothers, Harvard and Princeton....
"Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket." -- Eric Hoffer
Practicing animal husbandry is perfectly fine until they catch you red handed.
We do not live in the 21st century. We live in the 20 second century.
For a long time I didn't know what it was either. I thought it was a signal that the person did that sort of thing (like "I swing"), and I thought it was kind of gross.
"by that I mean people who don't sit on slashdot all day wondering why everyone else isn't building robots" DECS
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
...Safari won't work. You need to upgrade to CattleDrive. It'll connect straight off. Alternatively, you can paint Safari to look like a cow.
paintball
Village idiot in some extremely smart villages.
1. Owning a sports car is illegal. What constitutes "sporty" is left to individual interpretation however.
2. Buying, owning or selling certain sporty cars is illegal.
3. Displaying or allowing any one to gaze upon sports cars is illegal. For the definition of sporty see above.
That's just a start...
The judge collects cars, some of them surprisingly "sporty" (see above). His son is into cars too and shares his passion with his father. It's apparently a family activity. And this judge has made these possible sports cars available by displaying, and trading in cars. It's also likely he did this least sometimes at work using government equipment and networks.
Now, this judge is to determine if another car enthusiast is guilty for making and selling sports cars. Any conflict?
If a law is so stupid that we can't find anyone that's "innocent" the law needs to be nullified by the jury. But that a different topic. But there is a conflict as far as I can tell.
-[d]-
I think it's, "Obscenity is whatever gives the judge an erection."
That's why "illegally distributing", not "distributing illegal" :)
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
FTA - Judge likes porn, has porn, has site with porn.
Me - So what? Who cares?
FTA - This presents a conflict of interest because he is handling a case which has to deal with porn.
Me - WTF? So if a judge drives a car and perhaps has a been now and then, he can't preside over a DWI case? If he owns a home with a flag on it, he can't preside over a case where someone is in violation of HOA rules by having a flag at their house? Come one.
Disclaimer: I am not god.
We may not be created equal
But we can be treated equal.
In the words of Judge Kozinski, "The parties are advised to chill." Mattel, Inc. v. MCA Records, 296 F.3d. 894, 908 (9th Cir. 2002).
It wasn't a strawman argument. The Parent (Peter Monk) brings up a good point. He pointed out the silly examples because there is a major flaw in your argument. Who decides which illegal activities we CAN view and which ones we CANNOT. You are actually getting close to trampling on the right to FREEDOM of the PRESS.
Freedom of press is an illusion. It doesn't actually exist, nor should it be carte blanche to publish anything you choose. The idea behind the concept was that the press should be free to publish information about the government or world events, as a mechanism to keep the government in check. It was *not* intended as giving the press the freedom to publish whatever it wants without fear of repercussions. In an ideal world, the press will respect its moral obligation to moderate itself, and that kind of legislation wouldn't be needed. In a world where sex sells, and the press cares more about sensationalism than it does the facts, somebody has to keep them in line.
You're right, in that there's a slippery slope in my argument. However, I do think that there's a few topics that should absolutely be censored, and whose possession/distribution should be as illegal as their production/commission. Who decides? The public as a whole. You may personally disagree with their decisions (a person may be smart, but people are dumb), but in the end, the majority will usually make good decisions in that direction.
You may want to watch the news for a phrase that's been coming up a lot lately... around here, they're calling it "youtube crime". The basic idea is that people are committing crimes they wouldn't otherwise commit, filming it, and putting it on YouTube in hopes of gaining infamy. There's a motion in the Canadian parliament at the moment to impose stricter penalties on hate crimes if they are filmed and published, specifically because of this. Most crimes would happen anyway... but there's an element that wouldn't otherwise commit crimes if they weren't encouraged by the promise of infamy.
If you believe everything you read, you'd better not read. - Japanese proverb
It doesn't sound at all "tame" to me, and I'm no prude :P Even if it's legal, and I concede that it could be (I haven't watched it though) I don't think "tame" would be a good word to describe it. But I'm in favor of things that are legal. I'm still morally opposed to hypocrisy, so we'll see what this does to the case.
It's rare that you're presented with a knob whose only two positions are Make History and Flee Your Glorious Destiny.
If he's guilty of anything, it's attempting to use security thru obscurity. This is especially stupid when you've become a public figure, facing far more scrutiny than the average Joe Stickyank.
Interestingly, the question that's going unanswered is: Who were the people attempting to dig dirt on this man in the first place, and why? I'd look very closely at the snitches, and the first people to yell "recuse" -- attempting to influence the outcome of a federal trial is far more ethically disturbing than keeping a couple furry/cosplay/zoophile pictures on your webspace to laugh at.
Finally, the obscenity trial will have a jury verdict. The guilt/innocence decisions will not be made by the judge. Therefore, the court is correct, this is a personal matter.
I can see the fnords!
My turn to bite - Canada is taking the right reaction to this. Neither the medium nor the viewers are at fault for the youtube crimes. They recognize that the fault lies with and should always lie with the perpetrator of the act. There is a huge difference in someone passively clicking on a link that may or may not be real out of curiosity than a person in a crowd provoking someone to "Do it! Kick him in the nose!"
"Little is much when little you need."
The judge isn't on trial. Besides, we prefer to be judged by our peers. Whats a better peer than one who indulges in the same activities?
I know I saw the pic years ago, but I had a bitch of a time Googling it.
This is the picture you want. It is almost certainly the pic on the judge's computer. Two women on all fours, body-painted like cows. They are completely nude and the camera angle is from behind, so it's extremely NSFW.
And while I'm at it, pictures one and two of individual nude women pained like cows. I suspect the bodyart in all three pics is from a single artist (notice the distinctive black collar on the wrists/ankles/neck, the bare-nipple holes, and the similar spot patterning).
And what the hell while I'm at it... during the cow search I came across a collection of 12 photos of women from PETA protesting the treatment of circus animals - the women are all caged, nearly nude, and painted like tigers. I think I'm going to have to start attending PETA rallies - apparently almost all PETA women are either really hot or really cute.
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I come across the acronym IANAL, I have the same thought. It's particularly apt in a thread about pornography.
Yeah Brain. But what if the judge was a llama?
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
I've seen the video. It was indeed an attempted act of homosexual bestiality.
However as you noted, the donkey was quite aroused. It was also quite clear that the one being abused was the poor guy who just wanted to take a shit in the bushes.
Have you ever tried to outrun a donkey?
Have you ever tried to outrun a horny donkey?
Have you ever tried to outrun a horny donkey with your pants tangled around your ankles?
Have you ever had your buddy just sit there with a video camera taping you while you attempted to run with your pants wrapped around your ankles because a couple-a-hundred pound donkey was violently and repeatedly attempting to rectally mount you?
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
While we're all getting carried away assuming the worst and making animal pr0n jokes, Lessig actually provides some news "that matters" on the facts. Trouble is, no-one is going to remember the facts after the fact and assume he can't be trusted.
"Nothing alleged to have been on this server violates any law. (There's some ridiculous claim about "bestiality." But the video is not bestiality. It lives today on YouTube -- a funny (to some) short of a man defecating in a field, and then being chased by a donkey. "
http://lessig.org/blog/2008/06/the_kozinski_mess.html
Xix.
"Everything is adjustable, provided you have the right tools"
If you read the article and some of the attached comments you will find that the video is on you tube.
This version was swiped from fox and is censored so shouldnt be offensive to most people
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_it12C2UiE&feature=related
Google women painted as cows and you will find a couple of images in the image search.
ones from a blog entitled what men think of women.
Basically it appears that some of this stuff is funny stuff but you wouldn't want to watch with your small kids. The painted cow women pictures seem related to an article discussing men's views about women, seeing women as meat. (for some reason firefox kept shutting down every time i tried to access the blog where the image was located, this is more worrying.)
The judge apparently had some mp3's on his site which might be breaches of copyright. If the riaa's making available applied then he could be in trouble. Since in theory his site was public. However wasn't that "making available" ruling shot down in another court?
If this is as extreme as the site got, then it's more pg than adult in content.
This really was just a site for him to keep random stuff on that he might want to access later. he kept court rulings on there as well and why not. sometimes there are things you want to keep handy be it a court ruling a funny video clip or a step by step for using a particular linux command.
really this is a political hatchet job on the judge, it could be just to sell papers, or an attempt to discredit him by his enemies.
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