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Tennesee Man Charged In "Virtual Pornography" Case
mcgrew writes "CNN reports that 'A Tennessee man is facing charges of aggravated sexual exploitation of a minor for what authorities say are three pictures — none of them featuring an actual child's body. Instead, according to testimony presented at Michael Wayne Campbell's preliminary hearing in Chattanooga, Tennessee, on Wednesday, the photos feature the faces of three young girls placed on the nude bodies of adult females, CNN affiliate WDEF reported.'"
ruled that in order for something to be "child pornography", it had to be depictions of (1) real children, and (2) real pornography.
This is interesting, though, if the faces were of real children. Which side of the line does that land on?
This whole situation sounds bizarre, but I was just reading in the strip-search constitutionality stories about the 'expectation' that a person would understand the constitutionality of their actions.
As we start seeing more of these strange cases that have been made possible by the advancement of technology I wonder if the expectation of understanding defense will be employed.
After all - what legal precedence addressing a situation of this nature has reached a level of widespread understanding that a given individual could be expected to be familiar with the society's legal expectations.
...three young girls placed on the nude bodies of adult females.
I guess he should have done it the other way around then. Right?
The U.S. Supreme Court in 2002 ruled that "virtual child pornography," in which no children were actually harmed, is protected speech and does not constitute a crime.
"We see it all the time," Allen said. "It makes it harder for law enforcement. It makes it tougher for prosecutors."
Well yeah, prosecuting someone for something that isn't a crime would be "tougher".
How we know is more important than what we know.
Ehm, *Cough* Thought Crime *Cough*
He may be dead, but he will be immortalized by Thriller
I want to be retired when I grow up.
Pastes it on the nude body of Nancy Pelosi.......
Wait a sec. I don't think I should go any further with this.......
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
This is like that hentai guy. I think material like this may be grounds for investigating someone to see if they have actual illegal porn. But I don't see how this is a crime. I don't want thought police, but there should be no gray area when actual children are involved.
Literally of course. He will return as a pop dancing Zombie.
\u262D = \u5350
If you are a purveyor of stick-man pornography, please FOR THE LOVE OF GOD make your stick men big! Drawing a little stick-man might get you into trouble.
Oh! And be sure to include scale objects in your drawing so that everybody knows that you're drawing a big stick man. Ummm . . . I mean scale objects extrinsic to the stick man.
Now, go on and enjoy your stick-man / stick-woman pornography!
It's not child porn, but I think the article said "exploitation of a minor". This makes sense... it's kind of like slander, I think. A photographer can't publish your photo without your written consent. How much worse is this? Publishing an image of my face on someone else's naked body certainly seems like exploitation to me.
A cat can't teach a dog to bark.
RIP Michael Jackson!
[Bender] He's defiling young angels now. [/Bender]
Well, the SCOTUS ruling stated essentially that if it appears to be child pornography, but really isn't (i.e., no children were actually abused or molested), then it is protected speech. I would think that a child's face pasted on an adult's body would fall into that category. But IANAL, and it is pretty close to the line.
Exploitation: Check, probably.
Minor: Check.
Yep, seems like a tautology to me - he's guilty. Note they didn't convict him of sexual abuse of a minor, or making child pornography, or anything like that.
Does this mean I think he should be convicted of a crime - maybe. The problem is the use (I assume) of the word "exploitation" in a crime. It can be interpreted to mean almost anything. It's like being convicted of being "too douchy". How douchy is too douchy?
But it is done all the time in the name of satire, which is also protected speech.
(By the way: if you are in public, a photographer can take your picture and publish it without your permission.)
When you prosecute thought crime the same as if the person had actually committed the crime why would someone who engages in this type of behavior not commit the actual crime in the future?
FTA:
For instance, Tennessee's laws state that in prosecuting the offense of sexual exploitation of a minor, "the state is not required to prove the actual identity or age of the minor."
How can you prove that the person in a picture is a minor if you can't figure out their age? For a toddler, it's obvious, but what about someone in high school? Summer Glau, 27, played a 15 year old in Terminator: The Sarah Conner Chronicles. Nathalie Portman was 18 when she played a 13 year old in Star Wars: The Phantom Menace. Sarah Michelle Geller was 21 when she played a 15 year old Buffy Summers in Buffy: The Vampire Slayer. There's a pretty wide margin of error if all you have to go by is a picture.
A photographer can't publish your photo without your written consent.
That's not always the case. Photojournalism is the clear exception, but not the only one.
Regardless, unless you know something the article doesn't, publication doesn't enter into the picture here, and so the fact that you need a model release for it is a red herring, as is your statement "Publishing an image of my face on someone else's naked body certainly seems like exploitation to me."
There is certainly a mens rea of harm to a minor involved when someone has the faces of children pasted on adult bodies such as in this case. So, the actual reason we have child pornography laws in the first place (to protect minors) is served by this case. In fact, using the child's face even fits the actual crime of "exploitation" of a minor. It's even aggravated
However, this really is a crime. Can we really imprison someone for likely intending to rape a child?
Well...
(a) It is unlawful for a person to knowingly promote, employ, use, assist, transport or permit a minor to participate in the performance of, or in the production of, acts or material that includes the minor engaging in:
(1) Sexual activity; or
(2) Simulated sexual activity that is patently offensive.
(b) A person violating subsection (a) may be charged in a separate count for each individual performance, image, picture, drawing, photograph, motion picture film, videocassette tape, or other pictorial representation.
(c) In a prosecution under this section, the trier of fact may consider the title, text, visual representation, Internet history, physical development of the person depicted, expert medical testimony, expert computer forensic testimony, and any other relevant evidence, in determining whether a person knowingly promoted, employed, used, assisted, transported or permitted a minor to participate in the performance of or in the production of acts or material for these purposes, or in determining whether the material or image otherwise represents or depicts that a participant is a minor.
(d) A violation of this section is a Class B felony. Nothing in this section shall be construed as limiting prosecution for any other sexual offense under this chapter, nor shall a joint conviction under this section and any other related sexual offense, even if arising out of the same conduct, be construed as limiting any applicable punishment, including consecutive sentencing under  40-35-115, or the enhancement of sentence under  40-35-114.
(e) In a prosecution under this section, the state is not required to prove the actual identity or age of the minor.
(f) A person is subject to prosecution in this state under this section for any conduct that originates in this state, or for any conduct that originates by a person located outside this state, where the person promoted, employed, assisted, transported or permitted a minor to engage in the performance of, or production of, acts or material within this state.
[Acts 1990, ch. 1092, Â 7; 2005, ch. 496, Â 4.]
Well, looks like we can!
The CNN video on the subject: http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/bestoftv/2009/06/25/jvm.miley.scare.cnn shows not only the sensationalism of television, but people's willingness to ignore ideas of free speech to "protect the children".
A Magic the Gathering Article and Forum Aggregator
There was a similar case in Australia earlier this year:
http://www.areanews.com.au/news/local/news/general/griffith-man-guilty-on-child-porn-charges/1403310.aspx
Different laws obviously but this bloke was found guilty.
Hey everyone, I just heard the sad news on talk radio today. Michael Jackson, the talented pop star, was found dead in his Santa Monica hospital this afternoon.
It's the best news Gov Mark Sanford could have.
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
Did he publish? I can't see that in the article - even if he did, I think child porn would be the wrong law to use, because it's a different thing, nowhere near as serious as sexual abuse, and it would also set the precedent for simple possession being illegal.
Reading the article though, the mentality of people in positions of authority is worrying:
"when you have the face of a small child affixed to a nude body of a mature woman, it's going to be the state's position that this is for sexual gratification and that this is simulated sexual activity,"
Slashdotters rejoice! Can't get laid? Well just "affix" a picture of a woman next to you, and you can take part in "simulated" sexual activity. (Will he go to a simulated prison? Thought not.)
"It's definitely on the increase," said Justin Fitzsimmons, a former prosecutor and senior attorney with the National Center for the Prosecution of Child Abuse, part of the National District Attorneys' Association. "People are trying to come up with creative ways to continue to sexually exploit children using digital evidence."
Generally, what is seen is the "Photoshop effect," in which people use the face of a child on an adult body or vice versa in an effort to get around the law, he said.
Yes, just think of all these poor photographs being abused!
I love the way they talk of it like it's a loophole. It's as much of a loophole, as me paying for items in a shop is a "creative" way round being done for shoplifting...
I'm reminded of the UK's Brass Eye - the thing is there's an amusing part where they actually overlay a child's face onto a adult's body! It's done rather unrealistically, with the photos of different proportions, but it's not like these bad photoshop jobs that people are being done for sound realistic either. Whilst I've never heard the legality of Brass Eye being questioned, I honestly wonder that if an individual was found with the same images in their private possession, they'd be done for child porn.
Still, the UK is already moving on - now we're criminalising adult porn (even if consensual and simulated).
Next, the maker of Photoshop is indicted for aiding and abetting DIY kiddie porn. This is just stupid.
I would be content with just having the psych treatment. Why this person decided to do this is kind of important. If they did it specifically to push the limits of the law, they need to be given a sentence of having to clean parking meters or something else tedious and annoying that makes the point that this isn't a good thing. If they did it for sexual purposes, they need to be ordered to treatment, and if treatment determines that they are a true danger then that needs to be referred back to the court, who should probably commit them rather than jail them.
Make the punishment fit the crime.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Nor even your choo-choo. Most people have heard of that, but not those other things.
These laws are meant to be there to protect children. No children were harmed in the making of these images. This is essentially thought-crime.
-- Lattyware (www.lattyware.co.uk)
Satan
The article doesn't even say how they found them in the first place, but why the hell do people get so bent out of shape what others look at? Its none of mine, or your fucking business.
Don't prosecutors have anything better to do, then pretend to be a nanny to some adult?
It's a _picture_. It's such threat to society that it threatens the heart of civilization! I mean look at all the killing, and raping it does!!! Oh wait, _people_ do those things...
--
"One man's fetish is another man's turnoff."
Originally, laws against child porn were passed under the assumption that a child was involved in a sex act "without their consent".
In other words, right up until back in the 70's, you could buy porn where "children" were "raped"
(note the use of quotations... both of those terms have changed since back then, a lot) in regular porn shops.
It was assumed, that spreading "child porn" meant that you had been involved in it's creation.
That's spurious to begin with, even 40 years ago.
The purpose of child porn laws was to prevent "sexual damage to children".
Soooo....
Now children aren't even needed... so there's no real crime (rape) being effected.
STOP!!!
I know that you're thinking.
"People who like to watch 'underage' porn can't be stopped from acting on what they've seen"...
Really?
How much porn have you watched?
How much of it have you gone out and re-enacted?
Truth of it all, you've jerked off tons of times, then looked at the screen (or even live pussy), and said "Nah... I'm done".
.
.
.
I'm hearing crickets here.
"It makes it harder for law enforcement."...
Yeah, that's the constitution smacking you in the face with it's dick.
It's SUPPOSED to be harder for "law enforcement"; distrust of government is encoded into the constitution.
If they did it specifically to push the limits of the law, they need to be given a sentence of having to clean parking meters or something else tedious and annoying that makes the point that this isn't a good thing.
Testing the law is not illegal and if the acts to test it are not deemed illegal, then no punishment is necessary, IMO.
Fact: Everything I say is fiction.
What I don't understand is why this guy is being prosecuted for pasting together a picture of Miley Cyrus on a nude body, when there is (was) an actual 20 year old adult HAVING SEX with her. Isn't that statuary rape? Oh... but they are rich and famous so it's ok?!
- For the complete works of Shakespeare: cat
Even if that were so, possession laws do not require that a person got off on the images. I don't know if it's any different for what this guy's getting charged with.
And even if he was - since they were pasted onto adult bodies, I'm not sure how we can conclude he's getting off on images of pre-pubescents!
and kiddie fondling, you have to admit...
Well HE certainly never admitted to it.... only doled out a lot of cash, twice, but that's not an admission of guilt.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
A common argument, but it's rubbish - there is no doubt in this case that the images are faked.
If you want to argue for a law on realistic images, that's one thing, but that is no argument for non-realistic images. And there should always be a defence if one can show the image isn't real.
And yes, heaven forbid the prosecutors actually have to do their job, find evidence, and prove someone's guilty. Given that the state already has vastly more resources than the individual (especially when all his or her electronic possessions are confiscated "for evidence" (or more like a fishing expedition)), why should things be made harder for the defendant, who's freedom is at stake?
The laws are in place to protect real minors, not fake minors and no one said that the laws had to be easy to enforce but appanently by including fakes, they made it easy for themselves.
There are many people who believe that fake minors need "protecting" too - either because they think that people who possess these images need to be locked up "in case they then commit abuse", or simply because they're "disgusting".
After all, how do you explain the laws against cartoon porn depicting under 18s in the US, Australia, and soon the UK?
Fit what crime? There is no crime here. There was no CP here either. The only reason why CP should be banned is simply because it results in the abuse of a child. Here there is no abuse so it should be perfectly legal.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
It's not child porn, but I think the article said "exploitation of a minor". This makes sense... it's kind of like slander, I think. A photographer can't publish your photo without your written consent. How much worse is this? Publishing an image of my face on someone else's naked body certainly seems like exploitation to me.
The article doesn't say he published them, and even says they don't believe he ever had any contact with the girls. I also doubt he did publish them or they'd be going after him for distribution as well as sexual exploitation. Remember they like to pile on as many charges as possible (not just in these types of cases, but in general). So do you still think it's sexual exploitation to privately slap someone's head on a nude body? How about if they just fantasize about them nude privately? That'd be just as bad, might as well make that illegal too.
I have to seriously disagree. That is like saying "killing someone is never acceptable and making images of someone being killed even though they aren't really being killed is likewise unacceptable."
Is the issue here just the "sexuality"? Is that the fierce demon we are all trying to keep away from our children? If that's true, then Disney needs to be completely dismantled for what it has been doing lately. (Interestingly enough, one of the faces being used was Miley Cyrus...)
I think what is needed is some serious exploration of what we are *really* targeting and punishing and *why*. And seriously, if it is the act of creating what some might consider to be art, then what is next? Punishment for merely imagining sexual situations with a child and admitting it to someone in some way? Is that ALSO worthy of punishment?
The lines and the causes are in some SERIOUS need of clear definition. It's easy for people to get outraged and upset over nothing or very little.
Keep in mind -- NO ONE HAS BEEN HARMED. NO ONE. Whether or not something should be done and if so, what? That's yet another question, but I think the lines should be defined.
This are only charges.
Last year someone already got 20 years for something similar: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28319199
Upheld by the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
Also, this is not just a US thing, it's happening everywhere in the West.
Example from The Netherlands here.
They claim there images could be used to persuade children into engaging in sexual contacts.
If you're ever wondering why we're all saying goodbye to our privacy, look no further:
http://www.reformsexoffenderlaws.org/materials/Sexual_Fascism_in_Progressive_America.php
How can you prove that the person in a picture is a minor if you can't figure out their age? For a toddler, it's obvious, but what about someone in high school? Summer Glau, 27, played a 15 year old in Terminator: The Sarah Conner Chronicles. Nathalie Portman was 18 when she played a 13 year old in Star Wars: The Phantom Menace. Sarah Michelle Geller was 21 when she played a 15 year old Buffy Summers in Buffy: The Vampire Slayer. There's a pretty wide margin of error if all you have to go by is a picture.
Which is probably why the bit you quoted says the law doesn't require them to either prove identity or age. They can just claim they're underage and go after you. Feeling worried yet? This is a horrid law, it basically allows the cops to charge you with child porn/child sexual exploitation based on their whims, not actual evidence.
As a parent of a three-year old, I largely agree with your sentiment. However, should we demand psych treatment for people who enjoy BDSM? What about furries?
Where exactly do you intend to draw the line with acceptable fetishes that demand medical treatment, and ones that don't?
I'm not sure humans control the fetishes they enjoy, but almost rather they simply discover them.
I don't think we have a very good understanding of how the brain operates in this capacity, so I'm not sure we even have the capability to treat pedophiles aside from chemical castration.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
And the crime is what again? It's not illegal to be aroused by children. (It's not something I condone but as long as it's in check and not harming people it's not an issue.) As for the picture issue, well that's going to be tested but there was no instance of harm. Take your thought crime and shove it.
Perhaps this is merely defamation of character...
Even that isn't supported by what the article said, because there's no indication in the article that he actually distributed them.
From here:
Element (2) wouldn't have been satisfied if he just had them lying around his home.
But I certainly think the guy done wrong (if he did the act that's alleged).
Wrong? Probably. At least very creepy. A criminal or civil offense? Probably not.
I love this argument. Proving someone guilty would be hard. It's so much easier to make them prove their innocence instead. And on the basis of convenience, the constition can safely be ignored.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Letting people who haven't committed a crime walk freely is 'too lenient'?
Good grief.
... if they also punish him virtually only, and without using any actual virtual punishment device.
Everytime I wondered how retarded they are, I know know that they can't be *that* retarded. So it must be something else. Guess what...
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
Not to mention the Internet is full of the cheapo 'cut and paste" jobs. I mean who hasn't seen something like Janeway screwing 7 of 9? So if someone did a cheapo cut and paste job on Dakota Fanning when she was in the news awhile back and I get Goatse'd, I should be looking at jail now?
lets face it, ALL the "sex offender" laws need to be tossed out and rewritten with some sanity. These laws have passed crazy about a dozen miles back and are about to drive off the "batshit insane" offramp any mile now. I'm all for protecting kids but crap like this or the one where the arrested teens for taking pics of their own bodies have just gone too fricking far. Oh, and don't forget dirty Simpsons cartoons may get you arrested as well. This stuff is becoming like the red scare of the 50s, with everyone looking for bogeymen everywhere. i think we all need to push our elected officials for some sanity back in the law.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
This is bullshit. What a waste of time.
The supreme court has already ruled that this is protected free speech. Why the hell is anybody wasting time harrassing this man? You can't charge people with a crime because you don't like their taste in art.
You can't say "Oh, this means that he's a pedophile, and even though he hasn't done anything to anyone, we think he's thinking about it."
It makes me want to create children faces (or maybe use famous child actors) with their faces affixed to nude bodies (maybe generated ones) in politcal parody cartoons about this and mail it to these backwards asshole prosecutors. See what they do with two controversial activities already ruled as protected.
People who say things like "the guy is clearly a pedophile and should be removed from society" have it totally wrong, you can't charge someone based on a personal assumption - for good reason...That kind of shit would make it easier for all of us to lose our rights and people who say such things have a very limited understanding of freedom and the law.
It's fucking irrelevant what you or I think of how tasteful or disgusting his "art" is - the fact is that he should have the right to create it. Maybe he is a pedophile, maybe he isn't - but you can't brand him that because of "art."
From the coverage I've seen on television, he was interested in what the children would look like as adults. Naked adults.
Is this much different than feeding a photo of the child into an aging program, then removing the adult version's clothes? Or just waiting for the child to become of legal age, taking their picture, and then removing the clothes? Or a child posing nude after achieving adult age? aside photographs as a child? with the child's face pasted on the adult body? How about age regression software?
How many of you out there fantasized about the Olsen Twins becoming of legal age (until they started becoming more like Gelflings)?
Keep in mind, one of these children is a celebrity minor.
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
A: You're guilty if they want you to be.
B: At least in Norway, you're guilty if they appear to be under 18. There's no defense if you can legally prove thay are over 18. Yes it's true, I read a court verdict where the defendant clearly referred to "Tiny Tove" Jensen, a Danish porn actress that was provably 18+ during her entire career yet played many dubious roles. Thoughtcrime at its best.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
It appears none of the mods mave noticed the big misspell in the title of the summary. Tennessee has 2 S's. Yes, I am from TN, so maybe it just seems more glaring to me.
:wq
In a perfect world, we'd lock up just the dangerous perverts...
I would hate to live in your perfect world. What's next? Locking up all the people who have "perverted" mental problems? What about all those sick people with an extra chromosome? What about all those deviants from *insert country name here*?
I would have thought in your perfect world you would have helped those people who were ill/deficient not locked them up.
Moved to http://soylentnews.org/. You are invited to join us too!
Well, the SCOTUS ruling stated essentially that if it appears to be child pornography, but really isn't (i.e., no children were actually abused or molested), then it is protected speech. I would think that a child's face pasted on an adult's body would fall into that category. But IANAL, and it is pretty close to the line.
Why is that "pretty close to the line"? You said yourself, if it doesn't involve children who were actually abused or molested than it is protected speech. So why, pray tell, would this fall anywhere near the line?
should we demand psych treatment for people who enjoy ... furries?
Yes.
The problem is, lawmakers and the public are trying to make photoshops into a crime equivalent to actual child pornography. Yes, that is thought crime, and yes, it is here. Welcome to the brave new world.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
So if I photoshopped a picture of a minor and smeared virtual poop on his/her face that would also be emotional abuse? Or if I photoshopped the photo of a skinny girl's head on a fat girl's body? I suppose that would qualify as harm as well.
Do you support outlawing any visual image which may possibly cause emotional harm? Including editorial cartoons of course, as well as any altered picture on the internet which could conceivably be construed as insulting.
The reality is that this stuff is not harmful unless you consider that a bunch of small-minded control-freaks like yourself want to imprison people for creating derivative artistic works. SCOTUS did not make a mess of this, and people like you scare the hell out of me.
A man was charged with "aggravated sexual exploitation of a minor" even though
- no minors were sexually exploited
- no minors were aggravated
- there was no sex portrayed in the pictures
- one of the girls whose face is in a picture is not even a child
- the person did not even know these girls and had no contact with them
- And, "... Ernie Allen, president of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, said Wednesday." And for some bizarre reason a person who is involved with "missing and exploited children" feels the need to comment about this matter, as if what he has to say is even relevant to the case.
The real stinger is in this comment:
"We see it all the time," Allen said. "It makes it harder for law enforcement. It makes it tougher for prosecutors."
, from the same fanatic of the NCMEC mentioned above. It's obvious that he just wants to see innocent people put in jail. No Logic, no Rationale; just mindless and hateful punishment. He is an obvious advocate for the penal colonies operated in the US. It's sick.
Once again, there are lots of things with a high "eew" factor. To me, watching two men make out is pretty high on that list. Would it then be okay to improson gay people for making people "eew"?
Directly exploiting someone who is incapable of effectively objecting to a particular treatment is definitely very wrong. But using someone's face on another person's body and then using that to somehow humiliate or offend someone else? Now you are approaching the writing of bad language on bathroom walls or creating effigies.
People will say and create things that will offend other people. That is speech. Speech should be free so long as it doesn't cause harm. The definition of "harm" is a problem that is constantly being defined. The woman who used the internet and "caused a young girl to commit suicide" example; is that "harm"? Tough question.
But back to the whole face on another body thing? Perhaps, if anything at all, it might somehow fall under slander or libel or something along those lines. Once again, I have to wonder more about this "sex demon" that seems to get people rather upset. I think we need to take a few steps back and re-evaluate what we are trying to accomplish, whether or not it is worth it or even if what we are trying to accomplish is even possible. For example, if we were to somehow outlaw homosexuality and make it punishable by death, would that prevent homosexuality? Not likely since it is a NATURAL phenomenon as it also happens in animals other than humans. How about outlawing sexuality entirely? No? How can we sell things without sex??? Sex and children? That is becoming increasingly difficult as sexuality and sex are being pushed on kids in subtle ways from every legitimate direction, not to mention the fact that since human children are still human, they have natural curiosities an interests of their own [re: "sexting" with fellow students and the like]. And what about people who, as children, were attracted to other children of the same age and just never grew out of it? There are combinations of these situations approaching infinity. How much of "humanity" is offensive and should be outlawed?
I am not saying that child porn should be legal or that it should be okay to seduce or coerce a minor into doing things they don't know better than to do. What I am saying is that all of these issues should be revisited starting with the very basic questions such as what is "bad" and "unnatural" and "why" followed closely by "what can be effectively done to stop it."
Killing people is usually bad. Molesting children is usually bad. People WILL always kill people. People WILL always molest children. Those are pretty easy and accurate statements to make. But putting faces on adult bodies? Come on! What if it was a face on a picture of two dogs going at it? Is it bestiality?
If these pictures ever get in the wild and someone recognizes the child and tells the child or parents, or worse, doesn't tell them but starts calling the kid a slut without explaination, then someone will get hurt.
So what you're saying is that it's OK to punish someone for something that someone else might do?
Sorry, that just doesn't make any sense at all.
Are these legal:
Cut and paste picture, one from a kid's face and one from an adult's privates? Two ajacent pictures side by side? Two pictures in the same photo album? Two pictures in different albums on the same bookshelf? Two pictures in different parts of the same house? Two pictures in different parts of the same planet?
There needs to be a safe harbor line somewhere.
I wouldn't try any of these in Tennessee. This guy is probably worthless trash and maybe a borderline (or maybe not so borderline) predator and doing something like this is disturbing and immoral. That said it is extremely frightening that this kind of thing is legally equivalent to exploiting children in child porn. If I call someone stupid, hurt their feelings and incite a suicide is that some day going to be equivalent to murder? It's extremely scary to me when we try to legislate morality and ethics beyond the protection of basic natural rights.
He's being prosecuted under the TN law, part of which is included in the article, which gives some background regarding SCOTUS' ruling and the rush of states to rewrite the virtual part of the law.
This or a case like it may go back to the Federal Courts on constitutional grounds and, eventually, back to SCOTUS. Whether they would revisit such a case is open to question.
It is amazing how a troll made a post in an attempt to go off-topic, yet it is actually on-topic. Just like this case, in regards to protecting the children, you are innocent till accused of child molesting/porn/etc.
Copyright infringement is "piracy" in the same way DRM is "consumer rape"
Slashdot: celebrity death news for nerds. News that you wouldn't hear any other place. Nice job reporting there, Gizzmonic.
Guys, if you happen to have a facebook or twitter account, PLEASE let everyone know. We really need to get this news out there. There's a lot of chatter about some protests in Iran, but we really need to show them what the web is actually for: trivial celeb gossip.~
(Not to be insensitive to MJ or his family, but in all honesty, this is fake news, not real news.)
we have a few judges that are either too lenient (let them go until they actually molest children)
I know it bothers you, but in this country we have the notion that you can't lock someone up unless they actually harm/try to harm someone else.
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
He didn't die, he just went home.
Using the Freedom of Speech while I still have it.
There's images of real children (their faces). They were too young to give informed consent for those images being combined with the other images (adult women's bodies). (That last point technically assumes the faces weren't very old footage and in the interm the children hadn't grown up enough to give legal consent of course, and there could be other factors, such as whether anyone actually recognized a face and thought the photos were actually all of the person that went with the face, not composites.).
I.E. means 'id est', and the usual English translation of that is to hold it to mean 'that is'. I.e. is properly used when you intend to restate an idea, or expand upon it.
E.g. is an abbreviation for the Latin 'exempli gratia'. The normal English equivalent is 'for example'. If you mean to clairify by an example, and that example doesn't limit what other cases might also exist, e.g is correct.
While Jane Q Public used i.e., the original supreme court ruling didn't. Instead, it talked about possible harm to real minors, and used actual abuse or molestation as two examples of such harm, not as a limiting definition enumerating all possible harm connected to the production of material. Jane probably should have used 'e.g.'
Here's a bit from the SCOTUS decision in Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition (2002)
" Section 2256(8)(C) prohibits a more common and lower tech means of creating virtual images, known as computer morphing. Rather than creating original images, pornographers can alter innocent pictures of real children so that the children appear to be engaged in sexual activity. Although morphed images may fall within the definition of virtual child pornography, they implicate the interests of real children and are in that sense closer to the images in Ferber."
(Ferber refers to a still standing older state child pornography law Ferber v. New York. The Supreme court is holding in this paragraph that morped images that start with some innocent image of a real child are not the same situation as the 'higher tech' virtual images that are implied to exist by the first sentence and already mentioned in other parts of the decision).
Note that the court said "implicate the interests of real children", which could include many other situations than actual abuse or molestation. Presumably, the effects on the child's interests would have to be negative, although that's not really spelled out, and presumably the normal legal principles about proportionality and gravity apply, so if casting Brooke Shields in Blue Lagoon had been a dumb career move, it wouldn't be enough to trigger a charge against her mother.
Here's the whole thing:
http://supct.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/00-795.ZO.html
I am not a Lawyer either, but if you read this, it looks like Ferber v. new York, and the Miller standard that is referenced in this decision, are defining lines, and this new Tennessee case really does get pretty close to those lines if not over one or both.
Who is John Cabal?
Who else has bad thoughts?
You get the point. Why should someone be punished for imagining something? As long as nobody is actually harmed in the making of fiction, it's just fiction. As soon as we make fiction illegalh, we will definitely have come into the age of the Thought Police.
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
While "the state is not required to prove the [...] age of the minor", it does not say "the state is not required to prove that the person is a minor". The difference is that if the picture is of a six-year-old, it is pretty clear the person is a minor. An apparent 15-year-old, however, will need something more to prove that the person is a minor. If the law said that minority did not need to be proved, then the law would be saying that any pornography is child pornography, on the word of the state.
I don't think we have a very good understanding of how the brain operates in this capacity, so I'm not sure we even have the capability to treat pedophiles aside from chemical castration.
There are some treatments available, but none of them are a cure, not even chemical castration. One big issue is that all of them require cooperation on part of the pedophile to some extent (especially things like cognitive behavior therapy, but even medical treatments because if they stop taking the medicine it's obviously not going to help). But the real issue may be a lack of interest in trying to find cures. I saw this from the Wikipedia article on pedophilia: "Dr. Fred Berlin, founder of the Johns Hopkins Sexual Disorders Clinic, believes that pedophilia could be successfully treated if the medical community would give it more attention." So why don't we do so? For some reason, society prefers to just lock them up and/or make them register for life instead of trying to treat them.
A photographer can't publish your photo without your written consent.
yes they can. about the only time they cannot is when you are clearly the subject of the image AND it is for commercial promotion. that is to say your likeness cannot be used to endorse a product, service, or cause without your consent.
Snowden and Manning are heroes.
Investigators do not believe Campbell had any contact with the three girls, but "when you have the face of a small child affixed to a nude body of a mature woman, it's going to be the state's position that this is for sexual gratification and that this is simulated sexual activity," Assistant District Attorney Dave Denny said
"It's definitely on the increase," said Justin Fitzsimmons, a former prosecutor and senior attorney with the National Center for the Prosecution of Child Abuse, part of the National District Attorneys' Association. "People are trying to come up with creative ways to continue to sexually exploit children using digital evidence."
Great story, but I'm confused about what he did and what he's being charged with. Has the DA described the victim and explained how they're negatively affected in this case? Was this man trying to distribute the mashed-up pictures? Was this man found with the pictures on a personal computer? What happened here?
The whole reason we have laws prohibiting sex with children or erotic photography of children is that we believe that they are immature and are unable to make clear, well-thought-out, rational decisions about their actions. Well, that and the fact that we're a country descended from Puritans and a bunch of churchgoing folk. When considering similar cases in the past, SCOTUS took the eminently reasonable stance that depictions of child pornography that did not involve actual children were legal. This case is very interesting, as it does involve photos of underage children, but as long as the man did not try to distribute the pictures and took reasonable steps to do so, then what persons were harmed?
This case is also very interesting as it seems to hinge on taking two completely legal, distributable components -- a picture of a child and a picture of pornography -- and making something illegal by blending the two. This distinction has an important legal distinction with physical objects all the time, as it is illegal to distribute large quantities of explosives such as ANFO, but legal to distribute fuel oil and fertilizer unblended and separate. With pictures and print, aside from possible slander/libel charges due to misrepresentation, I can't think of any situation in which the mashup of two legally distributable documents would be found to be illegal.
It will be very interesting to see how the court deals with this case.
coding is life
Even worse, we sell lingerie aimed at tweens, and market teenagers as sex symbols while watching "To Catch a Predator" and decrying men sleeping with teenages are vile scum. There is a weird double-standard here.
When Kevin Smith wrote a column saying he wasn't interested in the then 16-year old Brittany Spears, and how he felt it was wrong to market teenagers as sex symbols, he got hate mail saying every healthy man on the planet wants to sleep with young teenagers.
I think society doesn't want to make this a bigger issue because they can't deal with it consistently or coherently. Instead they pass laws forbidding sex offenders from living in their towns, adding additional punishment for crimes already punished. The Supreme Court actually ruled that neither ex posto facto nor double jeopardy apply. So apparently pedophiles don't get Constitutional rights.
Statistically they are the most likely to repeat offend. So clearly, we're not dealing with the issue in any successful or meaningful way.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
Actually, in a perfect world, there would be no dangerous perverts.
They call us sheeple, I wonder why?
These laws were designed to prevent stirring the flames of child molesters. It wouldn't matter if the faces were photographed thirty years ago and the women gave consent to use their childhood pictures.
Frankly I am at the point of thinking that even if some of this type of art actually could be proven to cause the death of children at times perhaps it should still be allowed. After all, the food served at fast food joints or allowing people to use cars also cause deaths to kids and neither fast food nor automobiles are essential elements of life.
Social engineering is a slippery beast and logic is not behind the desired consequences that people feel must occur.
You're thinking of 1984
Is that why prostitutes are locked up? There are plenty of victimless crimes around here.
"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." - Mark Twain
I'd like to see your source for that allegation.
Hey "interkin3tic," you might wanna dilute that Loc-Tite that's sealing up your butthole there. It's really doing a number on your bowels. You gotta loosen up, my man, you know! Like MJ would have wanted you to.
(-1, Raw and Uncut is the only way to read)
Sourced from NATIONAL CENTER ON INSTITUTIONS AND ALTERNATIVES, INC.
Sex Offenders Report
There is a widespread misperception that people who commit sexual crimes do it again and again. The research, however, directly contradicts this. Recidivism rates for sex offenses are relatively low, typically running in the 3-13% range, and among the lowest of all types of crimes.
In contrast, the general rearrest rate for people released from prison was 68%. The highest rates were stealing motor vehicles (79%) and possessing or selling stolen property (77%)
The chance that a person convicted of a sex crime will someday commit some other crime greatly exceeds the chance that he or she will commit another sex crime. The second offense may be possession of marijuana, driving drunk or shoplifting â" but it increases the reoffense rate. Such subsequent misconduct carries its own concerns, but it is not the repeat incurable pedophile of myth. Indeed reoffense rates for all crimes among sex offenders is still lower than reoffense rates for all crimes among non-sex offenders. For example, the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics found:
Child molester rearrest rate for new sex crime against a child: 3.3%
All sex offender rearrest rate for new sex crime against a child: 2.2%16
All sex offenders rearrest rate for any kind of offense: 43%
All offenders rearrest rate for any kind of offense: 68%
Oh, as for rehabilitation of these people? Lets have a look at some more stats.
Margaret Alexanderâ(TM)s 1999 meta-analysis of nearly 11,000 sex offenders from 79 separate studies found that people who participated in treatment programs had a combined rearrest rate of 7.2% compared to 17.6% among untreated individuals (a reduction of 59%).
Karl Hansonâ(TM)s 2000 comprehensive metaanalysis found 10% of treatment subjects reoffended, compared to 17% of untreated subjects (a reduction of 41%).
The Campbell Collaboration meta-analysis of 69 studies of 22,000 individuals found that treatment reduced recidivism by 37%.
Guess that makes you post a bit of a swing and a miss?
If someone is physically handicapped, we go out of our way to help them. If they are blind, we give them guide dogs and sound driven information. If someone is clinically depressed, we try to treat them. Why can you not understand that trying to help and educate sex offenders is so much better than just locking them up and throwing away the key - not even looking at the slippery slope I put up in my original post.
Moved to http://soylentnews.org/. You are invited to join us too!
Heres what it boils down to folks. Real picture of a minor's face Real picture of a adult or an appropriate age body = not real pornographic. If ANY alteration of a picture/video has taken place then it is not in the original makers name a.k.a photoshoped. If the picture is not real then it is plainly not real, therefore the person in the picture is not real which leads to the pornographic picture in question being not real. EVEN IF you take the face of a minor and add it to the body of the exact same person 20 years ago it is still considered alteration and therefore the person is not real. There is no differance between this so called pornographic picture and japanesse cartoon pornography of minors becuase it is as simple as this, the person is the picture IS NOT REAL.
They were abused by having their likeness (a picture of their face) pasted onto someone else's naked body. This is an intangible, virtual abuse, but still an abuse all of its own, esp. if the fellow also distributed said pics.
I read the linked article in its entirety. At no time was there any mention of distribution. As far as I could tell, the guy created these images for his own purposes. He apparently had no contact with any of the girls; one was Miley Cyrus! The article also fails to say how the police and DA became aware of the altered photographs.
Listen to the assistant DA in this case:
Simply the act of grafting the girls' faces onto the adult bodies constitutes "simulated sexual activity" because it is for "sexual gratification?" There's no claim that he distributed the pictures or even told anyone else about them. He's being prosecuted for having made the pictures, period. I'm as opposed to the actual exploitation of real children as the next guy, but I fail to see what crime has been committed here.
Frankly I am at the point of thinking that even if some of this type of art actually could be proven to cause the death of children at times perhaps it should still be allowed.
AFAIK such proof does not actually exist. Even though there have been such claims associated with many forms of art.
After all, the food served at fast food joints or allowing people to use cars also cause deaths to kids and neither fast food nor automobiles are essential elements of life.
IIRC in many parts of the US the minimum driving age is below the age of consent. The latter is also often below the minimum age for someone to be a porn model/actor.
Shouldn't operating a machine capable of causing death to bystanders be considered more "adult" than having sex?
Sex offenders in Miami-Dade County cannot live within 2,500 feet of a place where children congregate; apparently this bridge is one of the few places that qualifies.
I think putting pictures of the faces of your neighbors' children on porn stars is disturbin and wrong. But...
Quote 1:
Quote 2:
Which part of "protected speech" does Ernie Allen not understand? Even if "virtual child pornography" causes someone to commit a crime against children they otherwise wouldn't have, that's the price of free speech. I'm sorry, I don't want to live in a fascist state just so that everybody is maximally safe.
I think they may have a case based on the misuse of the image itself. But the reason for legal action wouldn't be child pornography, it would be that the image of a person is used without their permission in a pornographic context.
What you are ignoring is that the part of the ruling you mention has to do with altering "innocent pictures of real children so that the children appear to be engaged in sexual activity."
But in this case, it was merely children's faces pasted onto adult bodies. Nobody in their right minds would interpret that as "children engaged in sexual activity".
Pretty sure they can, as long as they don't distribute it. Why would you care? What about if someone draws a sketch of you doing something disgusting, for their own amusement, and never distributes it? Do you have any right to stop them?
TFA doesn't say whether he uploaded the images or not, but either way - the only arguments against child porn are, as I see it, (1) Think of the Children, which doesn't apply here because no actual children were harmed, and (2) That's Yucky, which IMO is not a valid argument.
Rampant carbon sequestration destroyed the Dinosaurs' tropical paradise. I'm here to help repair the damage.
He will return as a pop dancing Zombie.
Again? Let's hope his nose doesn't fall off this time.
Actually, a very insightful comment above says that they're very unlikely to repeat offend.
So what? He didn't publish or distribute these pictures. The cops found them when they were doing a search of his home. Basically he was fantasising, privately. Only pixels were harmed. So no harm to the children's feelings or reputations (until the cops and prosecutors made them public, they did mention some teen star's name).
The process seems to be "This is disgusting, what can we charge him with?" Because the real offence, being creepy, is not actually a crime.
And gamblers and potsmokers.
Free Martian Whores!
I have to call into question your report or facts.
There are so many situation in which people are classified as sexual offenders in which the particulars are so unique to the case it just wouldn't happen again. Take the sexual offender registry lists. A few years ago, we were looking at our county's listings and out of 141 registered offenders, something like 60 or 70 of them were situations involving high school sweethearts over the past 20 years in which one person was older then the other and reached past the legal age of consent before the other had. In my state, the law is 18 years of age unless your within 2 years of each other in which consent is at 15 or both under the age of consent but above 15 years of age. This creates a very real situation where a freshmen can date a junior during high school but they could be in violation of the law if their birthdays are set apart enough and the junior was held back a grade.
There was also 10 or 15 sexual battery charges in which sexual contact wasn't involved at all. Evidently beating or smacking around your other half because they were withholding sex or cheating on you is still a sexual offense. Then there are cases where people stole the underwear of people they had a crush on and after finding it to be illegal beyond a petty theft, would never do it again. Then you have the voyeurism in which someone gets caught with their pants down while pissing behind the bushes or two consenting adults get too frisky while parted somewhere and the cops catch them in the act (* something about a car in the middle of nowhere with the windows all fogged up and rocking from side to side that always makes a cop want to investigate).
In my county's case, we determined that out of the 141 registered sexual offenders, and yes, you can have sexual offenses that you don't have to register for which do carry jail time, there was only 40-60 people of real concern. So by applying sane interpretations of what would be a qualifying sexual offense, over 58% of the sexual offenders who have to register can be eliminated and I have no idea how many sexual offenders who aren't required to register could be excluded too. So lets ignore the those who don't register and the fact that quite a few of the registered offenders are still in jail/prison and see what this 3% to 13% would look like just with the specifics of not likely to ever happen again applied.
The 3% of the 141 comes out to 4.23 people, the 13% comes out to 18.33 people. without those people who's situation is so specific that it isn't likely to ever happen again, those same 4.23 people now become 7% and the 18.33 becomes 30.5% if we look at my high end estimate of 60 offenders I needed to be concerned over. If I got really liberal and picked the low end of 40 offended to be concerned about, the 3% becomes 10.5% and the 13% becomes 45.8% If we exclude those who don't need to register or the 15 year old's boning the their 14 year old girlfriends (statutory rape), Equalize all the offenses to match guidelines between the different states (like age of consent on one state being different then another) I'm sure this number would jump considerably.
That's sort of the problem with organizations like the NCIA. They will present the evidence to their favor, I weeded most of it out and turned to my favor. We can ignore the very real fact that a good portion of sexual related offenses wouldn't ever happen again because of circumstances surrounding the offense (like age of consent issues when you dated the same person since the 7th grade, or sleeping with a drunk girl making advances on you then later regretting is and you getting popped with a felony). But if we don't ignore it, then the numbers mentioned look a lot different and the no tolerance applications could be specifically targeted to repeat offenders or perhaps even those most likely to repeat offend. But the NCIA has an invested interest in pushing things other then jail and will pretend the problem is less severe then it actually is in order to advance it's goals.
Dude, normal people don't play Sims 3!
I'm going to have to buy that one...
Free Martian Whores!
Strange that you should mention the instance of my face being pasted to someone else's body and distributed over the internet.
It's actually happened to me. There is, floating around the internet somewhere, a photo that includes me and two of my friends appearing to be about to engage in some gay sex. It was created to be embarrassing, and distributed widely among my friends. Just like the photos in these cases would have to be, it's obviously not my body. Was it intended to be abusive? Sure. It was created by someone who doesn't like me, and posted online to cause me embarrassment.
Does that make it legally actionable? No, and it should not. We have a little thing in this country called the First Amendment that protects the right to say things that are abusive and offensive, with very limited exceptions.
Is it even abusive in this case? The images weren't distributed, the individuals in the photos had no idea that they were ever involved, and likely still don't know. No, it's obviously not abusive. Would it be if they were distributed? It depends on the goal of the distribution - if it was intended to be abusive, it might be. If not, it certainly wouldn't be.
You might be offended by it, but this instance is constitutionally protected. I'd say it doesn't even get past district court level.
They've went and opened a can of yarn.