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Full Body Scanners Violate Child Porn Laws
gandhi_2 writes "The Guardian has a story about an ongoing legal battle over the use of full body scanners in the UK. The Protection of Children Act 1978, includes provisions in which it is illegal to create an indecent image or a 'pseudo-image' of a child... which a full body scanner does."
It's not illegal if the government does it. Right?
-Kinsey
Pedobear TSA edition!
"Think of the Children" meets "Fighting Terrorism." Which one wins? News at 11.
The World is Yours.
Two ridiculous hot-button topics with opposing aims.
Wow, this is kind of like when the unstoppble force meets the immovable object.
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How deep we've dug ourselves.
Ministers now face having to exempt under 18s from the scans or face the delays of introducing new legislation to ensure airport security staff do not commit offences under child pornography laws.
I somehow doubt that their choice is limited to those two options.
Out of modpoints but really liked a post? 1BDkF6TtmmeZ3yqXbz9yhdYVqRYnwFoXDj
Yet another example of how "think of the children" has a myriad of untended consequences.
It's not to say that I'm hugely in favor of full-body imaging devices, but I'm also not in favor of draconian laws about "pseudo-images" which serve little to no purpose as well.
How about we agree that if nobody gets hurt, we won't press charges.
Lame.
This is ridiculous. Child porn laws need to differentiate between nude images and obscene/exploitative images. Hopefully this security debate will fuel a rethink.
As much as I don't care for the losers working airport security, I'm more concerned about the trauma they will go through looking at average airline passengers sans clothing all day long.
Body scanners are optional, if you refuse, you get a pat-down search. :)
But some pat-dows may constitute sexual assault:
http://www.legalmatch.com/law-library/article/inappropriate-pat-down-searches-during-an-airport-security-screening.html
This may be a catch-22 for TSA
DNA in your Linux: DNALinux
"But back to those privacy concerns. Some lawyers believe having a young traveller pass through the full-body scanners could violate child pornography laws. As a result, Canada is exempting passengers under-18 from the new measures."
from http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2010/01/06/f-rfa-common.html
Personally, if I were asked to go through one I would opt for the pat-down instead. Want to get your rocks off feeling my rocks? Go for it, but I won't have my naked image stored in a computer that politicians claim is hack proof and will get deleted right after.
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
please think of the adults!
If we continue to allow such invasion to our personal dignity as full body scans, scatter ray etc in public places WITHOUT DUE REASON OR WARRANT we are only one step away from having cameras and microphones in all of our houses. For anti-terrorism measures, instead of investing far more in either more labour intensive approaches such as metal detectors or explosive/chemical sniffers, governments have chosen far more invasive options with dubious increase in safety for the innocent.
sudo mount --milk --sugar
Sorry, I am not native in English.
DNA in your Linux: DNALinux
...I would go a bit further: I don't want my naked image to be seen by anyone. Unless I was a porn star, which I'm not (and not intending to be one through this technology).
It's indecent, and I am principally against it. It's attacking the integrity of the human body, and a number of other basic human rights.
In The Netherlands, some person from the PvdA political party called it totally acceptable to introduce body scanners as flying is "voluntarily", and thus you would not be able to refuse it once you bought a ticket and boarding the plane. That person probably has no idea that a significant number of flying-hours is made by business travelers who are not doing that voluntarily, and cannot refuse (lest be fired).
A lot of stupid arguments are floating around in these days why the body scanners are OK, but every one of them can be refuted by a simple - but basic (like human rights) - counter argument...
Let's hope the political process works and we can indeed always opt for a pat down (or more, if suspicion arises *after* the pat down and normal security screening - that failed for Schiphol), or we have hundreds of thousands of people added to a virtual "no-fly list" as per arguments above...
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A child protection law is actually protecting the privacy of adults?
This cant be right, I'm certain the PC committee will rectify this before tea time.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
We'll have to put kids in opaque balls and cast them out to sea so that nobody can look at them or touch them or think about them. It's the only way.
Perfect. There have been suicide bombers younger than that. I feel much safer now...if perhaps a tad undignified.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
Based on pictures they snapped of my cousin and I running around naked at the beach when we were about 3.
This is really stupid. The UK's "strict liability" laws are horribly designed.
I still cannot find the droids I am looking for...
If you think if the children, the terrorists win. Wait. No. If you don't think of the children, the terrorists win. Ahhh...my moral outrage is so confused right now.
I say the passengers for the flight get to take a vote to see who gets to go through the body scanning machine. I doubt you'll get a flight full of pedophiles, but some kids seem capable of blowing things up
Fear of pedos vs. fear of terrorists.
The cage match we've all been waiting for.
Anyone taking bets?
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Its odd someone gets all the way from the middle east, thru Europe, all the way to Detroit with JUST the sort of device these things are meant to detect at JUST the time their deployment is starting to ramp up.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
wtf, if you fly, you get screened. you don't want to get screened, don't fly. bloody simple.
Won't somebody please think of the children?
Why the hell do they need to long term store it? It doesn't help you to say "oh yeah, he did have a weapon on him after all" 4 hours later. Don't let the image stream ever hit the hard drive. Just keep it in ram and wipe it when the next one steps through. Wait, why is this even a computer? Why isn't it just a monitor for the machine and strictly a video feed?
Oh who cares, the staff just whip out their cell phone cameras anyway if they see the secret transvestite senator walk though. Then it doesn't matter how much security they put on it. And who cares if they're storing pics or not if some pedo decides to get a job with airport security so he can look at naked kids all day? The article's solution was to "tell people not to violate CP laws." Oh yeah, telling pedos not to do anything pedo-ish always works. I say modify or dump the scanners!
Google's Super Secret Search Algorithm: SELECT @search_results FROM internet WHERE @search_results = 'good'
Think of the child terrorists!
Note. This quote may have been altered for your safety.
In agreement with the parent, there are plenty of examples of governments making laws to sanction immoral actions; consider the apartheid regime in South Africa, where as the government 'needed' to do something illegal, e.g. force mass evictions based on race to provide new land for development of suburbs for whites, new laws sprang into place. A more recent example example would be the US and the patriot act. Granted, the introduction of laws that curtail civil liberties or are immoral had to be sneaked in, often on unrelated bills, but it is another case of a government making laws to suit it's own purpose.
Which brings me to my actual point. It's not only developed countries that have a proper separation of powers. Many developing countries have the same legal principles enshrined in their constitutions. It's just that those principles are often ignored (including in developed countries) by the corrupt. Corruption is a part of human nature, not a part of just 3rd world human nature.
First of all, full body scanners are a fucking poor solution to terrorism for two reasons:
1. Terrorists will find another way around it anyway.
2. You're X-raying someone every single time they fly. It doesn't take a radiologist to tell you that lots of x-rays are bad.
We're effectively willing to slowly sterilize frequent fliers over the next 10 years because of some jackasses putting explosives in their shoes/underwear. The terrorists have already won. I mean, I don't think that even the most extreme terrorist would have thought that they would be able to have a government agree to irradiate its citizens.
But anyway, how do doctors get around taking x-rays and CT scans of minors for medical reasons? I mean, it's not like children have never broken their pelvis before. Surely there already exists some exception to this child pornography law to allow the use of x-rays and CT scans for legitimate purposes.
-1 disagree is not a modifier for a reason. -1 troll, flaimbait, redundant, overrated are NOT acceptable substitutes.
Presumably the use of a "full body scanner" won't be considered "indecent" in court. Whereas pictures of a naked child holding a sex toy for instance would be.
If you can't tell the difference, you should be shot. The Guardian certainly deserves to be. Because presumably they would bring up the same argument against, say, visits to the pediatrician or medical imaging.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
So mediical scans are forbidden now too? what a load of crap.
But even drawn pictures can have a sexual or erotic intention. A full body scan isn't in any way sexual. I find it odd if people define (child) pornography by the amount of visible nudity (and come on, a full body scan shows a real abstract image of your body). Pictures of genitalia in biology books or information booklets on STD's aren't considered to be pornographic either are they? I find the whole discussion to be really over the top and really strange that people even come to a conclusion like this. Over-sensitive idiots if you ask me.
Do note that I'm not saying that there is no privacy issue with a full body scan. It's just that jumping to the child pornography conclusion is absurd.
More people die on Britain's roads each YEAR than have died as a result of terrorism in TOTAL.
Each and every day we take far greater risks with our lives that that posed by terrorism.
Yes things changed on 9/11...
We all became wimps as our leaders showed fear...
Where's the spirit of Winston when we need him ?
Total security implies zero privacy and some privacy implies less than total security. Individuals demand privacy whereas societies demand security... The solution is clear in this case however, if security is the priority, then simply rid the world of children. If privacy is the priority, then rid the world of individuals. Ah! Safe and private. no people, no problem
Never say never. Ah!! I did it again!
Get the Queen to run the scanners. She is above the law (or ta least can pardon herself from anything)
Do you mean that the hospital can't use CT- or CAT-scan on a child either? I don't believe that is forbidden, nor do I think that the full body scanner violates that law.
The scan image makes the dude look like a f*cking ken doll, true you could kinda make out his balls, but really, come on, ken dolls have a bulge too. Worse still, I fear that if children are exempt from such scans, terrorists/smugglers will start using children as mules (they probably already do, but this would certainly increase that).
I understand the mentality behind such a reaction, but really, which is worse: a pedo possibly getting jollies from a doll like image of a child (internet child porn is a far more explicit and available), or a child being used as a bomb or drug mule?
Geeks don't grock information, they grep it.
This was not meant to be in the defense of child molesters but rather as an example of a similar situation in which it is easy to get a warped view of reality based on a poorly chosen sample group
It makes me sad that you need to say that. Are people really... meh... fail.
but... but... but... I was told that if I ever saw a child naked I'm a pedophile, and if I don't want my and everyone elses privacy continually violated then I am a terrorist... that means I have to be a pedophile or a terrorist?
-- Lattyware (www.lattyware.co.uk)
So, it violates child protection laws, meaning that if they are implemented children will not be allowed to be scanned, so terrorists will just use children. By the admission of the Home Secretary, it would have had at most a 60% chance of catching the guy who attempting the bombing on Christmas Day. It's taking "naked pictures" of people against their will. We have no idea as to the safety of the devices, the concequences of repeated exposure. Why are we implementing these, again?
The risks did not change - we did.
Never before in our history have we ever been so scared by so small a risk.
Pre 9/11 hijacked passengers stood a fair chance of survival with both negotiations and advancements in our hostage rescue capabilities. As a traveler your safest course of action was to be passive.
Post 9/11 when hijacked you know you are going to die. Your safest course of action is to be aggressive. Terrorist should know that by hijacking a plane - all they do is create a plane full of people with NOTHING TO LOOSE and EVERYTHING TO GAIN.
At least if I were to die trying I would be the one to have chosen how and when I die not them!
Now imagine a plane load of people with the same f**k *** attitude....
Why don't we just make it illegal for people under 18 to have bodies? They're too young anyway, and having a body just encourages them to explore it. At their age they shouldn't be taking on such adult burdens.
In one stroke, we get rid of under-age pregnancies, statutory rape, pedophilia and many other issues related to under-age sexuality.
Children should be heard, but not seen!
I am anarch of all I survey.
Stupid friggin article.
First off, in order for the law to have any effect, you have to find someone willing to press charges.
Second, the charged person will have a right to be judged by their peers.
So, do you think anyone would prosecute someone under this law? Do you think any jury (including a judge) would convict someone for these circumstances?
This is how and why the laws work in the US, are they that much different in the UK?. Whoever wrote (and posted here) the article is just digging for attention on a non-issue.
Now if images did leak out onto the internet, then you have a case against anyone who allowed or enabled that leak. So, I would be all for stringent historical logging of usage of these machines. Some way to identify all persons who had access that could have leaked an inappropriate image, be it child or not. So, like other things, quit trying to stop a good thing based on exaggeration, and spend more effort discussing and fixing the real problem.
slashdot troll = you make a compelling argument I do not like the implications of.
The authorities have assured us that the images from these scanners cannot be stored, masturbated over, taken away or sold on by airport security thugs. If anyone wants to believe that then let them do so.
I suppose it depends on whether the child porn laws are more about protecting the children or more about suppressing freedom. If the former, then these scanners should violate the law as they are exposing innocent children to strangers, but cartoons should be OK as no actual children are harmed. If the latter, then the scanners are ok and cartoons can be illegal.
But even drawn pictures can have a sexual or erotic intention.
But nobody has been violated to create them.
(I won't get into whether a full body scan counts as violation. And of course not all nude images are automatically pornographic. What about holiday photos from naturists?)
Which is absolutely not the point.
The real point of the legal definition of CP should be: Something that hurts children, and therefore must be prevented.
But of course, right now, the real point is: Something that a politician thinks, the most extreme conservative groups might objet to, and therefore cost him votes, or will be picked up by the media, and so in the end costs him power.
They don’t fuckin’ care about children getting hurt. All they care about are their own asses. The whole idea of just forbidding to talk/see/hear anything about CP, instead of preventing the actual action that hurts children, is just sick. Because it protects CP. If accidentally stumbling upon a CP site and then call the cops to put them in jail, means that you will be put in jail, then CP is safer than it ever was!
And that is what ever people who got themselves raped as children say.
Besides: About full nudity of children:
I remember that when I was a child, we were at nude beaches in France, where parents and their small children run around completely naked. So what? They are children. If you see them, that caring instinct instantly kicks in. And if not, then still what’s so special about nudity?? I just don’t get it. It’s the freakin default. Being clothed is the weird thing.
You’re not a perv when you let them run around naked. That’s just natural.
But, you’re a perv, if your thoughts when you see them, circles around sex.
Also here in Germany, it’s nothing special to let small children run around naked at swimming pools (especially open air ones) in the summer. I think: How weird is it, that we aren’t naked too.
We did it for centuries. Millenia. Hundrets of ’em. Until that sick disgusting religious mind-twisting came around.
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
Lots of the "cartoon porn" has humor intention or merely scandalizing purpose. Seriously, who faps to naked Bart Simpson?
Also, what about stories where nudity is essential to the plot, and the character displays underage characteristics despite not being one? I'm sure first episode of Spice and Wolf would qualify as child porn under UK law, despite not being pornographic in nature, the character not being underage (nor human for that matter), and blatant display of nudity being a direct result of animalistic, non-human nature of said character (with zero regard for human "decency" standards but also zero sexual interest), essential set-up for the developing story.
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
We could simply use this law to keep the fanatics off aiplanes!
FRA: STFU GTFO
I thought the idea of freedom was that your freedom to throw a punch stops at the point where it reaches my face (but not sooner).
And the concept of limiting freedom of thought is just ridiculous.
So as long as the pervert's hands are on his own crotch, and not on someone else, he can think about whomever he wants.
But yeah, your final statement is clearly worded in a way to politically incite the masses.
Everyone seems to immediately focus in on the fact that these things show naked images of people and completely ignore the fact that these images are taken by low energy x-rays that bounce off after traveling a few millimeters into the skin. They have already shown that even these low energy x-rays can damage DNA, Chromosomes, and (in males) the ability to produce healthy children (The scrotum isn't thick enough to reflect all the radiation). Radiation is an accumulative issue ... being a frequent flyer already at increased risk just due to altitude in our atmosphere, but having full body irradiation once or twice a week could very well cause severe medical issues.
I don't know about anyone else, but I fear cancer more then being killed by a terrorist on an airplane. And the idea that we are opting into getting cancer just makes it worse.
about full body scans, terrorists will take it to the next level: http://www.nationalterroralert.com/updates/2009/09/26/internal-bomb-suicide-bomber-hid-explosives-inside-his-body/
Sorry, but gray text on gray background is making my eyes bleed.
Oh Come on. Atlanta has about 500 000 people. London has 7 500 000. That is 15 times as much. You can't make such crime comparisons between the two and claim the reason is in one difference.
But if we want to make such comparisons: Finland has about as strict gun control laws as you can have (to get a small handgun you need to prove that you are a hobbyist, need to have belonged to a shooting club for at least a year, need to get a doctor to review your mental health... There is more, but you get the point) and Helsinki is about the size of Atlanta. Know what? We don't have such problems in our subways either!
I know that mods are from USA, largely libertarian, etc. but modding the parent up for that? Jesus Christ.
> But even drawn pictures can have a sexual or erotic ... unless the viewer is a pedophile.
> intention. A full body scan isn't in any way sexual.
Which makes this whole issue even more hilarious; if you think about it, these various security orgs are basically telling the public that a significant chunk of airline security screeners may be pedophiles and that it's far too dangerous to allow an exception to the child porn laws for them.
At least, if I were conducting an anti-body-scanning PR campaign, that's the angle I'd be taking.
c.
Log in or piss off.
Thats what sad about this situation. We're too afraid to treat them like children any more.
The law does differentiate between nude and obscene/exploitative images. You may freely publish an image of a child with a skin disease in a medical journal (although the face is always obscured in some way.) You may publish images of nude children as art (although not art that is erotic in any reasonable way) or journalism (think the famous image of a burned child in Cambodia during the Vietnam war.) Those objecting to the images on the ground that they violate child porn laws are morons.
There are plenty of reasons to object to full-body scanners, but this isn't one of them.
SirWired
"Do note that I'm not saying that there is no privacy issue with a full body scan. It's just that jumping to the child pornography conclusion is absurd."
Right, and it's badly-written, badly-conceived legislation against "child pornography" that brings us there. Laws against cartoon porn and other legislation based on stopping impure thoughts is not properly aimed, at protecting children from abuse.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
I can make it erotic by having an erection when I'm in the machine ;).
Every experiment which ends in a big bang is a good experiment.
or better yet, that by looking at these depictions of humans, you (somehow) _become_ a pedophile.
Every experiment which ends in a big bang is a good experiment.
Plus, the airline pilot terrorist doesn't have to bring anything on board that can be found by scanners to crash into Westminster.
The UK law prohibits indecent images. Nudity is neither necessary nor sufficient to indicate indecency under UK law.
Simple snaps on a nudist beach, medical photographs, photos gathered for evidence in court, snaps in the bath or on a rug - all perfectly legal. A fully clothed but sexually suggestive photograph of a child may be illegal - nudity is not the defining criteria.
There is no way these machines would fall foul of the UK law, so it's a complete non-story.
Sigs are so 1990s. No way would I be seen dead with one.
I have an idea... If you don't want planes blowing up in the air and you don't want your kids going throught the scanners... DON'T F*#@%ING FLY! I swear, all these little squeaky wheel groups need to shut the hell up. We all need to start running our airports like the Israeli's and we wouldn't have all these security breaches.
The internets provide This Explanation for the phenomenon. :P
People willing to trade their freedom of expression for temporary entertainment deserve neither and will lose both.
I remember the first time I went to a swimming pool in France. Separate changing areas - no cubicles but some of the older pools in the UK are like that. Then a door opened between the men's and the women's changing rooms and a woman comes through mopping the floor. The French guys just carried on while I grabbed my towel quick.
Having had to run the "abuse" email for an ISP, I had looked into the CP laws at the time.
In the US, it wasn't illegal to take your kids to a nude beach. However, if you had more than three photos of them nude, WHETHER OR NOT IT WAS A SEXUALLY SUGGESTIVE POSE, you were in violation of the CP laws.
Additionally, if you had pictures of your child in a sexually suggestive pose but they were fully clothed, you were also in violation of the CP laws.
And now they wish to add animated images where NO CHILD WAS INVOLVED IN ANY WAY.
Next step is the thought police.
so yeah, it has nothing to do with protecting children and everything to do with some politician trying to keep his "job" (I'd like to see one of those pansies actually WORK for a living!).
i mean, pick any cause of death: pancreatic cancer, slips and falls, drug overdoses, etc...
you can say about all these kinds of death: "well, more people die due to car accidents..." so therefore we shouldn't care about other causes of death?
quantity of dead alone, as the only determinant to how much attention we pay to a cause of death, is demonstrating on your part poor reasoning skills. you can't imagine other factors that go into determining how much attention we pay to a cause of death?
something like terrorism is caused by other people ON PURPOSE. this makes it pretty serious, unlike blameless agendaless accidents or blameless mindless disease. when a committed organization has announced their desire to kill as many people as possible, and shown real capability and intent and follow-thru, that's a big problem. a little creativity results in something like 9/11. does anyone doubt that if an al qaeda asshole got a hold of a suitcase nuke they wouldn't set it off in the middle of a major western city? is it panic and hysteria to worry about that possibility? no, its simply prudent. in fact, an attitude like yours: "whatever," is UNDERreacting. there is just as much danger in a false sense of complacency as there is in a false alarm. the only attitude that makes sense is a prudent logical analysis, and that prudent logical analysis means you take the threat posed by al qaeda and the wannabes very seriously. because they most certainly intend as much death as they can get away with
terrorism isn't like cancer or car accidents. you need to pay a lot of attention to it: the cause is someone else, and the intent is death. a committed group wants to kill you, and they'll kill millions if given the means and opportunity. so it really does make a lot of sense to focus on al qaeda and the wannabes a lot of time and attention, and it is in fact perfectly proportional to the nature of the threat, since it is composed of creative committed organized disciplined and determined human beings, trying to kill you. totally different threat than accidents and disease: you can pretty much gauge things like road conditions for car accidents, air temperature for disease, etc., and come up with a mathematical statistical model for the kinds of death you are faced with
but when your killer is other human beings, and you see an escalation in mayhem and murder and threats, as we do today in the west AND the muslim world (don't forget that the most dead from groups like al qaeda are muslims), then you pay ALOT of attention to the threat: it doesn't follow statistics. it could be a hundred dead one year, a million the next, unless you get a handle on things. destabilize certain regions with terrorism and you get a war. a war is how many dead? still sound like baseless fear to react so seriously to al qaeda and the wannabes?
there's nothing wimpy or fearful about it. of course, there are hysterical people who are overreacting. but they are just as stupid as people like you, who are clearly UNDERreacting. you think its "wimpy". this is low iq, an inability to adequately and logically ascertain the venomous potential in a threat. to you, only statistics counts as what is a threat to you. one dimensional idiocy
a logical, prudent, levelheaded analysis of the threat posed by the rise of militant fundamentalist assholes hellbent on killing a bunch of people means we should pay them a lot of attention and throw a lot of money at the problem. really. no fear panic hysteria or wimpiness in any of that analysis, simple logic and reason
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I suggest all those that support this get on a plane with a terrorist.
Well, this certainly lets Islamist terrorist minors off the hook.
Horny suicidal Muslim 17-year-olds need not fear Pedobear.
If it violates child porn laws when children are involved, does that mean it's regular porn when adults are involved? So much for not violating privacy.
I have nothing against nudism, but wearing clothes is something humans have done for a long time - for 70000 years according to this. So arguably wearing clothes is as natural for humans as using tools.
That didn't stop Wikipedia being censored. And sure, if they want to argue that they aren't indecent, they are free to argue that in court after they've been arrested, and had all their electronic equipment confiscated for months for searching.
The point isn't that we really think these images are illegal, the point is that it shouldn't be a double standard: the laws on children are being enforced in draconian and overly broad ways, and even if a court doesn't find you guilty, your life can be messed up.
Why should it be one rule for them, and another for us? Send the police in. Let the courts decide. Or otherwise - let's change the laws and the system so that people's lives aren't messed up from an unfair accusation.
I find it odd if people define (child) pornography by the amount of visible nudity (and come on, a full body scan shows a real abstract image of your body). Pictures of genitalia in biology books or information booklets on STD's aren't considered to be pornographic either are they?
Images of genitalia or naked children in textbooks "aren't considered to be pornographic" possibly because no one has complained to the police about them. As far as I can tell, indecency is in the eye of the beholder: the intent of the image's creator or distributor is of secondary importance.
Consider the episode when the Internet Watch Foundation put Wikipedia on a UK ISP blacklist because of the photo of a naked prepubescent girl used on the cover of the Scorpions' album Virgin Killer, and reproduced to illustrate the Wikipedia article about that record. The image is not indecent, but the IWF still blacklisted it, basically because it portrays a naked underage girl. The IWF later rescinded the block, which is clear evidence that the image is not indecent. But their initial decision to blacklist shows how nude = porn in some minds.
http://ihatehate.wordpress.com
Well, I guess every parent (myself included) is in violation of child porn laws. Every parent takes bath time photos of their kids. These aren't "sexually suggestive" in any way, just kids playing in a tub. And, since they're in the bathtub, they have no clothes on. My parents took them of me, I took them of my kids and I'm sure my kids will take them of my future grandchildren.
Of course, someone with a twisted sense of what constitutes child porn could look at my photo collection, see a few tub time photos and declare "Why those kids have no clothes on! Some pervert might get his hands on these (despite the fact that they are a private photo collection) and get sexually excited over naked kids! We must charge the parents with child porn and take the kids away from them! Now! Think of the children!!!"
The sad thing is, it has happened before and will likely happen again until some sanity returns to this whole thing. By all means, go after the people making child porn. Lock them away for a good long time (especially if they abuse the children in the process). But don't think that anything involving kids without clothes is child porn.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
Maybe they will finally find a use for the hideous fun frames "feature" found on most camera phones and superimpose a swimsuit over the images of children. As a bonus, for a few $ or pounds, you can get a printout. Problem solved, and in a Fun way!
I agree. What's considered normal and usual differs from country to country. But the UK is on the prudish end of the scale and the US is even farther over on that end. We have nude beaches and the like, but a good many people here are freaked out by any kind of exposure of the body to strangers. And we have as a society gone a bit bonkers over CP, IMO. Personally though I don't really care if my child is scanned at the airport, although whether that's making us all safer is debatable.
I thought the idea of freedom was that your freedom to throw a punch stops at the point where it reaches my face (but not sooner). And the concept of limiting freedom of thought is just ridiculous.
So as long as the pervert's hands are on his own crotch, and not on someone else, he can think about whomever he wants.
But yeah, your final statement is clearly worded in a way to politically incite the masses.
Exactly, doesn't matter what someone else thinks. Its what they actually do.
If someone is passing you on the right, you are an asshole for driving in the wrong lane.
allegory time:
imagine a hypothetical disease whose mortality rate is exponential
now you meet a guy who says "i refused to be terrified by the miniscule chance of being killed by this disease, since its only killed 10 people out of 6.5 billion!" ....so far, duh. when of course, unopposed, the disease threatens to kill millions. its not fear and hysteria that moves one to realize the potency threat, but simple extrapolation. meanwhile, a static analysis of only historical deaths is simply stupid and disingenuous: of course a disease, at the point of starting, only has killed a few. but to only use that in your analysis is simply dumb. if the disease is genuinely shown to be growing exponentially, a pure static analysis of historical deaths is simply illogical and a pointless examination of the real nature of the threat, correct? the disease is obviously worrisome, by any logical analysis
now, historically speaking, is terrorism emanating from al qaeda and its wannabes on the rise or on the decline? therefore, is an analysis of only historical deaths intellectually valid?
now imagine the disease is successfully contained through a long hard expensive effort
now the man says "why did they spend so much time and money and worry on that disease? so much fear and hysteria. it only killed 20,000 people, the chance of dying was obviously extremely low, not substantiating at all the expensive effort undertaken to fight it"
when of course the disease only killed 20,000 people PRECISELY BECAUSE people spent so much time and money and worry on the disease. so what is the value of this man's obliviousness? what is the value of your obliviousness?
in both instances, the man is a moron, with low intelligence and poor analytical skills
if you fail to see how terrorism, unopposed, can't destabilize regions of the globe, if not the whole globe into war (what was the STRATEGIC AIM of the mumbai attack on civilians last year again?), if you can't see the solid determination of terrorists to kill as many civilians as possible by the most devastating and disgusting means possible, you are not "unterrified", you're an idiot. remember: world war one was triggered by a small group of nationalist fanatics in sarajevo:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Archduke_Franz_Ferdinand_of_Austria#Consequences
this is precisely what al qaeda and the wannabes are trying to achieve with things like the mumbai attack. world war one killed millions. terrorists are pounding right now very, very hard along the same kind of geopolitical fault lines that existed in world war i, in a serious effort to start world war iii. that's what they WANT. they are already at war, they want to pull the whole world into their struggle
again, in case you missed it: a false sense of complacency is JUST AS DANGEROUS as a false sense of alarm. the only logical approach is a prudent rational analaysis of the potency of the threat. a prudent rational analysis of the threat posed by terrorism means we devote a lot of time, money, and worry to the effort. NOT FEAR. of course there are hysterics in this world. but the existence of hysterics about al qaeda does not mean there are not also people who have LOGICALLY AND PRUDENTLY come to realize the potent threat terrorism poses. to group both people into "just a bunch of hysterics" again is nothing but a demonstration of your poor analysis and reasoning skills about the world you live in
i have tried to convince you of the threat terrorism poses with logic and reason in this post, but most importantly, notice that there is no fear or hysterics in my thoughts as presented to you. i am merely logically explaining the reality of what terrorism really means, that you seem unable to grasp. so can you honestly say that only fear is the motivation behind the effort and time and money pointed against al qaeda and its wannabes? its really just mass hysteria to you?
then you suffer from a dangerous false complacency just as dangerous as any false alarmism that you hold in contempt
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Which is absolutely not the point.
The real point of the legal definition of CP should be: Something that hurts children, and therefore must be prevented. But of course, right now, the real point is: Something that a politician thinks, the most extreme conservative groups might objet to, and therefore cost him votes, or will be picked up by the media, and so in the end costs him power. They don’t fuckin’ care about children getting hurt. All they care about are their own asses. The whole idea of just forbidding to talk/see/hear anything about CP, instead of preventing the actual action that hurts children, is just sick. Because it protects CP. If accidentally stumbling upon a CP site and then call the cops to put them in jail, means that you will be put in jail, then CP is safer than it ever was! And that is what ever people who got themselves raped as children say.
The problem is many people are under the delusion that what somebody else thinks, and does with their own body; harms them.
If someone is passing you on the right, you are an asshole for driving in the wrong lane.
I hear Diabold got the development contract...
What if everyone of the 4chan generation took this to the next level... what if everyone who didn't have too many qualms about it puts on a big grin and says to the TSA folk, "Heh, I request a pat-down instead!" Turn their shit against them and make them squirm. They thought they were gonna be giving the rapes; ha. Seriously, whenever the government decides to make our lives miserable for theatrical purposes, there are often exploits and flaws that we could use to make sure they're just as miserable with it.
In the United States there were a number of significant cases that set precedent for the US. 'The Color Purple' is a good example of a real controversy, 'Lolita', nudist colonies, parent taking pictures of their kids playing in bathtubs, anatomy books, and such. An issue that even came up in 'The Color Purple' controversy was if therapist and psychologist could be charged with possession of child porn if they wrote things down they were told by abused children. Also, is it child porn if a doctor or nurse takes pictures as part of a rape kit? After a lot of debate, to my understanding it came back to the spirit of the law. Are children being abused? Child porn laws are meant to protect children and prosecuting good doctors, good parents, and authors sharing their experiences does not do anything to protect children from abuse. You have a better argument for saying this practice would put more children at harm. However, it is possible to take something legal and present the same thing differently and make it illegal. For example, if a doctor took pictures from rape kits and sold them to people that got off on that kind of material should [be prosecuted]. But for the sake of argument, selling the pictures and information with parental consent to researchers in order to compile a model for identifying sexual abuse if not the same thing.
Anyway, I find it unlikely that the amusement over blurry near naked like pictures of people running through an airport wears off within hours. Also, just like any search, respect needs to be given to those being searched. Look at the 4th amendment.
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized
This is exactly what they are doing. I know this is not European law, but it goes to the philosophy. These scanners are more effective and less evasive than actually stripping people down and searching them. Also, you can opt out of being scanned get a body search. Shouldn't people be happy about this?
But back to the respect issue, if security personnel are being crude or disrespectful such as point or laughing, they should be disciplined and possibly fired depending on the severity. If they are collecting pictures and giving them to Nambla, they should [be prosecuted].
Other than that, thank them for trying to keep you safe and let them do their job. And if you are worried about your kids safety or mental well being, or what might bother them, compare these scanners to full body cavity search. What would you like to subject your kids to? If you don't think there is any reason to have strict security at airports or that government is over stepping their bounds, that is a totally different issue. I honestly think this is argument is a troll for people worried about these near nakedness of these pictures. To say that this would be production of child pornography is silly, and if the law hasn't caught up somewhere, it needs to.
I am no fan of invasive government, but if we believe TSA does a real job, these scanners enhance their ability to do their job of protecting people, including children, and in a less invasive manner.
Want Big Business out of government? Take away the incentive and start by getting government out of big business!
Nobody will do that until one blows up a plane.
That is precisely correct, and on more than just an economic level. We have also turned around and eroded many of the fundamental liberties and rights that our country was based upon as if this were a solution to people attacking the system. The "terrorists" could not have hoped for an outcome anywhere near as destructive as what they actually achieved through the weakness of our leaders and the muzzy-headed pandering of our media.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Here's some research on 'A Privacy Algorithm for 3D Human Body Scans' for the no-no spots.
http://www.cylab.cmu.edu/research/techreports/2006/tr_cylab06001.html
Suppose it wouldn't be a stretch to adopt to issue at hand.
First RTFA, see that picture of the naked guy? That's a real person, BTW.
So the thing is that you are invading people's privacy, but it's with technology so it's right? I don't think so, that technology makes it easy for Security personal to watch me naked doesn't mean I like it now, it's an invasion of my privacy and I don't want them to do it unless they have a good reason.
The irony is that personal privacy of adult civilians is a joke in the UK to the extent that the best argument you can make against it is that it is a form of CP, and that only works because they are that paranoid of it. That's completely fucked up.
Full body scanning of children is right or wrong for the same reasons that full body scanning of adults would be right or wrong. It's like, oh you are an adult now, you no loger deserves clothes. Fucked up.
But... the future refused to change.
I never said I thought the laws made sense; you're setting up a straw man here. Please read my other posts in the thread.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
[...] all the fat people or people with nasty genitalia don't want stand in one of these machines.
And that's a perfectly reasonable wish for them to have.
your initial statement was that worrying about terrorism is just hysteria and less of a concern than car accidents. i will take your ceasing of that argument and the taking up of new subject matter as a tacit acknowledgement on your part that you accept you are wrong on your INITIAL statement above. good day
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
The software disguises the private parts of the individual before the image goes to the operator. The simple solution is for the software to doctor the image and enlarge desired features. Then everyone would want a copy of the image to hang on their wall at home. The airport could even make a buck off the images. j/k
This is a silly argument that one often sees nowadays. Of course no measure we take will be perfect, and the terrorists will exploit whatever gaps we leave in the protection, but the point is not to create a perfect system, but to make it more difficult for the terrorists so that there will be fewer attacks.
One might as well argue against equipping cars with door locks, since thieves can and do find ways around them. The point is to make it more difficult for them, so a large number of potential evil-doers will give up before they start.
Okay, so I don't really get why anyone could get their rocks off looking at one of those body scan images. Then again, I don't get why people get off on kiddie porn either. But, IMHO, this might be solvable. Lots of cameras now have face-detection software in them. Why not modify it to detect boobs and other naughty bits and then just put a blue circle over the top?
Thanks again for the legal opinion, /.
I'll take it for what it's worth.
This is off-topic, but...
Separate changing areas - no cubicles
Cubicles? Buh? You mean, it's normal for the change areas in the pools you frequent for there to be private change cubicles? Or did I misunderstand something here?
"When correctly viewed, everything is lewd! I could tell you things about Peter Pan or the Wizard of Oz - there's a dirty old man!"
"Smut," Tom Lehrer.... in 1968.
there's no other factors your vast genius-like mind can conceive of when evaluating risk?
do you have alzheimer's? did you miss my posts above where i delineated the simple inescapable logic of how moronic it is to take static quantity of deaths as your only guide?
no, you simply changed the subject. now you repost your initial point. which i already demolished as an argument in previous posts. you changed the subject because you know you i have a point. so think some more on the points i have shown you, or even better yet, be a man and admit when i have shown you something you did not consider and that perhaps your opinion is ill-conceived
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
is always relevant
and it is preventable
plenty of terrorist plots have succeeded. plenty of terrorist plots have been foiled. the struggle goes on. stopping terrorists will never be 100% successful. but ceasing the struggle simply results in the terrorist plot success rate going to 100%. that's acceptable to you?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
always includes intangibles
its only disingenuous when you ignore some intangibles and inflate others
one could say that the real hysteria on the subject matter here is those who think prudent security precautions is the death knell of our freedoms. a true understanding of our freedoms results in a deeper faith that they aren't really being threatened in any wider contexts than simply getting on a damn airplane
a few governmental initiatives due to genuine terrorism in limited contexts can not erase 500 years of philosophical, legal, and cultural trends. meanwhile, a weak, low iq, crude understanding of our freedoms imagines them dangling precariously by a thread all the fucking time. that's the real hysteria here. have some faith, grow a backbone, grow concerned about your freedoms when they are REALLY threatened
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I'm guessing that 99% of you have never actually seen what a "full body scan" looks like. I'm also guessing that a significant percentage of you believe that the x-ray glasses you see ads for in comic books really work. For some education - instead of hype - you might want to take a look at the NPR piece broadcast this morning about full body scans. This link http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=122289282 references a transcript and includes an image of one of the scans.
I suppose some slashdotters might consider this porn. Then again, in 1914 a woman's bare leg was considered porn.
No one ever had to evacuate a city because the solar panels broke!
the real hysteria comes from thinking "omfg! general societal freedoms and 500 years of legal and philosophical traditions is destroyed because of airplane security!"
your understanding of what your freedom really is is crude and weak if you think it dangles by a thread
that's the real fear and wimpiness right there
have some faith in the strength of your philosphical and cultural institutions and grow a backbone. airport scanners are not the end of fucking western civilization and every freedom you hold dear. THAT'S hysteria
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
simply a more logical and more prudent analysis than yours
a simple static historical analysis of a threat is not valid. crude allegory: a disease grows exponentially. so: is your risk of catching the disease simply a function of historical cases? of course not. the threat changes over time. so why do you think your static statistical analysis has any value whatsoever on the subject matter? is the threat gee, i dunno, SLIGHTLY more complicated than your braindead one dimensional thinking on the subject matter? can you imagine some other variables and dimensions in a VALID risk assessment?
let's put it this way: false complacency is just as dangerous as false alarmism. i'm not speaking from alarmism. but you most definitely are speaking from complacency
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
so let's explore your questions:
something like road accidents have been studied to death, are mostly unchanging, and any costs are readily understood in terms of impact and cost effectiveness
meanwhile, something like terrorism is poorly understood, is obviously on the rise, is wildly variable in result, and is as a rule of the catastrophic variety: an airplane blown up today, a nightclub tomorrow, a suitcase nuke after that. its not a fucking exercise in counting the regular annual pile up of cars into trees, or anything remotely comparable, according to a thousand different variables a junior high school student could grasp. so to simplemindedly equate the two threats is exactly that: simpleminded stupidity
really, this is the truth: if you honestly want to sit there and represent to me that the threat of terrorism is as pat and simple as something like car accidents, then you are either intellectually dishonest due to denial or blindness, or you're just low iq and stupid
so let's put it in one obvious way maybe your dim wattage can grasp:
wwi, which killed millions, was set off by a small group of nationalist partisans in sarajevo bent on assassination. the mumbai massacre last year was the same sort of attempt: pound at geopolitical fault lines until you pull everyone into the war al qaeda and its wannabes are already fighting. that's what they WANT, that's what they are working hard to do: not to be the earthquake, but to be the catalytic event that unleashes pent up frustrations and hatreds. you understand what an enzyme is, right? how a little bit can dramatically change the outcome of a solution of chemicals, correct? then you understand the potency of what al qaeda and its efforts really represents to your well-being
put it another way: 19 men crashed 4 airplanes on 9/11. you say so what. i say it allowed a terrible american administration into invading iraq. how many died there? say to me with a straight face that gwbush could have had the political support to invade iraq if 9/11 didn't happen. understand what is at stake yet? after 9/11, india and pakistan mobilized their troops on their borders. nothing happened there. is that always going to be the case if al qaeda and its wannabes unleash a few more mumbai massacres?
in other words, only if you are completely blind falsely complacent moron who doesn't understand the impact and ramifications of a successful major terrorist attack in this world do you view terrorism as no threat to you
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
What do these catch that the old ones didn't? You know, the ones that made more of a chalky outline of things instead of a full-color nude shot (inverted)?
How on earth will this stop the ones who cram the explosives up their ass?
This is a completely ineffective trampling on liberty. What a mess. What's next? Standing on a conveyor belt with everyone else, bent over, cheeks spread? Oh, it's for security! We have to protect you!
The chances of being killed in a terrorist act with what's in place is less than the chance of being struck by lightning, by a long ways.
Lastly, does any of those asshats realize that when they do this, terrorism wins? That is, they successfully terrorised you enough to forgo the liberties everyone fights so hard to keep.
If you aren't suspicious of your government's actions, you aren't doing your job as a responsible citizen.
it was simply to dispel your ridiculous notion that static historical statistics is somehow valuable in adequately describing the threat terrorism poses to you
"If Radicalism is spreading exponentially - perhaps you should look to your foreign policy and to your world attitude in general to find out why so many people hate you, not to their actions."
hilarious! in which you refer to a geopolitical truth that supports MY ASSERTION: that terrorism is a threat, and growing. hate feeds hate, correct? so a successful terrorist attack breeds hate, WHICH THREATENS YOU. right, moron?
19 men crashed 4 airplanes on 9/11. you say so what: terrorism is not a threat to me. that's your thesis
i say it allowed a moronic american administration to invading iraq. how many died there? did the hate in the usa and the hate in iraq from this growing cycle of violence POSE ANY THREAT TO YOU?
say to me with a straight face that gwbush could have had the political support to invade iraq if 9/11 didn't happen. do you understand yet what is at stake with terrorism and the need to fight it with time, money, and effort?
after 9/11, india and pakistan mobilized their troops on their borders. nothing happened there, luckily. is that always going to be the case if al qaeda and its wannabes unleash a few more mumbai massacres? wwi, which killed millions, was set off by a small group of nationalist partisans in sarajevo bent on assassination. the mumbai massacre last year was the same sort of attempt: pound at geopolitical fault lines until you pull everyone into the war al qaeda and its wannabes are already fighting. that's what they WANT, that's what they are working hard to do: not to be the earthquake, but to be the catalytic event that unleashes pent up frustrations and hatreds. you understand what an enzyme is, right? how a little bit can dramatically change the outcome of a solution of chemicals, correct? then you understand the potency of what al qaeda and its efforts really represents to your well-being
if princip had NOT assassinated the archduke, wwi probably still would have happened due to some other cataclysmic event, correct? OR: given time, and no major cataclysms, MAYBE things would have cooled down in europe, and the whole of history would have changed and millions of lives would have been saved
but you say fighting terrorism isn't worth it. according to you, a few more mumbai massacres, a few more blown up night clubs, a few more blown up trains: eh, isn't statistically significant. buy more road signs to fight car accidents instead. because you know, stopping 100 car accidents versus the possibility of war between india and pakistan which would kill millions: obviously, lets stop car accidents. pfffffffft
maybe, FINALLY, if you fucking understand what terrorism threatens to unleash in the world you derive your well-being from, then maybe you will finally be intellectually honest and admit that terrorism is a serious threat that must be fought hard. FAR more important than stopping fucking car accidents
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
This is actually a carefully crafted plan to burn out the brains of knee-jerk anti-intellectuals as they rant in circles about protecting children while fighting terrorism. I patiently await seeing Glenn Beck self destruct on TV like the androids sabotaged by Spock on Star Trek.
i'm saying gwbush is an asshole. i'm saying assholes exist in this world. i'm saying terrorism gives them carte blanche to overreact. only in your demented mind does me saying that assholes overreact mean then that i am the same kind of overreacting asshole. no, moron, i'm only TELLING you what will happen, i'm not SUPPORTING what will happen. get the difference? the way you are reacting to me is called shooting the messenger
this is my message to you: assholes will overreact to terrorism. so therefore, its very important to fight terrorism. get it?
you're telling me "hey, everybody stop overreacting. you know, everybody just magically start behaving like no group of human beings in any culture in any period of human history has ever behaved"
in other words, i have an intelligent grasp of human nature and therefore an intelligent understanding of the large threat terrorism holds for us: it could precipitate a war. you, meanwhile, just wish people would sing campfire songs and hold hands and everything will be ok. you're a fool
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
"hey everyone, could you listen up? i would like everyone on the planet to have a cool head. you know, to start behaving in a way no large groups of humans in any culture or any time period has ever behaved in all of human history, k thanks"
what i'm telling you is that terrorism precipitates war. example: wwi. example: iraq 2003. this is what al qaeda & co is trying hard to accomplish with the mumbai massacre last year. they aren't the earthquake. they are trying to catalyze the earthquake by pounding on geopolitical fault lines. THAT's why its important to fight terrorism hard. that's why its way more potent than something like car accident statistics
meanwhile, you just want to magically snap your fingers and change fundamental human nature. you want everyone to have a cool head. good for you. hey: its not going to happen. the status quo, permanent for human nature, is lots of hotheads running around
so when i tell you we need to fight terrorism hard it is not because i am also a hot head, it is because i recognize the reality, unlike you, that simply wishing for cooler heads is not going to actually make cooler heads. instead, we have to PREVENT THE ACTIVITIES THAT MAKE HOT HEADS. that is, we have to fight terrorist plots, hard. get me now?
what you are asking for is impossible
what i am asking for is hard, and doesn't always succeed. but it actually has a real world effect: ruined terrorist plots. and that genuinely makes a difference
you tell me: would a hardcore antiterrorist have possibly stopped princip in 1914? and if so, would millions have died in wwi if other cataclysms were also averted?
if you say wwi would still have happened, you betray your own statement that everyone just having cooler heads is the way to go: because by saying wwi was inevitable you are saying hotheads will always prevail
but if you say wwi could have possibly been averted, then you are putting your faith in hardcore antiterrorist efforts
so either yes or no to wwi possibly being averted, you lose your argument
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
question: would a hardcore antiterrorist effort have possibly stopped princip in 1914?
and if so, would millions have therefore not died in wwi, if other terrorist cataclysms were also averted?
if you say wwi would still have happened:
you betray your own statement that everyone just having cooler heads and ignoring terrorist events is the way to go: because by saying wwi was inevitable you are saying hotheads will always prevail
if you say wwi could have possibly been averted:
then you are putting your faith in hardcore antiterrorist efforts
you lose your argument either way. feel me now?
your problem is that you confuse my rational approach with the hysterical approach. from your position, which is the cluelessly blindly falsely complacent point of view, i can see how the hysteric and the prudent look the same. but you are confusing two positions. i'm not a hysteric. i'm not fearful. i'm levelheaded and prudent
meanwhile, i clearly understand that, just as dangerous as fatalistic terrified whining hysterics, is blind falsely complacent people like yourself
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I agree. I did not want to say that it makes no sense to wear clothes. They certainly are a great and useful invention. And I’m no nudist because of the simple facts that it’s uncomfortable, because you either sweat and become greasy, or you freeze.
But if you are a member of tribe in Africa, you might see this differently, because, well, that’s the climate that we were made for. :)
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
Very good point.
I might be thinking “Oh god, that’ fuckin’ ugly!” when I would see a nude 400 pound Goatse of 75 years. But feeling attacked would be like feeling attacked when seeing an ugly landscape, animal, plant, etc. It doesn’t make the landscape evil, does it? ^^
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
i'm not talking about waging war, i'm talking about a hardcore antiterrorist effort, like the airport screenings
when terrorists set off bombs, hotheads on either side win, correct?
so, just as you say, and just as i also understand and agree with you, the way out of conflict is to let cooler heads prevail, which means not agitating the hotheads. you do that BY STOPPING THE BOMBS
you are confusing my support for hardcore antiterrorist efforts with hotheaded partisanship
surely, a few more IRA bombs or a few more ulster death squad atrocities would have prolonged the conflict and the hotheads, correct?
so we're in agreement
your only problem is that you are confusing my desire to ramp up the antiterrorist effort with being a hothead on a partisan side of the equation
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
who faps to naked Bart Simpson?
Why should whether or not someone does change the legality of such an image?
"I'm not sure I like the fugnutish tone you used in your post!" -RogL (608926)-
Of course, someone with a twisted sense of what constitutes child porn could look at my photo collection, see a few tub time photos and declare "Why those kids have no clothes on! Some pervert might get his hands on these (despite the fact that they are a private photo collection) and get sexually excited over naked kids! We must charge the parents with child porn and take the kids away from them! Now! Think of the children!!!"
My point is, that that guy is the perv. not the parents. :)
It’s like stripping the clothes of a woman with your eyes. Not. cool.
I think the core problem here is, that you can’t look into a person’s mind, and determine in what way he looks at a child. Luckily.
But you can jail him, if he sits at that nude beach, jacking off to a couple of kids playing in the sand. (Although I think that harm there still is minimal. But it’s not remotely cool too.)
And as long as we still uphold the rule, that as long as someone is not proven guilty, he isn’t... we must conclude, that we can’t punish someone who isn’t proven to do harm.
(Even if mental harm is a physical reality that can even be measured with brain scans showing pain centers reacting just like with physical harm, sending out painkillers. I got my own experience with that, and read my share of information about it.)
Unfortunately, that whole mental topic is wayy to complex to handle in this small comment.
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
however, you can't erase an ingrained legal, philosophical, and cultural allegiance to freedoms overnight. in other words, there is also hysteria that a few airport restrictions means the entire western experiment with liberties and freedoms is over. yes, some screening efforts are an overreaction. but what we will see is some clamping down on freedoms in limited contexts: public squares, trains and airplanes, and then when the fundamentalist threat dies down in a decade or so (it is already losing its cachet in iran, which was a pioneer in fundamentalism in 1979), then these temporary clampdowns will be appropriately shoved aside as well
aside: my story about the troubles: i knew a british chick in the early 1990s and she was horrified when she came to new york city. now she knew that the ira got a lot of money from the states, but she was horrified at how out in the open it was. she couldn't believe that on almost every bank window were signs to the effect: "open your ira account today!" "now is the best time to open your ira account" "getting the best rates on your ira account?" etc...
ira stands for individual retirement account ;-P
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
You perv, I bet you sat in the balcony so you could look down Snow White's cleavage!
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
one bad actor can ruin the forum for everyone else
a nation committed to liberties will occasionally find those liberties abused by actors in bad faith. normally, you can weather these bad apples in low doses. but when the incidents increase, and the venom increases, some sort restriction on liberties becomes inevitable, simply as a matter of self-preservation
what's driving the threats to our liberties today are bad actors, not some top secret cabal that will preserve those limits forever. so fear not that our liberties are so fragile. there is a lot who remain committed to extending and expanding our freedoms, it is a solid philosophical bedrock, not some fashionable vogue. assholes hellbent on abusing our priveleges and blowing us up is a temporary threat, and restrictions on our liberties because of them are temporary as well. we the people will see to that
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
The FBI data uses only the population within the city limits of Atlanta, while the data for London appears to consider the entire metropolitan area. Look at the MSA figures for both and you'll see that the populations are a closer match, at 1.9:1 than your 17:1 claim.
However the crime figures from the FBI didn't include the outlying areas, so that number is sure to go up. So the Atlanta area wouldn't fare any better on a per capita basis.
As I understand it Britain will no longer be self sufficient for electricity as of 2015.
A sizable portion will be outsourced from Russia.
Through undersea cables (we are after all only a small island).
A loss of those cables during the height of our summer or the depth of our winter would be far more devastating.
"Your example should be Ireland.
We fought for years with the death tolls mounting on both sides.
And it was not the fight that ended the conflict."
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1502532&threshold=3&commentsort=1&mode=nested&cid=30697250
well which is it?
it ends, or it doesn't end?
certainly terrorism in general will always be with us, but terrorism from one source or another certainly does end. fighting terrorism is simply the wages of civilization, like taking out the trash every thursday. you don't take the trash out one thursday and never do it again. its "the war on garbage". its called a "war on terrorism" but its really just law enforcement and police work. i mean there most certainly is a "war on crime" that will never end as well. its just verbiage
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Like clothing that has in it a substance that will be seen by the scanners... So you can have a big smiley face or "Hi TSA!" message written across your body when they scan you.
What will a full-body scanner see clearly that won't set off the metal detector? We need that stuff in some kind of paint pen.
I expect to see some sort of kit for this at ThinkGeek in the coming year.
contact al qaeda. tell them what you've learned from the troubles. good luck
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
that's all you should ever ask of anyone in a democracy, and its all you need to do to be effective
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Well, I guess every parent (myself included) is in violation of child porn laws. Every parent takes bath time photos of their kids. These aren't "sexually suggestive" in any way, just kids playing in a tub. And, since they're in the bathtub, they have no clothes on. My parents took them of me, I took them of my kids and I'm sure my kids will take them of my future grandchildren.
Exactly correct. These days people are being arrested for doing exactly that.
A 60 year old grandmother took some pictures to walmart to develop, same type of pictures you describe. Walmart workers turned her in and she was arrested.
Fortunately after a year and a half or so they dropped the charges and let her go, but holy fuck.
http://reason.com/blog/2009/05/04/grandma-arrested-for-child-por
The Protection of Children Act 1978, includes provisions in which it is illegal to create an indecent image or a 'pseudo-image' of a child... which a full body scanner does."
I'm glad that one of these stupid "think of the children" laws is finally biting them. We've made too many regulations with the "think of the children" argument.
One of my personal pet peeves, is the booster seat, required in the US, for riders under the age of 8. I think there is dirty politics at play, but aside from that, it would have been much less burdensome on the population to simply require that new cars have adjustable seat belts, and grandfather in existing cars. Instead, they require the purchase of these seats for every rider. No longer can the coach of a child's sports team take the team to get ice cream after a game, without having a booster seat for every kid.
Its a very freedom limiting regulation.
-- If we don't stand up for our rights, now, there will be no right to stand up for them later.
I'm one of those "extreme conservatives" that slashdots tend to lampoon. However I actually agree with you.
The problem though is that if you let things be subjective in law, the law is not applied constantly or equitably.
Let us take a look at "Child Porn". Two kids one boy, one girl, aged 2 and 3, sitting naked in a bathtub ... child porn or not?
How about 8 and 9 ?
10 and 11?
14 and 15?
What if it was a "native" culture in the deep recesses of the Amazon in a swim hole?
Okay, so where do you draw the line? Do you want ME interpreting when it is "porn" and when it is just an innocent picture? I would rather doubt it.
Yes, we all know when it is clearly "Porn" and when it is clearly "Innocent". But what about when it isn't clear?
You see, I would consider the album cover "Virgin Killer" to be Porn because of context, even though it is clearly not "PORN" (X rated), because it sexualizes a (prepubescent) child. I know others disagree on technical grounds, and honestly I can see their point that it might not qualify as "porn" by their definition of porn.
Same picture, in a different context might not be "porn", such as on a nude beach in France. Again, who gets to decide if it is?
THIS is the problem with things like this. Context should often be the deciding factor, and not the actual image.
What should be considered "child porn" is not as easy as it might seem. AND that is the problem with laws, is that often times they are not flexible enough, and flexibility can be abused.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
I'm sure there are some people concerned about children like her but that is the whole of her organisation.
However all the people you see making comments on places like the BBC's "Have your say" probably don't really care about children and just want to use children as an excuse to try and get rid of this. After all, I went through one of these in 2007 in London, they're not exactly new and it's not like it's the first time these have been in the news. If people were genuinely concerned they should have complained ages ago.
As with all the replies I have seen to my post, many indicate that "this is not technology to draw a line", and simply accept it.
But let me ask you: do you draw a line *anywhere* ?
Basic human rights can only exist if at some point if time you speak up and say: until here and no further.
Besides, if they do suspect a person, they (already have...) the right to strip search a person. Why extend this to *everyone* without question ?
Basic human rights are the last line of reasonable defense against abuse of power and they define the limits with which we can enjoy our earned freedoms. By saying "we have nothing to hide" or "this is not a violation of human rights, but a luxury problem", you are saying that just because we live in the "free west" we have no rights whatsoever, or you say that those rights are marginally defined by positive comparison to 'lesser' countries.
If we continue down that path, these 'lesser' countries start to become more free by our standards as they *do not* virtually strip search people without grounds of suspicion!
Slashdot: stuff for news, nerds that matter, matter for news, stuff that nerd
Terrorist should know that by hijacking a plane - all they do is create a plane full of people with NOTHING TO LOOSE and EVERYTHING TO GAIN.
Recent attempts were about destroying the airplane, not about hijacking it and then making demands. The underpants bomb has already failed by the time it was noticed. A properly detonated explosive needs only a few microseconds to change from being an innocent clay to being a cloud of hot gases - no time to react then.
And IMO the Christmas bomber was set up, for some unknown to me reason, to fail because his bomb was not likely to work. I can't imagine nobody tested such a bomb on the ground; all you need for such a test is a long rope. I'm sure they have that level of technology even in Yemen :-)
Bottom line, If you do not want to be scanned or have increased security please stay home. Then my fat butt can ooze into your empty seat :)
It's not clear to me that it's religiously motivated. When I was a kid in the 80's we swam naked in the pool at the YMCA, it was actually encouraged because it kept the pool cleaner. What happened in the USA at least was several high-profile cases of alleged group child (sex) abuse and numerous child kidnappings. People became really freaked out about who was stalking thir kids. I remember walking to school and a few years later having to attend classes at school about how to watch out for predators and never be unattended. American society changed for the worse
The problem isn't so much how society sees nudity but how it reacts to perverts.
There was an interesting case of an art exhibition featuring a photograph of two naked children. It was of course totally innocent, the photo having been made by the children's mother IIRC. Yet when interviewed on TV quite a few people said that it should not be shown in case a paedophile was turned on by it. Aside from the absurdity of a paedophile going to a public gallery and trying to hide his boner, it would seem to suggest that people feel threatened by other peoples /thoughts/ even if they don't lead to any specific action.
It's an extremely schizophrenic position to take, especially since the paper which has lead the biggest media campaigns on the issue also publishes pictures of topless 16 year olds (which are legal in the UK). The law itself is a bit odd on this issue - it is legal to have sex with a 16 year old but not legal to film them doing it. This is designed to protect children (anyone under 18) from being drawn or coerced into pornography but does not prevent them doing softcore porn.
In other words there is no overall philosophy when it comes to the sex lives of children (i.e. anyone under 18). Largely because of media hysteria it is impossible to have any kind of rational debate or form any kind of sensible policy, and the only result is misplaced fear and hatred. The worst thing is that it actually allows more children to be abused because people are obsessed with dirty men hiding in bushes trying to kidnap their children or masturbate over photos on their schools web site when most abusers are actually known to the child and their parents.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
For the same reason that whether or not someone intends to commit murder does not change the legality of a kitchen knife.
There are shoe fetishists in the world. Should shoe stores set an 18 age limit since they - for a small minority - are sex toy vendors?
In other words, you agree with me that it shouldn't matter, that an image of a naked Bart Simpson (or any cartoon character) should be legal, regardless of if someone faps to it or not.
"I'm not sure I like the fugnutish tone you used in your post!" -RogL (608926)-
In other news, parents have officially been forbidden to look at their children while they are naked -- yes, that also includes the birth.
That's just ridiculous, and it's part of why the World isn't moving -- stupid punkass idiots with the fear of change trying to find ridiculous arguments. If you want to be against it, prove us that it is wrong with decent things!
Have you heard about SoylentNews?
"Recent attempts were about destroying the airplane, not about hijacking it and then making demands."
I agree that the tactics have changed - but not so much the risks.
There are risks in everything we do, but there are some things that simply don't make sense.
Link : http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23790729-body-scanners-unlikely-to-find-al-qaeda-bombs.do
Quote : "It was unlikely that it would have picked up the current explosive devices being used by al Qaeda," he said. "It probably wouldn't have picked up the Detroit Delta Airlines bomb on Christmas Day."
And still people want us to pose nude for some ineffectual piece of privacy invading junk ?
In summary its the idiots who think that all naked depictions of children are porn (I wonder when they are going to demand that all those paintings in the National Gallery showing cupids etc. are destroyed?).
vs
Idiots who think that full body scanning is anything other than an unacceptable intrusion and that focusing on security theatre instead of intelligence reduces the threat from terrorism and that terrorism is a significant threat to begin with.
Yes, I think I misread your statement to indicate you were against legality for "Simpsons pr0n".
Evidence.