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Rick Falkvinge On Child Porn and Freedom Of the Press
bazorg writes "Rick Falkvinge of the Swedish Pirate Party blogs on the subject of freedom of the press and foresees how users of Google glasses could be charged for possession and distribution of illegal porn. 'Child pornography is a toxic subject, but a very important one that cannot and should not be ignored. This is an attempt to bring the topic to a serious discussion, and explain why possession of child pornography need to be re-legalized in the next ten years.'"
Possession of bits of any source or type out not be a crime. What you have here is a thought crime, and it doesn't actually deter actual abuse against children to criminalize or attempt to criminalize the thoughts or track down the bits. Chasing bits does not keep flesh and blood children safe from flesh and blood predators but I suppose it keeps pictures (bits) safe from creepy thinking adults.
A lot of laws are going to have to change with the advance in technology. Neuroscience will soon reveal all about the brain, making our paranoid about child predators seem about as effective as the paranoia about witches or communists. It's 2012 and at this time Google probably has everyone's thoughts...*cough* search records in a database. At the same time with neuroscience and in specific FMRI we will know what other humans are thinking, this technology does exist and ought to completely change the justice system.
The main problem with crime in the past is we assumed we would never know what anyone else is thinking, never have complete understanding of motives, never know the best forms of deterring certain events but imagine for a moment that its some point in the future and we know what everyone's thoughts were before they committed the criminal act? Would we view the acts in the same way if we knew the exact thoughts behind the act? If a criminal could not lie and an FMRI lie detector test has 100% accuracy could we change the justice system completely? What about detecting psychopaths, sociopaths, and others who aren't capable of remorse, empathy or guilt prior to sentencing? As far as I'm concerned we should be moving toward abolishing prisons altogether not because we wont have dangerous people but because eventually our understanding of human behavior will be such that we wont need so many prisoners and also if we wanted to we could probably just use house arrest on the non-violent.
We have to do away with the concept of good and evil. There is no good and evil. There may be smart and stupid or competent and incompetent but there is no good and evil. A sociopath or psychopath is not evil, they are simply retarded in a particular physical area of brain development. It hinders their decision making in the same way that any other disorder can hinder decision making in that it makes them less emotionally intelligent. This has been proven by neuroscientists when under FMRI we can see sociopaths brains aren't capable of experiencing empathy, remorse, and have trouble detecting or interpreting fear in the face and body language of others.
If we were talking about artificial intelligence we'd be talking about it like it's a bug that the AI cannot detect fear, or cannot properly make use of the empathy functions or subroutines, but because it's a human being we call the problem sociopathy and in human beings the problem is physical and not a matter of programming so it cannot be easily fixed. For these sorts of individuals we need prisons, but according to most estimates they only represent 1% of the general population yet 20% of the prisoners. This would mean 80% of prisoners aren't sociopaths or psychopaths, even if we assume 50% of that 80% are violent it still leaves 40$ or so of prisoners who aren't sociopaths or psychopaths and who aren't violent.
The most radical idea I'm going to propose is that we get rid of the idea of criminal responsibility. This probably wont happen until far into the future but if we make it into the future with powerful AI and technology, and we understand human thinking and feeling, at least theoretically we will eventually know the true motivations behind all actions. If the universe is predetermined and a lot of actions are based on genes, consequences, what brain type you have, environment, and situations, none of which an individual has full control over, just what is responsible for crime? The role of suggestion, of subliminal triggers, the role of desperation and poverty, the role of lack of intelligence, a lot of different things can convince a person that
Aren't there existing protections limiting prosecution to knowingly and intentionally committing crimes? I can't see how legalizing possession completely will "fix" the "problem" of accidental prosecution in an effective way. Baby/bathwater and all that.
We have to ban the possession of images... for the images! What if someone makes money off of it or someone is goaded into making more? Sure, it would be entirely the fault of the person who actually makes the images, but... children! Quickly, resort to censorship! We have to stop those image-viewing assholes!
Since people who say otherwise aren't as illogical as me, they can't be true parents. And not being parents magically invalidates all of their arguments for no reason!
CP enforcement is an absolute rats nest of problematic issues. The real pain isn't coming from people deleting evidence of child abuse, it's the edge cases where law and common sense contradict. Throw in trans-national companies being expected to police their networks and varying national laws, you get a recipe for serious problems. As a flavor of what can happen, some parts of the world (like the UK and some states in the USA) have different definitions of what a child is for the purpose of CP law vs age of consent law. So you can have sex at one age, but not film yourself doing it until a later age. Another issue is that some countries don't criminalize CP possession at all (Japan, Russia). So if an American company finds CP in the possession of someone who lives in Japan, what happens? What about the case where the person is of legal age in one place but not another?
The piece starts off with a hypothetical situation about "having a walk in the park and suddenly seeing someone raping a kiddy on front of you". Yeah, it's almost an everyday occurrence isn't it. No one really believes if you 'accidentally' filmed this event the witness would automatically be implicated. More than likely they would end up in court: to give evidence.
The next argument he makes, about teenagers being criminalised by their own bodies, is perfectly sound but clumsily put across, funnily enough it almost reads like it was written by a teenager.
The final argument about draconian CP laws being a threat to the wider freedom of society and just another tool to bring in more control, surveillance and censorship, it probably the most important one, but again badly explained in this article with the strange writing style.
Overall I don't think many on /. will disagree with the general intent, but coming from such a prominent figure in the Pirate Party this will probably do more harm than good in the fight against creeping totalitarianism.
"...you turn a corner, and to your shock, see a 12-year-old being brutally raped right in front of you.
WHAM. You are now a criminal, guilty of recording, distributing, and possessing child pornography."
Because, like WHAM, we can not make a distinction between being witness to a crime and being participant in a crime? When did that happen?
For all who support the current child pornography laws which criminalize possessions of bits, is there a significant difference between that and a thought crime?
If you still support the ban on child pornography then why isn't there a ban on obscene "teen erotica" literature? Why not ban text descriptions, or ban stories which encourage child abuse?
Lets say for argument a corporation decided to produced a hand drawn manga series of lolicon (child porn) erotica and marketed it to an adult population, should the behavior of this corporation be banned? Should purchase or distribution of this material be criminal? Should the website be shut down and all the visitors raided?
Why or why not?
Did you even read the article? One of the examples is young people taking pictures of themselves, which makes them child pornographers in the eyes of the law. Is that reasonable? How is that in any way exploitation?
"There's someone in my head but it's not me." - Pink Floyd, Dark Side of the Moon
He didn't say that (intentional) production should be legalized, just possession. Laws against possession of anything are ridiculous, because someone can just mail the offending item to you and suddenly you're a criminal even though you didn't do anything.
parent takes a pic of a kid in a tub its cute right
BUT posting that image to a place where others might see it and possessing that image is technically illegal.
this is what he means but what hes trying to say is messed up
what most dont get is most of the actual child porn is done agaisnt the kids will and is more akin to slavery.
its wrong , its evil its harmful to society and must be punished and eliminated when found.
He cannot argue the above is ok? ....you will freak 7 billion people out and this loses you support.
And proposing an end to criminal responsibility....OOPS sorry i smashed your window i'm not responsible
oooops i cut your head off and sent body parts about im not responsible.....
haha
this just shows me again that the real people behind hte pirate party are NOT even true pirates....better to tackle your issue from a librarian and archivist role then this
Some of his arguments are good, while some of them are stupid. Yes, I admit that, in a moment of weakness, I actually read the linked article. I promise never to do this again.
His first point is probably his weakest and stupidest. It's a paranoid fantasy (involving some kind of uber-nerd/uber-hipster cross) about the government coming down harder on witnesses of a crime than the actual perpetrator. He also loads it with emotional appeals. It's not really very compelling, and it almost caused me to stop reading the article right there. It reminded me of the over-the-top, paranoid fantasies and fallacies that were popular during the time of SOPA. Anyone who dared to call people out on that was labeled a fascist sympathizer, or sometimes just a "concern troll". It bothered me a lot more to be labeled a "concern troll", because the underlying message was that it was perfectly OK to use logical fallacies and propaganda in the service of a greater good. I reject this, and I think using these techniques just hurts a movement. There's always a better argument against authoritarianism than simplistic logical fallacies, such as the slippery slope or appeal to emotion. It's lazy.
The rest of his arguments were actually a lot better. He made some pretty decent points, including the fact that free speech necessarily opposes censorship of even the most offensive speech. He also brings up age of consent laws and the recent spate of "no tolerance" cases against teens who have sent naked pictures to each other. Obviously, there are some problems with the law here. My own personal solution is to lower the age of majority, but I think that's going to be way too contentious. Since nobody is likely to support that, I'd say that we should enact so-called "Romeo and Juliet" laws, which allow teens to screw around with each other without fear of being charged with rape or child porn.
Anyways, it's pretty much standard for progressive politics, and I've seen the same arguments from many people. As a progressive, I generally agree. This wasn't a particularly insightful or well-written example, but it's still good to see that there are progressives out there, spreading the message.
Defending child pornography will just make it easier for copyright lobbyists to claim that all pirates are pedophiles. This is a bad strategy.
Given most child pornography being produced these days is probably kids sending naked pictures of themselves to each other, I'm struggling to understand the exploitation element.
Anyway, the article didn't demand the legalisation of creating child pornography. It demanded the legalisation of possessing it.
How about you read, understand and discuss the arguments being made, not dismiss it based on your prejudice and ignorance?
Because trying to hide it behind a curtain isn't helping anyone, and attempting to do so gets hundreds of innocent peoples lives ruined every year, if not more.
Because every time some random idiot posts child porn on a forum or youtube or imageboard, a child gets raped.
That's not how things work.
Nobody is saying legalize child exploitation. You are changing the subject.
From teens getting labelled as sex offenders and child porn producers for sharing nude pictures of themselves with each other WHILE IN A RELATIONSHIP at the age of SEVENTEEN to teens themselves using their age as a weapon, I can safely say any child porn laws are plain retarded, if they even exist.
Let's not even get in to the fact that they aren't even CHILDREN in these cases, they are TEENS. But nope, who cares about logic, "they are my CHILD, not my TEEN"...
Don't even bother citing those times where "oh but these people had those charges dropped against them" stories, their lives in every single case have already been ruined simply by the ACCUSATION of it.
Even people who have been accused of murder get less of a beating about it.
He is completely right. Distribution should be illegal, NOT the possession. Possession laws are always awful since they are open to interpretation in every single case. (while some judge might be sane and view a stupid drawing of Lisa giving it to Bart just as something obscene, another would probably want to kill the person drawing it with their own hands. Interpretation from 1 persons opinion should never be in law. Ever. Exact rules or back to the drawing board, DSM isn't exact in the slightest, so don't bring it up)
The laws need to be tidied up, things need to be done to limit damage simply from the accusation itself, and anyone ever abusing their position should be punished severely.
As someone who has a "cousin" who abused her age to lure people in, I speak with experience in saying that people like her deserve to be locked up.
Sadly she got off with it because those people are shit-scared for their own lives to even come forward. Another sex-fiend age-abuser gets off yet again.
She has been disowned from the entire family.
The law IS THE PROBLEM. It lets people like this get away with shit while innocent people get wrecked or scared in to submission.
Actual child porn with actual children is barely within the scope of this. (by children I mean pre-pubescents, the actual definition that law seems to have forgotten)
Just possessing it, regardless of the reason, intent, etc is criminal. The law is very unbending on it. It gets applied pretty draconian at times too. A good example is a teenage couple sent naked pictures of themselves to each other via e-mail. They got out, and both were tried and convicted of child porn charges (and it was upheld on appeal). Doesn't matter that the pictures were of themselves, it is illegal, intent and any other factors are just not part of the law.
We can't even get Cannabis legalized here, and the arguments for that are much more overwhelming. When children are involved, people shut off their brains.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
It also implies the creation of child pornography. If the desired effect is to decriminalize kids possessing photos of each other, then you have to decriminalize the creation of that same pornography as well.
Otherwise we are saying "we won't prosecute you for having a photo of your girlfriend, but we will send her to prison for taking the photo & sending it to you."
The problem is who decides what is or isn't pornography? It's entirely subjective. It's based on how we think the person interprets the information, it's basically about what we think the viewer is thinking. A child could be naked in one context, hell a baby could be naked, and it's not considered child pornography but then in another context viewed by a different set of brains and it's child pornography. It's entirely subjective as to what is art and what is child pornography.
For example if a child actress plays out a rape scene in a movie that is not child pornography. If a child models in a beauty pageant that is not child pornography even if the child is dressed like a hooker on a street corner. If a child is in the "sexual positions" and naked then it's child pornography. How do we decide on those "sexual positions"? That part is subjective. Obscenity laws in general are subjective and different communities find different words, body language or levels of nudity as obscene.
The most radical idea I'm going to propose is that we get rid of the idea of criminal responsibility.
There's a link in the article that shows three Russian kids brutally murdering someone - graphically. You can even see them poking the guy's eyes out with a screwdriver.
Even though they had no moral problem with what they did, they knew they were doing wrong by their society's standards.
They made the choice to brutally murder that man and they have to live with the consequence of that choice - like we all do.
At the same time with neuroscience and in specific FMRI we will know what other humans are thinking, this technology does exist
No it does not. The only thing that can be seen with an MRI and that technology you speak of is which parts of the brain consume more glucose when having certain thoughts - that is all. You CANNOT discern what a person is thinking or what mental illness they may have from those scans.
Unlimited power like this is an important part of implementing a global police state controlled by criminal banks and other unaccountable megacorporations. That is all.
I cannot think of anything worse than someone having Child porn. Why!? your supporting legalizing pictures of children being exploited? their innocence can never be regained. Seriously pedophiles need to be locked up without the key. Its sick and disgusting. Obviously this guy doesnt have children. These people are sick and need help, not sitting there getting off on nude pictures of children. (although the help usually doesnt solve it)
The Gov't seizes computers and hard drives with this content on it. They present it as evidence. Are they breaking the law by merely possessing the data? If not then aren't we back to the idea that it is not the information or data itself that is criminal, but rather the circumstances it was obtained / created and the intent behind the possession? Circumstances and intent are for courts and juries to assess. Laws are to inflexible to unilaterally consider the complexity of intent.
Simon Walsh: How bodged arrest and 'profoundly damaging' false charges have ruined my City Hall career
http://www.standard.co.uk/lifestyle/london-life/simon-walsh-how-bodged-arrest-and-profoundly-damaging-false-charges-have-ruined-my-city-hall-career-8046087.html
From the article:
This statement starts with a false assumption and ends in an erroneous conclusion. The assumption is that the ultimate goal is to catch child molesters. It's conclusion is that it is not effective and may actually make it harder to catch child molesters.
The laws that make child pornography illegal is a separate but related issue to child molestation. It is related because in order to create child pornography a child must be molested. It is separate in that it can stand on its own. The idea that for child pornography to be illegal it must aid in the apprehension of child molesters is absurd.
The author then invents a fairy tail where a person with eye glasses with a built-in camera turns a corner and records a child being raped. He then makes the erroneous conclusion that video recording a crime in process would be a crime itself. It would be illegal if the person who caught it with his camcorder just walked away and didn't report it or worse yet posted the recording on the Internet. People on this guys web site have brought this to the authors attention but he chose to double down on dumb by saying that child pornography is illegal no mater how you get it period. However, if turned over to the police it would NOT be pornography it would be evidence of child molestation. It would only become pornography if it were kept by the individual.
Even if this guy were correct the law could be changed to exempt those situations. Again using this fairy tail as an excuse to legalise child pornography is absurd!
The entire article is filled with this pseudo logic and erroneous conclusions. Not really worth the read IMHO.
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
Here are a couple of the issues that I am aware of with the current Canadian child porn legislation.
1) Anything sexual produced for youth, is considered child porn. So if a Doctor write a guide on safe sex, and it is targetted to high school sex ed classes - that doctor has created child porn. Under the verbage of the legal document, he is technically a sexual offender.
2) Those photos in your family album of the twins Julie and Mat playing in their wading pool at the cabin when they were 6 months old. Remember how they were both wearing swimming diapers, but the rest of them was naked? Well - you possess child porn. Any photograph (or ther media) of a naked or partially naked child, is considered child porn. Same thing goes for that photo of your 2 year old niece swimming at the beach - on your iphone as you walk through Canadian customs.
I am sure there is much more. These are the two bizarre sitautions that I know of.
The root of the problem (as I see it) is:
- We write laws that are either so vague that anything even remotely similar to the offence they want to stop becomes criminal as well.
- We never go over the old laws to clean out the outdated. We just pile it all on whatever is already there.
- We label a law that is extremely overzealous or totally out to lunch with labels such as 'Child Porn' so that if you say no to it, you must be one of them. Not many of us are for Child Porn, but how many of us do things that are legally speaking, thanks to bad laws, actually considered to be child porn?
I make a point of putting my camera away, if either of my girls (2 and 4) decide they want to run around naked. I have had to tell my wife to do the same, and delete all those cute videos of the baby chasing the balloon across the room...
You had me interested until "There is no good and evil".
VERY elaborate troll, good work.
I hope you don't actually want me to elaborate, since you're so much off on so much levels; I'll just point the most obvious:
Pedo material (on a computer) are just bits => pedo material on a printed medium is just paper? Oh, have I already mentioned that to have pedo material on your pc someone, somewhere a child has been harassed (at the least), AND someone, somewhere has harassed a child? There is still "no good and evil"?
2nd: If someone exterminated your family that would be bad, wouldn't it? Still no good and evil?
3rd: Choice. You're ignoring the very root of human nature. "Getting rid of the idea of criminal responsibility" is like removing human nature from human beings. What's left are automata (which is in line with your post)
Bonus Ponts: "Neuroscience will soon reveal all about the brain" HAHAHA! No. Don't count on it anytime soon ("soon" as in my "grandchildern lifespan"). It actually might be impossibile, but who knows.
Anyway, a very good troll, cheers.
There is no scientifically objective basis for determining "evil". We can say destructive and replace that with "evil" in our discussion if you'd like. In that case psychopaths are more destructive not because they are "evil" but because their brains are literally retarded in areas which would prevent them from being destructive. They lack the ability to resist their urges, lack inhibition, lack remorse, guilt, empathy, compassion, pity. Their frontal lobe development is like that of children and in some cases they have less impulse control than children yet our society treats them as adults.
What I'm saying is there is competent and incompetent, smart and dumb, but there is no objective good or evil. A smart or competent person is a person skilled at making decisions which are in their self interest and in the best interest of the group. None of us are perfect in this but we strive to be as smart or as competent as we can, as smart as our brains and knowledge allow. Just as some people are never going to be good at mathematics or at many different intellectual pursuits because they are less intellectually inclined, the same can be said with regard to decision making/ethics. Some people are simple ethically retarded and when you understand that then you know they aren't evil.
Here is the thing with child p0rn, and I am not just talking about parent filming thier kids playing, If I were wearing google glasses and I did see a rape of some small child, first I presume that I would not be in posession of child porn, but in posession of evidence. Second I would hope that any google device would automatically strem all content to the world, but wouldhave some timel delay. Third I would hope that there would be a way to at least delete content ffom the google servers. From that point on possesion would indicate intent. I know these last two are antithetical to googles modus operandi, they want to keep and know everything, just look at the WiFI snooping which required at least two governemt requests to delete, data that they said the did not even want.
In any case the issue here is not the adult that might get caught up in an unfortunate sitation. We are adults, we can and do make decisions, and we know how to deal or not deal with the fallout. We know that we may see things we don't want to see and those of us who are mature and sane simply deal with it. We may choose to put explicity content online, and we deal with it. But a child is not in control and if we allow possesion then we implicitely allow distribution and this is a problem. Imagine a child is raped at 10. The footage is caught and not actively destroyed. 10 years later it reemerges and the adult has to deal with graphic images of his or her violation as a child. this is the violation of privacy to which I previously refered. Posesion of child porn promotes a double crime. It not only promotes the violation of the child, but also promotes the violation of the privacy of the adult.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
My predictions about "child porn" prohibitionism turning the Digital Age into a Gulag are gradually coming true... I wrote about billions of children over generations having ever-increasing access to digital equipment and producing ever-more "thought-crime" content to potentially put anyone in prison for decades if not for life!
"Did you really think we want those laws observed? [...] We want them to be broken. You'd better get it straight that it's not a bunch of boy scouts you're up against... We're after power and we mean it... There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What's there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced or objectively interpreted - and you create a nation of law-breakers - and then you cash in on guilt." -- quoth Dr Ferris, Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand.
Rape should most obviously be illegal, but it should be up to the victim and/or his/her parents/guardians, not power-hungry government thugs, to determine what constitutes rape. The punishment of victimless crimes, including "thought-crimes", always constitutes tyranny! One needs to separate thought/speech from action, and there should be absolutely no limits to free speech!
Having CP is not a crime - raping a child (or anyone else) is. Likewise, reading Karl Marx and dreaming about raping and pillaging like the drunken sailors of the Russian Revolution is not a crime - but actively supporting a revolutionary communist movement should be.
(Signed: Alex Libman's sockpuppet.)
This is no different from all the other 'prohibitions' we live through. Religious prohibition on sex is what makes kiddie porn and other perversions an issue. Societies with the strictest rules are often the most perverted. They may hide it from the outsiders pretty well, but inside the castle, a bigger orgy you'll never find.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
You may not like the answer, but it's very straightforward and logical, some may even call it cynical:
Child porn, as defined, a naked child depicted on a photo, drawing, animation or film in a sexually provoking pose or situation is illegal in most of the world because of religious beliefs, nothing else. And if you imagine that 95% of the population is religious, then you can forget about this becoming legal at any point soon.
You may even think that the picture of a naked child is totally disgusting, immoral, horrible, or the fact that someone out there are "having a good time" imagining or watching an image depicting your or anyone's child, even a fantasy child that doesn't exist, simply because you find it so disgusting. Some think it's the most natural thing in the world, but not for others to see etc.
Fact is: It's a human body, yes, it's young, and vulnerable. And here is where the two world splits and unfortunately combine because of religion and moral to a sort of smorgasbord of "take whatever you feel is right, and so it shall be and make it law", even though it doesn't make any logical sense whatsoever.
Fact is: If you sexually abuse anyone, be it a child, animal or fully grown human - it's abuse. It isn't more or less terrible if it is a defenseless child. You are defenseless if you where raped anyway, why is another human more or less worth than you?
Fact is: If you "please" a child, and the child was not hurt, but enjoyed it - then you have not per see hurt the child. However - the child is in a learning stage of life, and because we see this as immoral and it's against our religious beliefs or otherwise, the child will come to know this when the child grows up, and therefor the risk is there that the child will at a later stage in life - feel abused and dirty, and thus have it's life "mentally" destroyed and disturbed.
So you see, even though this may have felt right for the both of you - at the time - time and moral and religion both can and will make this a crime and destroy lives. So for that reason alone, this is dangerous.
However, in a perfect flawless world where people have the capacity to think for themselves, where love is favored in front of war and hatred, where being nude is as natural as eating food, where masturbation whether mutual or mono is as natural as a kiss or a greeting, then no harm will come of this - it is ALL mental.
Depicting such fantasies, dreams, wishes (to some) or horrors, infidelity, abuse (to some) on pictures, spreading them around the world, is of course dangerous because of this.
In reality, unfortunately - there are a lot of people making child porn for profit, actually abusing kids for real, and we're talking taking kids from poor families, taking pictures of them against their own will, abusing them, and depicting this with REAL kids with REAL suffering, now THAT IS HORRIBLE, and it happens much more than you may want to think.
Why? Because of money!
If this "nude" hysteria wasn't so blown out of proportions that half the planets a-sexual people have to go undercover just to keep their jobs (and no, not with kids) but just to survive in a hostile territory, there would not be such a demand for it, and a picture like that would be worth no money at all, because it was easily available.
So you see, it's very simple. How can something that feels good, and is good be so bad? Read the above, and put it into perspective, then you can easily see how it could be so bad, and how it could be good. Not that complicated really...
What this world is coming to - is for you and me to decide.
From here:
From what I'm seeing, there is no technology that can do what you said it can do in your original post.
Sometimes, people's ideology (free information, etc.) becomes obsession - the over appreciation of the idea leads to fanaticism that leads to delirium. ... IT IS CHILD PORNOGRAPHY] the rest of that delirium is easy to predict : the criminalization of "this type of information" [I.E., THE CHILD PORNOGRAPHY] it's not effective in catching child molesters [WRONG - IT'S VERY EFFECTIVE], it leads to censorship [OF CHILD PORNOGRAPHY ... SURE], it undermines journalistic freedom and free speech/expression tradition [YOU ARE IN A DELIRIUM !]. ... from TFA !). ... by more serious people.
When referring to child pornography as (from TFA:) "this type of information" [IT IS NOT INFORMATION
Watching the rape (it is rape!) of children is not "the battleground for free speech itself" (yes
The "serious discussion" that this guy wish for has already been discussed - in a more serious way
I'm always amazed at how people on whichever side of demand vs supply economics are on the opposite side when it comes to crime. For example, conservatives want to influence the economy by rewarding or punishing producers of good more than paying attention to the consumer side. They then want to influence crime by punishing the consumers more than the producers. Modern liberals are the exact opposite.
Still an improvement over sending both to prison.
What Sick SOB is going to legalize child porn.
Legalized possession of images of child abuse allows a market for such things to grow larger that it would be otherwise, creating a demand for more child abuse. There could still be laws against profiting from child abuse, but the drug market has proved that where there is money to be made there will be supply.
Someone who has evidence of child molestation could also be considered an accessory if they don't alert the authorities.
That said, the article raised a point that's not at all hypothetical. Not long ago, here on Slashdot, an ISP mentioned occasionally finding kiddie porn on their servers. At first they tried notifying the police. After getting threatened with prosecution, they switched to a policy of quietly deleting it.
Another key point that should be beyond argument is that the rape of a young child has *nothing* in common morally with a 17.9 year old sexting and the law should treat them separately.
For me, the most compelling argument against the criminalization of Internet child pornography is this:
In no other case is it illegal to possess a copy of the evidence of the commission of a crime.
Notice the multiple levels of indirection here: (1) It's only a electronic copy of the evidence, and (2) It's just evidence -- it's not the underlying crime itself.
There comes a point when there is so much indirection between a person and the crime committed that it's just not rational to view that person as a criminal.
This ultra-loose criminal association creates a terrible corollary: Anyone can easily turn anyone else into a criminal simply by planting a piece of paper or a computer file in their possession. It scares me to live in a country that allows this. There is nothing standing in the way of me spending the rest of my life in prison because of a mis-configured wireless router or by being the victim of a malicious e-mail prank. My government will respond to my victimization by placing me in prison for the rest of my life. And they will do it with 100% conviction that they have protected children from sexual abuse.
RTFA! Nobody is claiming that actually exploiting a child should legal. Quite the contrary, there is a fear that if mere possession of evidence that someone ELSE exploited a child is illegal, the child will get no help because anyone who could alert the authorities will be too busy destroying the evidence.
Consider, bad guy robs a bank. That is clearly a crime, no matter why he did it. Imagine if like child exploitation, possession of a video of someone robbing a bank was a crime of strict liability. Great, now the bank cannot even have cameras inside (just in case) much less give the police a video of the robbery where we clearly see the face of the robber. In the name of not glorifying bank robbery (as if the video somehow does that), we have made bank robbers everywhere safer against prosecution.
Every argument is about the poor person who possesses child porn. Not one mention of the children involved. Children get fucked up for life from someone videotaping sex with them (especially if the whole world can watch it after its made its way to the Internet). Possession of child porn is wrong because it reinforces predatory sexual thought patterns that perpetuate the cycle that creates these videos. I can slightly sympathize with the argument about 17 year olds, but think about this... Do you really think you had the judgment at 17 to make a well informed decision about filming yourself having sex, that you would have the foresight to know that it could end up showing your naked ass all over the Internet? No fucking way. It's wrong through and through, anyone who can't see the obvious reasons why is deluding themselves. I'm all for free information, but not when it hurts people or when the information is personal/private in nature and obtained against someone's will.
The author make good and reasonable points. Alas, there is one crucial thing he does not (want to?) understand. The western democracies are not run on 'good and reasonable' lines, they run on what appeals to voters. Since we have universal suffrage, this means that millions of ordinary people have the final say on who will govern.
Ordinary people, unfortunately, are mostly ignorant self-righteous fools. 'Protecting children is good' is about the limit of their sophistication and so there is little prospect of reform in this or in most other of our societies' pathologies.
It isn't going to get any better. The common man is pretty much a fascist and our descent has some way to go yet.
The guy keeps talking about how current legislation is actually already preventing the capture of child rapists, which if true would be the most powerful part of his argument, but he does not elaborate that point nor provide any empirical evidence that this is what's happening. It's all speculation as far as I can tell. Maybe someone else can find some evidence?
I was raped as a child at the age of 7 and I am also a victim of child pornography as well. Chances are they're those images/videos of me being raped floating out there somewhere on the internet. Knowing that there are people pleasuring themselves to images and videos of me being brutally raped gave me extreme PTSD as a teenager. Actually this is something that still bugs the heck out of me every time I see something on the news about someone being caught with child pornography and still makes me physically sick. First off he is dead wrong about child porn laws being counterproductive. A high percentage of sexual abuse crimes committed against children are never reported. What happened to me was never reported. Also a high percentage of people charged with child pornography crimes are also found to have sexual abused a child at some point. When you take these two facts into account, chances are when someone gets caught with possession they also sexual abused a child at some point as well. I used to have a co-worker who got caught with a simple possession charge. After the police finished their investigation they found that he was also manufacturing and distributing as well. I've also seen multiple cases were the same thing has happened. So possession of child pornography laws do help to catch child molesters. Plus who the heck would be possession of it if they were not pleasuring themselves to it. And people who would pleasure themselves to it are pedophiles!
Another thing is how the heck do these laws prevent the media from reporting? Gee you never hear some journalist say something like "Oh man I really wanted to show some B roll of some nude 13 year old in this story but I can't because of these laws". Really??!?! This is just nonsense. The part about the Google Glasses was also a bunch of nonsense as well. The only thing I agree with him on is the teenagers sexting part. I think that teenagers shouldn't be charged with a crime for victimizing themselves. Because once these images get out there on the internet, all of the sudden these kids have pedophiles stalking them. Instead parents and schools need to teach kids about the risks associated with sexting. Other than that, what a complete loon this guy is. I've never really thought much about the Pirate Party before this. Mainly because they're not that big here in the US, I think the Libertarian Party(Which I gladly support) covers most of their views. But I've just lost all respect for the Pirate Party.
About a year go, a local 22 year old guy was arrested for viewing child pornography. In the details of the case, the 'children' in the videos were 15 and 16 year old girls. He was facing 25 years for each of the 37 counts, or about 925 years in prison. In the end, he did a plea bargain and he's serving 35.
Meanwhile...
Recently another local guy in his early 20s went to trial for several counts of statutory rape, when his (then) 16 year old girlfriend's parents blew the whistle on him. When convicted of seven counts of actually having sex with an underage girl he got less than 10 years in prison.
I'm not defending either guy, but when should watching videos of something bring a substantially larger penalty than actually doing that same act?
Anyone who support stupidities like that never had a child, specially a girl. Fuck them, you mess with children you deserve a rifle headshot, a real one!
I don't see you living by your own words. If you truly believed that, you would turn yourself in for murder, rape, sexual abusing a child, bank robbery, and everything else you have seen happen on TV
Yes I realize you have no clue what the point of topic here is, but that is what the adults are discussing. Behind held accountable for a crime you did not commit, didn't assist in, but has done nothing more than witnessed or heard about happening. Just like on TV and in movies.
So you go turn yourself in for the crimes you claim you have committed first, then the rest of the world might entertain your stupid moronic idea.
Child Porn leads to other things that is very unhealthy. With Child Porn, Rape is rampant and creates an unhealthy mind/behavior for those that are into child porn. Laws needs to protect kids that is under the age of 18. Even some older than 17 still think like kids and don't know how to think, act, and talk like a professional responsible person.
I have never seen such a repulsive amount of posts on the one Slashdot story. Legalise Child Porn? Are you fscking kidding me!!
I'm not a religious person, but I can see that a lot of the popular religions have these values tought to their subjects, because some people are too thick to work out what's wrong and what's right for themselves. Relgion goes over the most fundamental moral issues before we had law to tell us what to do.
If there was no religion and no laws, the idiots of the world would ruin everything for everyone else, much like that movie The Book of Eli.
Now granted, if there was a Pedophile, and it was a choice between them looking at CP or abusing a child themself, CP is better. But to get CP, a child must be abused. That is not right. An child who has not fully developed can not make an informed choice against someone who is.
There is room for improvement, we need support available where a Pedophile can come forward for help without being scared of being put in jail. Better to get help than to prey on children undetected. Alternative therapies like Cartoon CP where there are no actual victims (I dont buy the argument that this will motivate them to act it out, same with video games, it is more like an Outlet instead of) together with support from a psychologist just to make sure they are not part of the monority who would go too far.
Yes there are inconsistant laws across the world that need to be addresses, stat rape, age of consent, teens fooling around, development is not just an age, etc. but to completely legalise CP and make child abuse open slather because some Pedos think that "it's natural" is an absolutely sickening thought. It's not. Get help.
I typed a long post about this but Slashdot ate it. So I'll just leave these links here.
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2841383&cid=39963075
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2972853&cid=40623507
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2865059&cid=40083779
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2631416&cid=38778687
He is completely right. Distribution should be illegal, NOT the possession.
Even this has to be moderated in such a way as to evaluate intent. Otherwise, someone sending evidence to another source could be termed "criminal". In his example of inadvertently capturing an event, how do you get the media to the police without being labelled criminal? What if the police fail to take action because the perpetrator is the Mayor, so you need to send the evidence to the "Press"?
I agree with everything else you state. Laws do not function universally, and can not function universally, when written with ambiguity. The point of "Law" is that it deals with every member of society.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
The classic argument against allowing CP is that it would "create a market", stimulate interest, and lead to more child exploitation.
It's hard to come up with any scientific arguments to support or refute that claim. Even if there is a country that allows CP, there would be too many other cultural variables to draw any meaningful conclusions from their statistics.
I will say this though. If I found a DVD with a murder video on it I wouldn't hesitate to turn it into the police. If I found a DVD with CP on it, I'd be freaking out about not reporting it and allowing the case to go cold, or turning it in and having it taken as a confession. Mere posession of EVIDENCE should not be a crime.
Now, if it were known that I had an extensive collection of murder videos that, IMHO, would be sufficient cause to warrant a wiretap or even a search. I think CP should be handled more like that. You shouldnt' be allowed to make money off it; but you should be allowed to distribute it. Anybody who collects it would be suspicious, and could be wiretapped, searched, etc. The mere posession of it should not be a crime though. It's EVIDENCE of a crime, not a crime in and of itself. If it were known that collecting this stuff gets you on a list, I don't think that would expand the market; but my guess is as good as anybody's.
A few things are certain. Criminalizing posession of evidence damages the relationship between law enforcement and citizens. Criminalizing the posession of bits on a computer makes it waaaay to easy too frame people.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Possession of child porn is not as "strict" a liability as the pirate suggests. Note that the pirate presents no egregious examples of strict liability causing any unjust results. If he has specific reforms to protect the innocent, bring them on and let's discuss them!
I'd rather defend the First Amendment at the gates of filthy adult porn. I see no need to defend the First Amendment at the gates of filthy (child) porn. Kids are just too vulnerable, and we want to minimize the market for it.
If we did what the pirate wants and legalized possession of child porn, you can be sure that the next thing the pirate would want would be the legalization of snuff films.
The pirate is a jerk
actually, MindPrison (864299) is, http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3104517&cid=41280185
Snowden and Manning are heroes.
They infiltrated the gay right movement with PIE.
They've missappropriat technology like TOR intended to improve political freedom.
They kill, maim and destroy lives.
There can be no common cause with pedophiles, they are sick selfish individuals, death by torture is too good for them.
Pirating music and software is killing the industry, but pirating CP causes that industry to thrive.
that's what medical marijuana's all about. People think of the law as a black and white thing that applies equally. It's not. Laws are built so that undesirables can be punished while leaving important people alone. With medical marijuana the rich can safely smoke pot while the poor (who can't afford to doctor shop for a weed card) get popped when they wander into a wealthy neighborhood.
Child Pornography laws will be the same. The haves will use them to keep the riff-raff out of the Internet without screwing with general public. Yeah, occasionally an innocent guy will have his life destroyed, but it won't happen enough to the right kinds of people to matter.
I guess what I'm saying is: Law isn't governed on principle. It's as practical as anything else in the world.
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It simply comes down to this:
Possession of a computer file can be as severely punished as the act of sexually abusing a child.
This is a moral outrage: that the government would have so much disrespect for the horror of child sexual abuse that they would equate it -- in terms of criminal punishment -- to the possession of a computer file on a hard disk.
I know that my conclusion is deeply unpopular, but my sense of morality demands that I must come to this conclusion: Those who advocate severe punishment for the possession (not manufacture) of child pornography are acting immorally. They deny and cheapen the horror of child abuse by equating it to the mere act of clicking a mouse button.
There are many dimensions to this issue: legal, psychological, technical, and so on, and we should debate them all. But for me, this is first and foremost a moral issue. Our governments now say that sexual abuse of a child is equal to clicking a mouse, and therefore they have lost their moral compass.
You obviously were never a teenage boy. Tell me with a straight face that there's no coercion going on there. Teenagers are cruel. There's coercion.
Just the other day, when I ran on the beach, there were a few families with their small children playing naked in the sand.
Must have been European tourists, of course no God-fearing Americans would ever do that, LOL.
But if I'd worn Google glasses, would I be a criminal now?
thegodmovie.com - watch it
That's funny. Where's that huge market for images of children being neglected or children being beaten? Oh, right, you're talking about child *sexual* abuse, the only sort of abuse that's illegal to possess evidence of. Well, yea, I can see it. The second that becomes legal, I'm sure people like you will finally be able to delve into all your wants to possess child sexual abuse photos. Oh, right, it's a special group of people who actually want those types of images and being legal or not has little to do with it. Meanwhile, the sort of people who wants those images now aren't like to change their behavior one way or another if the law suddenly changed. I mean, sure, you go to jail now for possess. But, if it were suddenly legal, do you really think people who were discovered to possess such things wouldn't be shunned, black listed, etc? Ie, either way, isn't your life going to be ruined whether it's through criminal or social punishment?
Which drug market are you speaking about? The perfectly legal, multi-billion pharmaceutical industry or the illegal, multi-billion drug market? Looks to me that legality has little to do with whether its profitable or not per se. Now, the profit-margin might change, but that has has more to do with government intervention, be it protection of patents or all the risks of producing and selling an illegal substance. Meanwhile, things like cigarettes and alcohol are taxed up the wazoo precisely because they're so cheap to make and people are unhappy of their vast scale consumption but realize the futility of actual prohibition.
That leads to my main point, that if drugs weren't banned but commercial sale was, then a lot of people would just grow their own drugs; if anything, such a situation drastically cuts down on the drug market, although it wouldn't do nearly as much for cutting down on drug usage. Then again, when it comes to child sexual abuse images, a lot of images have already been created. If it were suddenly legal to distribute those images, well, there might be such a great supply in itself to drastically cut back on the demand to produce new such abuse videos. Of course, most people wouldn't sexually abuse a child in the first place. And if you cut out the commercial aspect of it, the greedy sickos would be cut out as well. The only people left are the sort who would likely sexually abuse a child regardless, of which I really don't see the legality of the pictures being taken changes a lot directly; it just means the evidence they produce would be more likely to be circulated which probably increases the chances of them being caught.
Yep, I'm sure a closet pedophile priest* is going to run to the cops to alter them of child molestation pictures they downloaded; it's not like the authorities would ask questions like "where did you get this?". Of course, the solution to that anyways would be to make an anonymous image drop for people to upload such images, so that'd remove the whole risk factor of being exposed, be it legal or social repercussions.
On the one hand, it's horrible the ISP was threatened. On the other hand, what is with this "thre
Given most child pornography being produced these days is probably kids sending naked pictures of themselves to each other
Care to prove that?
He didn't say that (intentional) production should be legalized, just possession. Laws against possession of anything are ridiculous, because someone can just mail the offending item to you and suddenly you're a criminal even though you didn't do anything.
So if I am in possession of a Stinger missile and am nicked for the illegal possession of dangerous weapons that is a ridiculous thing to do? If I am in possession of large quantities of sarin gas It's ridiculous to arrest me and charge me for possession of dangerous chemical weapons? If I am in possession of photos and videos of children or trafficked women being brutally tortured and raped by criminal scum that's OK because laws against possession of anything are ridiculous even if making possession of such material illegal gives police leverage then need to force me to tell them who supplied it or even to force my cooperation in stinging the perpetrators? I already had a rather low opinion of Pirate party members and neither you nor this Falkvinge person has done anything to improve it.
The big problem is that "Child Porn" is currently defined so widely that a "baby book" could be considered CP if you had the right judge EVEN IF THE BOOK IS OWNED BY THE PARENTS.
so i would suggest that CP be redefined as Audible or Visual media that
A depicts an minor participating in a sex act (or being abused)
OR is
B Nude or effectively nude AND there is no legitimate Artistic Diagnostic or Historical reason for the media (please note BOTH must be true or this fails)
and i would also add a cutout for a "Witness to a Crime that in good faith surrenders the media for a cost no more than required"
So if somebody wearing GGlasses does see a crime and then sends the feed to the local LEOs he can get paid back for whatever is cost him or if somebody has to give the LEOs a flashcard (since the card is now EVIDENCE) he gets paid for the card.
In any case uploads of the clip to YouTube Premium (or any PPV service) are RIGHT OUT.
Romeo and Juliet situations are a bit squishy.
Any person using FTFY or editing my postings agrees to a US$50.00 charge
So if I am in possession of a Stinger missile and am nicked for the illegal possession of dangerous weapons that is a ridiculous thing to do? If I am in possession of large quantities of sarin gas It's ridiculous to arrest me and charge me for possession of dangerous chemical weapons?
Your examples are not analogous. The missiles and the sarin gas allow you to cause harm to others at some point in the future. With the porn you're talking about evidence of abuse (ignoring the sexting, etc... cases) that has already occurred. It'd be like arresting someone for having pictures of the results of your stinger missile or sarin gas attack. Not something most of us care to see, but it's not obvious how additional harm is being caused by the pictures.
It's actually kind of ironic if you think of it in the bigger crime context. How much easier would most crimes be to prosecute if pictures of them were readily available, yet here we have a case where possession/dissemination of evidence that a crime was committed is itself illegal. The law basically "If you're going to abuse children keep it quiet."
if making possession of such material illegal gives police leverage then need to force me to tell them who supplied it or even to force my cooperation in stinging the perpetrators?
If the person giving you such material is dumb enough to give you any information that can lead back to him, the police don't need your help. And besides, Obstruction of Justice is a crime itself.
I just do not understand why we go after people who pirate CP. While I think CP is wrong, In the music world when you pirate something that (according to the music industry, not me) causes there to be less incentive to produce it. People who pirate CP are reducing the odds of new CP being created. Keep it illegal to make/produce/distribute CP and of course any sexual acts with a child.
So if I am in possession of a Stinger missile and am nicked for the illegal possession of dangerous weapons that is a ridiculous thing to do? If I am in possession of large quantities of sarin gas It's ridiculous to arrest me and charge me for possession of dangerous chemical weapons?
Your examples are not analogous. The missiles and the sarin gas allow you to cause harm to others at some point in the future. With the porn you're talking about evidence of abuse (ignoring the sexting, etc... cases) that has already occurred. It'd be like arresting someone for having pictures of the results of your stinger missile or sarin gas attack. Not something most of us care to see, but it's not obvious how additional harm is being caused by the pictures.
It's actually kind of ironic if you think of it in the bigger crime context. How much easier would most crimes be to prosecute if pictures of them were readily available, yet here we have a case where possession/dissemination of evidence that a crime was committed is itself illegal. The law basically "If you're going to abuse children keep it quiet."
if making possession of such material illegal gives police leverage then need to force me to tell them who supplied it or even to force my cooperation in stinging the perpetrators?
If the person giving you such material is dumb enough to give you any information that can lead back to him, the police don't need your help. And besides, Obstruction of Justice is a crime itself.
Child rapists and killers don't start out as full fledged predators, they start out by fantasising, then they start collecting child porn because fantasizing is not enough, when even the porn doesn't do it any more they start raping kids or kidnapping and torturing them and very often they then kill them to hide their offence. Now tell me again how it is harmless for some pervert to own child porn? How is it productive to let an individual go even though that individual possesses child porn because child porn possession has been 'legalised'? ...as opposed to the current situation when the pervert at the very least becomes an entry in a database of sex offenders and is at a minimum forced to undergo therapy? Child pornography consumption is a stage in the evolution of a pedophile. If I have to choose catching these perverts at the point when they are fantasising about raping children and have legal leverage to lock them up in a therapeutic facility and then be able to keep an eye on them afterwards; or have possession of child porn be declared to be a 'victimless crime', being force to watch them evolve into full fledged predators and being able to do jack shit to stop them until after they have ruined the life of a child I know which I'd choose. Call me square but I'm in favour of preventative measures.
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
Abusing children in any way shape or form is the sign of a severe illness, and should be treated as such. Jail time does not work for these people, mental health diagnosis and treatment is the best possible hope for these people. Producing violent child porn should be a crime, and those responsible for and those vicimized by it should be treated appropratly. For the producers it's and illness, for those abused well its another story.
That being said, i dont think possession of the images themselves should nessiarly be a crime. Unless its blatenly obvious, it can be difficult at times to tell if porn are legal or not, since judging ages can be difficult without ID. There are many websites offering "legal" porn of fresh 18 year olds, but if the picture was taken a day before it's illegal. Somehow in reality i dont think a day is going to make a damn bit of diffrence on how mature someone is when they are willingly in the business of producing porn.
And finally, if you are under the age of 18 and produce a picture of yourself standing in front of a mirror naked or whatever, and it gets out on the internet, Its your own damn fault and no one elses, no matter how old you are (well within reason). no one should be sent to jail for your own stupidity.
Rather than re-typing or cutting and pasting, I'll just link to a few posts from years ago. One of these days, I should compile these, edit them into something truly slick, then just cut-n-paste every time one of these discussions comes up. Oh, well.
Anyway:
On the history of child porn in the U.S. and the fact that it wasn't always illegal (and that society didn't crumble back when it was legal): http://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1178395&cid=27362943
On the fact that some of us recognized these problems a long, long time ago and have been willing to fight for just as long: http://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1178395&cid=27370055
On the mission creep and misuse of child porn laws: http://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1178395&cid=27370283
On the legality of child porn in most countries: http://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1178395&cid=27376399
If Ted Bundy were a pedophile then we would ban all child porn. Since Ted Bundy is not a pedophile we should ban all the porn which produced Ted Bundy's behavior?
I think one critical error that the pro-ban crowd makes is that they assume anyone who views child porn is a psychopath like Ted Bundy. This is under the assumption that because they wouldn't want to view it, what kind of sick twisted person would want to view something like that? They have to be a psychopath to even think about it, but is that necessarily true? You have people who think about raping and murdering women in a fantasy context and you have porn which caters to these people and while you can probably make a correlation that yes many rapists also viewed that kind of porn you cannot blame the porn for making people into rapists.
The reason we cannot blame the porn is because not all consumers are equal. Some consumers have no empathy at all, and no impulse control, just like Ted Bundy. A person like Ted Bundy we all have to be afraid of, and not just if they view child porn but any violent or extreme porn which could provoke them to go on a rampage. Yet we aren't arguing to bane all violent or extreme porn and it probably isn't fair to the vast majority of consumers who aren't Ted Bundy and who wouldn't molest a child or act like a monster.
You have people who have fantasies about cannibalism, murder, rape, it's not just child porn and I don't even think child porn is the worst porn there is, but it's the only porn that gets banned as if it's the one kind of extreme porn which if anyone views it they are guaranteed to go molest a child, it's a logic that doesn't fit with the evidence. You would think that with the birth of the internet that there would be Ted Bundys everywhere by now and they'd be out raping and killing people all over the country but that explosion never happened even though the porn has become more plentiful, more sick, more extreme and violent.
So what exactly is the basis for banning child porn if there is no irrefutable evidence that it causes child molestation? And if you can find evidence that it does then it would logically prove that rape fantasies cause rape and murder fantasies cause murder.
I agree that legalizing the simple possession of child pornography is a defensible position, but I'm kind of on the line as to whether I agree with doing it or not. I think I could make a better case for it than the author though. Most of his concerns could be easily addressed by the reform of existing laws rather than by complete legalization. And I do agree that reform would be a good thing.
But you know, thanks to the internet we have more access to violent porn than ever yet there hasn't been an explosion of Ted Bundys. In fact rapes have gone down and violent crime in general has gone down. Explain?
I want to stop the next Ted Bundy too and I want to prevent rape, murder, torture, just like you do. I just don't think banning any kind of pornography will make a difference. People either have the ability to behave or they don't, they have impulse control or they don't, they have empathy or they don't. If we are dealing with psychopaths then they probably don't have any of that but what if the majority aren't psychopaths?
Why are we locking people up who clearly aren't psychopaths? If they aren't psychopaths how do you know they are capable of child molestation? It's not like everyone is equally capable. It's like with rape, why assume everyone is equally capable of rape?
You can take two people and put them in bad environments and one could turn into a serial killing rapist and the other could become a priest and the difference would be in the brains of the individuals not the environment. The same could be said about porn, while some people would view child porn or have rape fantasies and ultimately be unable to resist their urge to act on it, the vast majority of people would be able to resist the urge. I'm willing to bed the vast majority of people have had dark fantasies of some sort, or just dangerous thoughts, whether thoughts of murder, rape, torture, or anything else, but we don't condemn them for these thoughts so why do we make a special category for people with pedophile thoughts?
If you can think about killing your wife, your boss, or raping someone, and not get arrested, why should anyone else get arrested for whatever sick violent thought they think about? Creation of child pornography is not merely thinking about it so arrest people who create it but possession is just equal to thinking about it.
Someone who has evidence of child molestation could also be considered an accessory if they don't alert the authorities.
This, a thousand times this!
As you point out in your own post, problem is that someone alerting the authorities to child porn picture is just as likely to be considered an accessory to child molestation. When you report seeing or having received child porn, you are already reporting that you have violated the law.
It would be amusing to take a small, highly illegal image file, strip the 4cc header off the front, and append binary bits to make it a large prime. Use that as the public portion of a public/private keypair, and get a large company or project to widely distribute it as an important public key. Wait a year or two, then expose the key to point out the absurdity of the laws involved.
Of course it wouldn't actually change anything, laws and lawmakers being what they are. It would, however, be funny. Until your mom went to jail for having a legit copy of the key in her browser cache.
Alter Aeon Multiclass MUD - http://www.alteraeon.com
Child rapists and killers don't start out as full fledged predators, they start out by fantasising, then they start collecting child porn because fantasizing is not enough, when even the porn doesn't do it any more they start raping kids or kidnapping and torturing them and very often they then kill them to hide their offence.
I want to drive a Lamborghini. Doesn't mean I'm willing to steal one, but "Greatest Police Chases 142: Exotic Cars" might pique my interest.
What does the above suggest about anyone who consumes your run of the mill hardcore porn? That they're all closet rapists and murderers just waiting for the right time to strike, who just happen not to have an under-18 fetish? Unlikely. What makes some significant portion (all?) of one group the cold blooded animals you speak of and the other Joe Six-pack?
Substitute in some other fetish. Are all the people who enjoy that fetish acting out their fantasies or forcing them upon others? The character Lawrence in the movie Office Space wanted to do "two chicks at the same time". Know anyone like that? Have they had such an encounter yet? If not, have they kidnapped two women yet?
Sometimes I wonder why I bother trying to be a good person when it seems like everyone wants to see me lose my way so they can feel superior.
But it's fine. I don't care what you think or how much you hate me. At least I know that I'm not a monster.
Quite the contrary, there is a fear that if mere possession of evidence that someone ELSE exploited a child is illegal, the child will get no help because anyone who could alert the authorities will be too busy destroying the evidence.
So you aren't worried about the natural outcome of making possession legal? Won't the police then be inundated by all those people secretly living in fear, "destroying" the images they receive now, who will now start reporting all the pictures of sexually abused children they are receiving, to the point the police can't do anything else? Yes, that will happen,. . . when pigs fly.
It often seems that mankind is not so much a rational animal, as a rationalizing animal. You get to see it every time this topic comes up on Slashdot. "Won't someone think of the pedophiles?"
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
Making possession a crime makes it impossible to report it though, which makes it much harder to clean up or investigate.
Hypothetical ; you accidentally download some CP from a newsgroup devoted to adult images. Under the current regime, you dare not report it, because you're confessing to a criminal offence that will lose you your job and have the locals oust you from your home with torches and pitchforks.
Being placed on the sex offenders register in some jurisdictions condemns you to exile ; in Miami you'll have to live in a tent under a bridge. But you can get on the register for consensual acts with your 17 year old girlfriend. Or accidentally downloading a few hundred kilobytes. Which hardly seems just.
Presumably the police who investigate these things need special dispensation to even collect evidence. Which is itself a terrible thing, because the police should not be exempt from the laws they are trying to enforce - it sets a bad example.
If you had no fear of possessing the stuff accidentally, you'd have no compunction about reporting it, and it would be far less common to encounter it accidentally.
Presumably the police who investigate these things need special dispensation to even collect evidence.
Even more interesting case - the people who police search engines and sites like 4chan. They get notified that someone has marked something inappropriate, so they can't even claim they downloaded it accidentally.
There could still be laws against profiting from child abuse, but the drug market has proved that where there is money to be made there will be supply.
Though to be entirely clear, the money in the CP trade isn't actually money - it is more CP. It's a quid-pro-quo that ensures that cops have a harder time infiltrating the ring, and makes sure that everyone involved gets more material.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
The solution is simple. De-criminalize the possession of child porn if it is turned over to police within a reasonable amount of time.
Yes, Mr Anal-Retentive, someone did say that child exploitation is not necessarily bad. Sometimes, "everyone" is used as a short-hand for "everyone except persons X, Y, Z, group 1, cults 1234-5757 and my dog, Bob". And that's not a bad thing.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
We are talking about the people who possess it, which is an entirely different matter. Possession of child pornography has never been evidence that a person is a child molester or even that the person is a threat to children. Production of child pornography involves raping a child, and so there can be little question that producers pose a threat to children.
Historically, child pornography possession was made illegal as part of an effort to fight its production. At the time, people had to buy their child pornography, through shady connections. The producers (i.e. child rapists) were hard to find, and for obvious reasons: they are organized, they are mobile, and they are secretive about what they do. As a strategy to protect children from these rapists, it made sense to put pressure on the distribution chain and ultimately on the people at the ends of that chain, the consumers, to reduce the demand for child pornography. The courts agreed with that when the law was challenged.
Today, things are substantially different. Child pornography is easily found on the Internet, just by entering some not-hard-to-guess code words (and those are not hard to learn, if you are not educated enough to guess them). It is easy to come into possession of child pornography without paying for it, trading for it, or creating it yourself. The situation has changed, and the strategy must change with that situation, assuming that goal is still to protect children (but chances are that the goal has shifted too).
So do not defend the producers of child pornography, because if you spent even one hour looking at the evidence in child pornography cases, you would be scarred for life. The people who produce that material are torturing children, plain and simple. They deserve no sympathy, and I hope they are caught and imprisoned. The people collecting that material are another story; only those who can be shown to have paid for it or otherwise directly encouraged its production should be charged with any crime.
Palm trees and 8
Almost every other post here claims, implicitly or explicitly, that fantasies help people avoid bad actions, through a kind of 'harmless replacement' mechanism. But this is utterly false. Actual research has continuously contradicted this idea, showing that people use fantasies to work themselves up over time: that a consistent, escalating pattern of fantasy almost inevitably proceeds actual rapes, molestations, etc.
In the more mundane world of anger management, it has long been understood that acting out to blow off steam, perhaps by punching a punching bag or shouting when no one is around, does not actually release anger, but builds and reinforces cognitive patterns.
A similar dynamic of escalating ideation over time has long been acknowledged as part and parcel of most suicides attempted and committed.
In short: sustained perverse ideation leads directly, over time, to perverse action.
So despite the tragic miscarriages of justice related to CP law, and despite the importance of free speech, this debate is all built on straw if you do not realize the basic reason for banning these _depictions_: because fantasies aren't actually as harmless as we all wish they were.
So nudist images of kids create a huge demand for that material, much of which has been criminalized in the last 20 years? Wrong.
Legalized possession of images of child abuse allows a market for such things to grow larger that it would be otherwise, creating a demand for more child abuse. There could still be laws against profiting from child abuse, but the drug market has proved that where there is money to be made there will be supply.
Which idiots modded you "insightful" ?
Markets, by definition, have two orthogonal axes - demand and supply. You believe that more supply will create more demand, but very few markets work that way. What generally happens is that prices drop.
People don't eat more bread just because you bake more of it. Hollywood can produce twice as many movies and I'm quite sure that movie sales would not change all that much in total. The amount of music sold does not seem to depend on the number of bands that make it.
What the drug market proves is that making something illegal does not wipe out demand. So how do you come to the conclusion that the opposite works?
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
The law basically "If you're going to abuse children keep it quiet."
Joining the catholic church also helps a lot. Let's not ignore in all this hysteria that the vast majority of child abuse does not originate with strangers looking for more material for their kiddie porn collection. Most culprits are known to the victim and often very close. Family members are the largest group, priests and other persons of implicit trust the second largest.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
A more fundamental problem is the blanket assumption of inevitable, dreadful harm which is supposed to result from the most trivial of alleged sexual events involving a "child" (= anyone under 18).
The blanket term "child abuse" now covers a huge range of vastly different activities and yet the law and academics refuse to dissect out key differentiating factors affecting outcomes: whether the child was forced/threatened (eg) or whether the child understood and wanted the non-violent activity (eg fondling). Google Rind et al to see what happens to any researcher who tries to analyze contextual factors in a way that indicates when harm occurs and when it does not. People just cannot consider the "does not" part in their heads and will go to extreme lengths to re-conflate all this diverse behavior back under one simple, damning heading: illegal child abuse! Irrational, emotive, puritanical moral panic.
But may be a good deal less *illegal*. You know, somewhere between "illegal parking" and "selling Class A drugs to minors".
Heck, many mammals will, in times of extreme stress, eat their newborn.
And their molesting is a way for them to show themselves they are no longer a victim.
So it's rather more likely that the OP talking about how they were molested is a molester themselves.
Child rapists and killers don't start out as full fledged predators, they start out by fantasising, then they start collecting child porn because fantasizing is not enough, when even the porn doesn't do it any more they start raping kids or kidnapping and torturing them and very often they then kill them to hide their offence.
Are you a psychologist or a child rapist, to make bold statements like that?
On a philosophical level, guns and bullets are just atoms. If a dude points a gun at you, he's only pointing atoms at your head! If he pulls the trigger, he's just putting some extra atoms in your body. If he was a doctor and you needed a medical implant, you'd pay him to do that! Why the double standard?!?!?!?!?!?
Because context matters, obviously. If the law criminalizes the possession of evidence of a crime, then that law is broken and should be changed. There's a huge bloody leap from there to "child porn should be legal to possess in all circumstances".