Slashdot Mirror
Utah Bill Would Require IT Workers To Report Child Porn (ksl.com)
Mr.Intel writes: A Utah lawmaker wants computer technicians to face jail time if they don't immediately report child pornography they discover on someone's computer. The proposal would require computer technicians to report child pornography to law enforcement or a federal cyber tip line if they encounter the material, but they would not be required to go searching for it. If they find it and don't report it, they could be given up to six months in jail and a $1,000 fine. It would mirror laws already on the books in at least 12 other states, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
The summary does say the professional is required to report it IF THEY ENCOUNTER IT, but are not required to search for it. In other words, if in the process of doing work on a computer he/she discovers it (see is and knows what it is) and doesn't report it... that is a crime.
It is a law that would be nearly impossible to enforce.
A law requiring the automatic dismissal from employment of any police officer in Utah who fails to report criminal conduct by colleagues to the local district attorney.
I was under the impression that it was wrong to dig through a customer's files without reason, and possibly in-itself illegal to do so, even if it is a widespread practice.
To me, this strikes of a feel-good, circle-jerk law. Computer service technicians are already going to make such a report if they find child pornography to be abhorrent, and there isn't a good mechanism for identifying who opened or looked at a file long after service was performed or even who had custody of the computer at that time. Unless a computer is seized and investigators manage to connect-the-dots right after it's serviced I don't see this law ever being applied. Instead by passing this law that won't ever do anything it makes the legislature feel warm-and-fuzzy and gives them the ability to tell their constituents that they did something, when in reality they did effectively nothing.
The bigger worry is that this may give muddy the ability to prosecute the owner/user of the computer. If the computer was serviced and if time/date stamps indicate that the files were accessed while in the care of that outside business, the defendant that owns the computer might be able to claim that he wasn't the one that put the files there, but that the person(s) that serviced it did, as the timestamps match that time when the computer was not in the owner's control. If the case against the defendant is strongly reliant on these files that case might be irreparably damaged. If the prosecution brings up that timestamps can be changed, then the defendant could use that to further make a point that the computer professional (ie, the service tech) would be in a better position to manipulate timestamps than the ignorant user (ie, the defendant) such that the history of the files themselves is completely unverifiable.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
why would anyone NOT want to report it?
They're using their grammar skills there.
I was doing a PC refresh project at a local hospital when my coworker transferred user data from the old PC to the network when he noticed some odd file names flashing on the status window. After the transfer got done, he checked the file names and discovered that the files contained child pornography. He informed the I.T. director, who informed security. That started a very uncomfortable process for everyone involved.
Security did a recorded interview with the coworker and I.T. director in the presence of the hospital legal counsel. Security then confiscated the hard drive from the old PC and the new PC from the desk without any notice to the employee. The employee freaked out for three days straight because he didn't have his computer with the incriminating content, couldn't do his job, and everyone from his management to I.T. to security couldn't tell him anything. Nothing screams like guilt than someone screaming, crying and running in the back hallways for hospital staff. He was quietly removed from his job as a tax accountant without the incident hitting the newspapers or landing in court.
The last thing the hospital wanted was a child pornography scandal just before the annual fundraiser.
In practice this is a minor and pointless change - almost anyone who sees evidence of child pornography will already be inclined to report it voluntarily if given an easy and anonymous way to do it.
The real point of the law is to strengthen the idea that people in non-law enforcement professions can be forced into acting as police. Next, teachers who hear students talk about violence are forced to report the student to the authorities. Librarians who lend out books about Islamic extremism must notify DHS.
It's a path to curtail civil liberties, and of course it starts with child pornography. Because who's for child abuse?
HR: Please complete your mandatory child pornography identification training before the end of the month .. if you get prosecuted, then you might sue us because we hadn't given you the required training to meet the legal requirements of you job. .. OK .. what does this training consist of?
Worker Bee: What?!?!?! Why do I have to do that?
HR: Because if you don't complete your training and you encounter child pornography and don't report then you could be subject to prosecution
WB: So I have to know what child pornography looks like, so that if I "accidentally" look at some image or video I will recognize it.
HR: Yep
WB: and if I don't?
HR: There'll be other consequence.
WB: Like what?
HR: Well
HR: And we can only employ fully trained staff.
HR: You do want to stay on staff don't you?
HR: So it's a win-win for everyone if you do the training.
WB: *sigh*
HR: Looking at child pornography.
WB: How the fuck is that even legal?
HR: Don't worry, all your training will be given through an FBI approved course.
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
Imagine you're an IT professional, and you report your client for having what turns out to be (after the court case) harmless pictures of his children, maybe get your ass fired. Or perhaps you don't report it because they seem like harmless pictures, then you end up spending half a year in jail with a nice, no-more-jobs-for-you criminal record.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
why would anyone NOT want to report it?
Blackmail for one.
If God forks the Universe every time you roll a die, he'd better have a damned good memory.
I'm looking forward to some poor sap in Utah going to jail because they didn't report a pic of a 17 year old girl. What happens if it's her laptop and she forgets something? The potential for abuse is epic, and prosecutes are always happy to put another notch in their belt.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
why would anyone NOT want to report it?
Possession of child pornography is a crime with severe penalties. The justice system does not care about how you acquired it. If a client hands you a laptop to repair that contains child porn, at the moment of transfer you become a criminal without even knowing it. Why roll the dice on the human decency of the local prosecutor by letting law enforcement know you are in violation?
why would anyone NOT want to report it?
Maybe for the same reason why they wouldn't want to report evidence of witchcraft if they encountered that?
Personally, I'd only report it if the owner was a right-wing politician, a judge in bed with shady building contractors, or a forensic expert bragging on facebook about his fondness for the Microsoft Digital Crimes Unit.
Incidences like this have and always will be about selective enforcement. There are a plenty of laws on the book, which people violate every day. It is just a matter of who gets prosecuted.
Back in the 1990's, one of the Kennedy's was accused of having sex with his kid's babysitter. For a while, this became a news story, only to disappear into the background.
When the government wants to make a example out of you, they just fabricate evidence to frame you. Look at Nixon and the case of the pumpkin papers. Evidence will be planted to make you look bad. This is especially useful against dissidence and anyone who disagrees with the state. After all, if you are not for us, you are for the "enemy".
In addition to other comments, I will add this unpopular but absolutely true fact:
What constitutes child porn is subjective. The laws that define it require an opinion when the facts are tried. Some people think that a picture of a naked kid in a tub is child porn, while others think it is a cute picture of the sort that normal parents commonly take. The law in many states require that someone determine obscenity based on some vague notion of "the standards of the community," which are impossible to determine objectively and are impossible for any small group of people to know anyway (since none of them are personally acquainted with every member of "the community," and all their opinions will still differ).
So, rather than ruin someone's life by making an accusation based on pictures that may very well not qualify as porn (since the accusation implies guilt in the minds of most, there is no clearing one's name once the accusation is made), it is easier (and safer) to just ignore it (when it is in that gray area).
Requiring people to make that judgment on pain of jail time will just increase the number of people prosecuted who are actually innocent.
And also, people might not know that their hard drive is being used as a proxy for porn archiving and distribution by criminals (or they may be victimized by Anonymous members putting the porn there just to incriminate them), but the law holds them guilty anyway. In my opinion, the law is wrong to do that, and I would feel like I was complicit in injustice if I accused someone of harboring porn that they didn't even know about. But this law makes me a criminal for not perpetuating that injustice.
Maybe they don't like the concept of thoughtcrime.
May we live long and die out
Do we have to report cartoons too? What about furry hentai? Does a cartoon drawing of an anthropomorphic animal boy being forced to suck the tentacle of a squid monster equal child porn?
I'm pretty sure those making that bill have never been into the dark corners of teh IntarWeb.
If a person finds a collection of child porn, they should of course do the right thing. Having said that, I would think about a couple of things before calling the cops.
I would think about the guy who spent a couple of months in jail amd nearly spent years in prison over a DVD with 19-year old Lupe Fuentes. Lupe was a popular porn star ten years ago, with a wikipedia page about her, etc. A doctor and a police investigator both testified that the model in the video was "definitely" under age, when a five-second Google search would have told them she was 19 when that video was made.
The model, flew out to Puerto Rico to show her driver's license amd passport to the court, yet the defendant still was not released right away. I would not want to initiate a situation like that. Remember the doctor thought she was definitely underage, so I could make the same mistake.
I might also respond differently to finding a large, organized collection pf 8-10 year olds than I would to one picture that appeared to be about fifteen or sixteen. I imagine there might be some situation in which I would simply remind the person that child porn is felony carrying a hefty prison sentence, so they shouldn't go anywhere near it, or anything that might look like possible child porn.
Would you bet your freedom on it? In this day and age? For that crime?
There is no sense and logic in laws concerning sex, drugs and copyright. They are not based in logic but in the three most basic human emotions: Anger, fear and greed.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
That doesn't sound right. I reported a felony exactly two weeks ago and an officer just handed me a witness statement form. Filled it out, went down to the station to hand it in. Took about 20 minutes.
I think that is probably representative of what normally happens, BUT of course people who have done nothing wrong can still be afraid of law enforcement, and law enforcement DO have the authority to lock up witnesses, there are some legitimate uses for detaining, AND law enforcement departments sometimes abuse that power.
I might have to testify if it goes to trial someday, but I think it's more likely they'll just plea.
This is the other thing.... if you're a small business owner, for example, and you start needing to take totalling days or weeks off to appear for depositions, and investigator interviews, and as a witness in court; this can cost you a heck of a lot of money, money which you won't be reimbursed for by the defendant or anyone else.
Or as an employee it can cost you paid or unpaid leave time ---- which can mean suddenly you cannot pay your rent, or for transportation or other basic necessities.
This is also one of the reasons people don't want to take on jury duty or go to court to fight a small lawsuit or traffic ticket, and will essentially accept default guilt..... pay a $50 ticket, versus take a couple days off work, and possibly put your job at risk while losing much much more in wages.
Case in point, I know a guy who ended up with "something" on his computer (he never actually was officially informed about what exactly that "something" was supposed to be, even after the trial). He ended up being convicted, despite our child porn law saying that it is an offence only if you knowingly and deliberately possess it, which was not the case. As proof for the "knowing and deliberate" part, the judge simply used the fact that the guy was a computer professional, and a professional just knows whatever is going on in his computer...
Yeah right. If someone goes around with pictures of child porn taped to their car, everyone who sees the car drive by is a criminal. If you think that is how it works you are a dumbass.
Unfortunately, in many places, this is indeed how it works. But fortunately, the car owner goes to jail too (and will get a higher penalty for being a distributor), discouraging any such "pranks".
But beware of cases where the owner of the metaphorical "car" cannot be easily determined. MAFIAA supporters has been know to booby trap music and movie files in peer-to-peer networks to contain child porn just in order to get downloaders into bigger trouble than mere copyright infringment...
Which is why the appeals court exists.
By which time the defendant has likely used up all resources and funds; we've reached the point where the process is the punishment and, with respect to child port, the accusation is the conviction.
It's really only a matter of time before political enemies start throwing this around and we see random (read: republican) politicians eliminated. cf. Circle, The.