The FBI ws already looking at stuff that would have prevented the 9-11 attacks, quite possibly.
They were stopped from investigating because Bush, ordered investigators to back off from inquiries into Saudi financing of terrorism, particularly Saudi Royalty.
Clinton did his bit to protect the Saudis, too, and it was all largely done to protect the oil flow into the US.
Monitor the politicians. They're the ones that fsk things up with their shady dealings.
"That is why I advocate giving politicos as little power as is necessary."
Well we agree on something, then.:)
Though I have to say my preference would be a system where they're given as wide an oppurtuity for corruption as possibe, with very harsh penalties when they inevitably succumb. >:o)
More of the usual (evidence you've decided is invalid, for reasons best known to yourself.)
It wasn't a coinflip/stalemate election, when tens of thousands of black and poor white Democrat voters were deliberately prevented from voting.
Sure, their barring turns it into a coinflip/stalemate election: but only after illegal vote-rigging!
Jeez!
The other examples you cite to dismiss this evidence, are small change by comparison, and you (I'm almost tempted to say, deliberately) underestimate the huge impact this type of rigging had.
Well, it would be interesting to know exactly what is going on behind the scenes.
All the letter says is that, "The bill [is] motivated by the request of the former party in power," and doesn't detail any possible (maybe that should be probable) shennanigans going on behind closed doors.
DBT said that they were deliberately instructed by Jed bush's office to make the databases only 90% accurate. They also said that they were also, slightly later told to make them only 80% accurate.
Here's a quote from "The Best Democracy Money Can Buy:"
"How could ChoicePoint (DBT's parent company) such an expert outfit, do such a horrendous job, without complaint from their client (The State of Florida?) You'd think their client, the state, ordered them to get it wrong.
"They did...ChoicePoint vice president James Lee called us at the BBC's London studios with the first hint that the state of Florida instructed the company to give them the names of innocents. The state, he said, "wanted there to be more names than were actually verified as being a convicted felon." What an extraordinary statement."
"Lee said [to the McKinney panel] the state had given DBT the truly insane directive to add to the purge list people who matched 90% of a last name - If "Anderson" committed a crime, "Andersen" lost his vote. DBT objected, knowing this would sweep in a huge number of innocents. The state then went further and ordered DBT to shift to an 80% match. it was programmed in inaccuracy... ...felon Thomas Clarence could knock off Clarence Thomas. Middle initials were skipped..."
Correct the list? Remove those "not a felon"? The state, says DBT, told the company, Forget about it."
Also racial matches ensured that only black voters were knocked off the voting lists.
Race was treated as a verifier; racial matches were "proof" that the right person had been named. Therfore a black felon named Willie Whiting wiped out the registration of an innocent Willie Witing (Black) but not the rights of an innocent Will Whiting (White.)
Jed Bush also saw how the voting machines could be set to accept or reject "spoilt" ballots, before they were installed.
That's just the tiniest thread of a patchwork of evidence contained in 80 pages of Palast's investigation; it's far more complicated than I can easily summise here.
What went on with DBT (Data Base technologies) was the wiping of tens of thousands of Democrat voters off the electoral list. At Jed Bush's instruction, by all accounts.
It was not a statistical tie.
The last election was way more fraudulent than others, and was achieved with the use of spiked databases (and spiked voting machines.)
40,000 Democrat votes wrongly dismissed by a Republican administration, in an election where the Rebublicans "won" by 537, is hardly nitpicking.
YOU dismiss the serious evidence because you like which way the cookie crumbled.
George W Bush was elected on database innacuracy that barred thousands of eligible voters from being able to vote because of a deliberately screwed up and un-verified database.
It meant people whose names were similar to those of felons were barred from voting.
In addition, the Florida State said, quite illegally that those people's names and those with similar names to, felons from states where their voting privelliges are restored upon exiting their jail time, were also included, despite this being entirely illegal, at the behest of Jed Bush.
The book "The Best Democracy Money Can Buy" by Greg Palast (that I'm just reading now) details the way the database was used to strike off tens of thousands of eligible, mostly black and poor white (and therefore Democrat supporting) voters.
The margin of Bush's fraudulent victory, was 537.
The least number of persons eligible to vote that were prevented from voting, illegally and by the use of unverified data in deliberately manipulated databases, was 40,000.
90% of these voters were Democrats.
The database company is selling it's means to other states for future elections (and it's all heavily Rupublican owned.)
I'll also add that the automatic voting machines in black areas (25% + African American) had their "spoiled ballots swallowed by the machines, whereas in the white areas (Less than 5% African Americans) the machines were set to return the erronious ballot paper for user correction. Not that it's entirely relevant to the discussion, but it wiped off tens of thousands of more votes.
Deliberately innacurate, unverified database use, funded and operated by Republicans got you Dubya, illegally and fraudulently.
It will probably get you a Republican president next election, it seems, also illegitimately elected.
Terrorist bombing and crime, or Government fascism and control?
We want freedom and security from both. But the government is effectvely taking away the threat of terrorists et al. (or at lest making the claim that they are) while ramping up the threat from themselves.
Personally, I'm not sure there's that much difference between a terorist blowing you up, or suffocating in a police stranglehold.
Whether it terrorists or a fascist State, the result is the same: the people live in fear.
These surveillance laws are really there to monitor the general public. Any terrorist or competent evil-doer, will evade the survillance and go about doing their thing, without any increased chance of being noticed (because of these laws.)
This is what makes me think these laws really are a breach of out human rights: that they are unrealistic in their claims to be about monitoring for terrorist activity.
They impinge upon our right to free association (the chilling effect upon that,) and our right to not be subject to indiscriminate monitoring; just because an official doesn't look at the data until someone requests it, does not mean you're not being monitored all the time.
The war on Iraq/Terrorism is to uphold our freedoms...and to that end, we're taking away your freedoms!
We have left the Silicon Age. We are now entering the Satire Age: where life becomes satire.
I thought it was stuck in second gear for the first 15 episodes (largely) and then in the episode where Chianna arrived, it suddenly kicked in, and got better and better, continually surprising and thrilling, up until around the end of season 3, where it started to lose its balance.
The rough-patch continued into season 4 and then it started picking up again around the time Crichton got the skinny on wormholes.
In other words, I guess, I think you're entirely wrong.:o/
Well, in the UK, you can get flat rate on your land line (if you make sure to re-dial every hour.)
We've never had to pay for incoming calls, either land line or mobile. Infact, that you accept this over the pond, is astounding.
We don't pay for recieved SMS.
We don't have a monopoly in the "cell" (as you quaintly call them) phone market.
To summarise: we don't have a monopoly, and don't pay to recieve calls (or SMS.)
You guys are being ripped off. Start a protest campaign or something!
Re:GWB is a tool.
on
Strike on Iraq
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Here here.
And here is my Bush bash:
Right-wing Texan Fundementalist Christian on a Crusade; an alcoholic, coke-raddled, chimp IQ'ed, dupe of the even more rabid and dangerous Cheyney and Rumsfeld, who've been slavvering for a war for a decade.
I wonder if Georgey-boy (the "W" stands for Warmonger) used his Christian "affiliations" to peddle a moral crusade to Poodle-boy Blair?
Whatever they're really thinking (and I believe Rumsfeld is on the record as saying that this is just the start of America's vision for converting the the world as it now is, into one more befitting his (no doubt divine) vision,) this is the end of the UN, and the end of the rule of law.
Hell, the fella was even pressing for the use of chemical weapons ("calmatives," pepper spray and CS Gas - all banned under International Law) because when the US wants to do something, it's OK, and the White House only has the best intentions, yada yada.
This is a return to "Might Is Right," and George with his Born Again Christian moral certitude, is the greatest threat to peace and stability in this age.
The greatest damage that will take place because of this invasion of Iraq, will not be the thousands killed, or those whose lives are devistated by the effects of dispersed particles of Depleted Uranium, for generations to come, it will be the damage that is caused to what constitutes lawful behaviour by nation states against other nation states for... well, who knows for how long.
George has pissed the good will and sympathy the US had after 9-11, up the wall, and damn him that. Damn him for all his deluded visions of himself as Churchill, and damn him for deluding (apparently) a good proportion of the US public, with the help of his corrupt media friends.
And people wonder how Nazi fucking Germany got it's people all singing from the same hymn sheet: name an enemy, lie and lie and lie about them, and go in for the kill, for the protection of the people.
I have to say I think it's insane to call a photograph of a 17 year old engaged in sexual activity, child pornography and both undermines the meaning of what should be considered child pornography and of course criminalises people who are not paedophiles, or abusing anyone.
I know you didn't write the law, and you certainly don't have to defend it, but I think this sort of heavy-handed puritanical law is quite unjust.
I was just reading about a child who had an image of his face placed on that of a female body having sex with a male. It was placed on a website, and the victim informed.
While it certainly caused some distress and embarassment, those that perpetrated the act, instead of being slapped on the wrist (or punished by the school for bullying) for their childhood prank, were convicted with Pandering Obscenity of a Minor (2nd degree felony).
The law seems quite ridiculous, and unjust; the potential for unduely severe consequences on a person for just having a photo of a 16 year old having a shag, being tarnished with the label of paedophile (if you accept the logic that "child porn" posession = paedophile, which I think a lot of people do) and all the horrific stigma that such a label would bring upon a person, seems to transgress both fairness and proportionality
I guess it's both funny and astounding that you can legally have photographs of 14 year olds in a gangbang in Germany, while still being considered a normal, tax-paying, member of society , but in both the UK and US, you'd be branded an evil satanical paedophile, and driven out of your neighbourhood by angry locals with pitchforks, quicker than you can say kiddyfiddling.
Most people I think, think of the term "child pornography" as being more than an abstract legal definition. I mean, how many 17 year old girls have you met in the last decade that were anything remotely like a child?
Maybe they should rename such material depicting persons between the age of 15 and 18, "teen porn?"
But then I suppose that wouldn't have quite the same disapproval vale as "child porn."
"M'lud, the defendant is charged with the posession of teen porn."
I think your argument has many merits, but your definition of what constitutes "child pornography" is flawed.
As far as I'm aware, and I speak as merely a member of the human race here, and not a lawyer (are the two mutually exclusive?... I don't know) a photograph of a naked child is not "child pornography," "kiddie porn" or whatever.
If that were true, then there would be parents who've taken photographs of their children in the bath, naked on the beach or running around in the garden who were by that definition child pronographers.
H&M, an old (now defunct?) naturist magazine regularly showed pictures of persons under the age of 18 in a state of undress, and was on sale, legally, in British newsagents up and down the country, for many years.
If this was seen by the law as KP (as I believe it is sometimes quaintly known) then you can bet there would have been dawn raids on every newspaper shop in the UK. This didn't happen.
Also artists such as Balthus, would have found themselves in court, for creating works that could perhaps, at least, be called "child erotica" (there is no actual sexual activity in his paintings, but frequently "suggestive" poses, and allusions to sexuality.)
Child Pornography involves children engaging in sexual activity with other children or adults, which is then recorded. It's not just a 3 year old runing up the garden, naked as the day he was born, to his mother's camera, grinning like a maniac, on a summer's day.
Real Child pornography is not about a social norm being transgressed, although some hard-liners like the people in Kidscape, I believe, define child abuse as having sex with someone under the age of 16, here in the UK; a declaration that certain countries and cultures on the continent and elsewhere throughout the world, are populated by child abusers because of their lower ages of consent.
Of course such a position is somewhat fanatical and isn't worth much of a second thought.
Real child abuse involves events that are traumatic and have an immense impact on people's lives. It always involves the abuse of power, the taking advantage of and manipulation of someone who is less informed, and less able to understand that they are not acting in their own interests. These people are called children.
This is why there are laws concerning the age of consent, both in sexual activity, and appearing in pornography: to protect the vulnerable.
That in The Netherlands, a 16 year old can be shown involved in a gangband with a dozen men, and the same is illegal in the US, is not the issue.
That a four year old is shown being raped in it's anus, is. I do not believe that this is a cultural issue; it is a humanitarian one.
Here's a possibly more coherent version of the story:
Appellate Court Rules Media Can Legally Lie.
By Mike Gaddy
Published 02. 28. 03 at 19:31 Sierra Time
On February 14, a Florida Appeals court ruled there is absolutely nothing illegal about lying, concealing or distorting information by a major press organization. The court reversed the $425,000 jury verdict in favor of journalist Jane Akre who charged she was pressured by Fox Television management and lawyers to air what she knew and documented to be false information. The ruling basically declares it is technically not against any law, rule, or regulation to deliberately lie or distort the news on a television broadcast.
On August 18, 2000, a six-person jury was unanimous in its conclusion that Akre was indeed fired for threatening to report the station's pressure to broadcast what jurors decided was "a false, distorted, or slanted" story about the widespread use of growth hormone in dairy cows. The court did not dispute the heart of Akre's claim, that Fox pressured her to broadcast a false story to protect the broadcaster from having to defend the truth in court, as well as suffer the ire of irate advertisers.
Fox argued from the first, and failed on three separate occasions, in front of three different judges, to have the case tossed out on the grounds there is no hard, fast, and written rule against deliberate distortion of the news. The attorneys for Fox, owned by media baron Rupert Murdock, argued the First Amendment gives broadcasters the right to lie or deliberately distort news reports on the public airwaves. [emphasis mine]
In its six-page written decision, the Court of Appeals held that the Federal Communications Commission position against news distortion is only a "policy," not a promulgated law, rule, or regulation.
Fox aired a report after the ruling saying it was "totally vindicated" by the verdict.
Dude, Fox News, recently fought and won a court case arguing that it had a constitutional right to deliberately and purposefully lie to it's viewers.
The issue was regarding lies it told about some hormone they put in US milk, and The Murdoch Evil Empire, claimed it had free speech protection to deliberately distort the facts it reported to it's viewers.
That's not my definition of an admirable job, and I doubt it's yours either.
Here's the story:
Hidden Danger in Your Milk?
JURY VERDICT OVERTURNED ON LEGAL TECHNICALITY
Welcome to the online news source for anyone who drinks milk or consumes other dairy products and depends on the news media to report suspected health concerns accurately and honestly.
Here you will find behind-the-scenes details about how a large share of America's milk supply has quietly become adulterated with the effects of a synthetic hormone (bovine growth hormone, or BGH) secretly injected into cows...and how pressure from the hormone maker Monsanto led Fox TV to fire two of its award-winning reporters and sweep under the rug much of what they discovered but were never allowed to broadcast.
After a five-week trial and six hours of deliberation which ended August 18, 2000, a Florida state court jury unanimously determined that Fox "acted intentionally and deliberately to falsify or distort the plaintiffs' news reporting on BGH." In that decision, the jury also found that Jane's threat to blow the whistle on Fox's misconduct to the FCC was the sole reason for the termination... and the jury awarded $425,000 in damages which makes her eligible to apply for reimbursement for all court costs, expenses and legal fees.
Fox appealed and prevailed February 14, 2003 when an appeals court issued a ruling reversing the jury, accepting a defense argument that had been rejected by three other judges on at least six separate occasions. for more details on latest ruling.to view how Fox13 reported the ruling. The whistle-blowing journalists, twice refused Fox offers of big-money deals to keep quiet about what they knew, filed their landmark lawsuit April 2, 1998 and survived three Fox efforts to have their case summarily dismissed.
It is the first time journalists have used a whistleblower law to seek a legal remedy for being fired by for refusing to distort the news. Steve and Jane are now considering an appeal to the Florida state Supreme Court.
The journalists happen to be married to each other and this website, created by their friend and former television news producer Jon Duffey, was posted on the day the whistleblower suit was filed. It continues to provide details of the suit and subsequent appeals, as well as recent developments regarding rBGH and other genetically engineered foods.
On a related note, you might like to read this article in Wired, documenting very much your position, and that of many other US Citizens, it would seem.
""It's a no-brainer. Anything which lets people pirate more music like this has to be very bad news for the music industry," says a spokesman for Britain's record industry trade association, the BPI."
Because consumer copying, now equals piracy...
...even if you've bought the original music you're transferring.
AOL (yes I use AOL and I don't care what you have to say on that subject) has on their exit screen an advert for the MusicNet thing.
It says:
"MusicNet on AOL: Burn CDs safely and legally with satisfaction guaranteed."
Erm... since when was burning a CD illegal... or risky (assuming low burn speeds?)
Slashdot Mirror
They were stopped from investigating because Bush, ordered investigators to back off from inquiries into Saudi financing of terrorism, particularly Saudi Royalty.
Clinton did his bit to protect the Saudis, too, and it was all largely done to protect the oil flow into the US.
Monitor the politicians. They're the ones that fsk things up with their shady dealings.
Well we agree on something, then. :)
Though I have to say my preference would be a system where they're given as wide an oppurtuity for corruption as possibe, with very harsh penalties when they inevitably succumb. >:o)
It wasn't a coinflip/stalemate election, when tens of thousands of black and poor white Democrat voters were deliberately prevented from voting.
Sure, their barring turns it into a coinflip/stalemate election: but only after illegal vote-rigging!
Jeez!
The other examples you cite to dismiss this evidence, are small change by comparison, and you (I'm almost tempted to say, deliberately) underestimate the huge impact this type of rigging had.
All the letter says is that, "The bill [is] motivated by the request of the former party in power," and doesn't detail any possible (maybe that should be probable) shennanigans going on behind closed doors.
OK.
DBT said that they were deliberately instructed by Jed bush's office to make the databases only 90% accurate. They also said that they were also, slightly later told to make them only 80% accurate.
Here's a quote from "The Best Democracy Money Can Buy:"
"How could ChoicePoint (DBT's parent company) such an expert outfit, do such a horrendous job, without complaint from their client (The State of Florida?) You'd think their client, the state, ordered them to get it wrong.
"They did...ChoicePoint vice president James Lee called us at the BBC's London studios with the first hint that the state of Florida instructed the company to give them the names of innocents. The state, he said, "wanted there to be more names than were actually verified as being a convicted felon." What an extraordinary statement."
"Lee said [to the McKinney panel] the state had given DBT the truly insane directive to add to the purge list people who matched 90% of a last name - If "Anderson" committed a crime, "Andersen" lost his vote. DBT objected, knowing this would sweep in a huge number of innocents. The state then went further and ordered DBT to shift to an 80% match. it was programmed in inaccuracy...
...felon Thomas Clarence could knock off Clarence Thomas. Middle initials were skipped..."
Correct the list? Remove those "not a felon"? The state, says DBT, told the company, Forget about it."
Also racial matches ensured that only black voters were knocked off the voting lists.
Race was treated as a verifier; racial matches were "proof" that the right person had been named. Therfore a black felon named Willie Whiting wiped out the registration of an innocent Willie Witing (Black) but not the rights of an innocent Will Whiting (White.)
Jed Bush also saw how the voting machines could be set to accept or reject "spoilt" ballots, before they were installed.
That's just the tiniest thread of a patchwork of evidence contained in 80 pages of Palast's investigation; it's far more complicated than I can easily summise here.
Nitpicking?
What went on with DBT (Data Base technologies) was the wiping of tens of thousands of Democrat voters off the electoral list. At Jed Bush's instruction, by all accounts.
It was not a statistical tie.
The last election was way more fraudulent than others, and was achieved with the use of spiked databases (and spiked voting machines.)
40,000 Democrat votes wrongly dismissed by a Republican administration, in an election where the Rebublicans "won" by 537, is hardly nitpicking.
YOU dismiss the serious evidence because you like which way the cookie crumbled.
Read/watch this report by Greg Palast for the BBC's Newsnight programme.
It meant people whose names were similar to those of felons were barred from voting.
In addition, the Florida State said, quite illegally that those people's names and those with similar names to, felons from states where their voting privelliges are restored upon exiting their jail time, were also included, despite this being entirely illegal, at the behest of Jed Bush.
The book "The Best Democracy Money Can Buy" by Greg Palast (that I'm just reading now) details the way the database was used to strike off tens of thousands of eligible, mostly black and poor white (and therefore Democrat supporting) voters.
The margin of Bush's fraudulent victory, was 537.
The least number of persons eligible to vote that were prevented from voting, illegally and by the use of unverified data in deliberately manipulated databases, was 40,000.
90% of these voters were Democrats.
The database company is selling it's means to other states for future elections (and it's all heavily Rupublican owned.)
I'll also add that the automatic voting machines in black areas (25% + African American) had their "spoiled ballots swallowed by the machines, whereas in the white areas (Less than 5% African Americans) the machines were set to return the erronious ballot paper for user correction. Not that it's entirely relevant to the discussion, but it wiped off tens of thousands of more votes.
Deliberately innacurate, unverified database use, funded and operated by Republicans got you Dubya, illegally and fraudulently.
It will probably get you a Republican president next election, it seems, also illegitimately elected.
Don't believe me? Read the book.
What is really at stake is: Security from whom?
Terrorists or Government?
Freedom from what?
Terrorist bombing and crime, or Government fascism and control?
We want freedom and security from both. But the government is effectvely taking away the threat of terrorists et al. (or at lest making the claim that they are) while ramping up the threat from themselves.
Personally, I'm not sure there's that much difference between a terorist blowing you up, or suffocating in a police stranglehold.
Whether it terrorists or a fascist State, the result is the same: the people live in fear.
These surveillance laws are really there to monitor the general public. Any terrorist or competent evil-doer, will evade the survillance and go about doing their thing, without any increased chance of being noticed (because of these laws.)
This is what makes me think these laws really are a breach of out human rights: that they are unrealistic in their claims to be about monitoring for terrorist activity.
They impinge upon our right to free association (the chilling effect upon that,) and our right to not be subject to indiscriminate monitoring; just because an official doesn't look at the data until someone requests it, does not mean you're not being monitored all the time.
The war on Iraq/Terrorism is to uphold our freedoms...and to that end, we're taking away your freedoms!
We have left the Silicon Age. We are now entering the Satire Age: where life becomes satire.
Black people are quite free to call one another "nigger" without fear of prosecution for racial hatered/discrimination.
An irony that I'll leave you to ponder.
Brazil.
Mulholland Drive
etc.
I thought it was stuck in second gear for the first 15 episodes (largely) and then in the episode where Chianna arrived, it suddenly kicked in, and got better and better, continually surprising and thrilling, up until around the end of season 3, where it started to lose its balance.
The rough-patch continued into season 4 and then it started picking up again around the time Crichton got the skinny on wormholes.
In other words, I guess, I think you're entirely wrong. :o/
I mean... as if the only good movies were movies with happy endings!
We've never had to pay for incoming calls, either land line or mobile. Infact, that you accept this over the pond, is astounding.
We don't pay for recieved SMS.
We don't have a monopoly in the "cell" (as you quaintly call them) phone market.
To summarise: we don't have a monopoly, and don't pay to recieve calls (or SMS.)
You guys are being ripped off. Start a protest campaign or something!
Here here.
And here is my Bush bash:
Right-wing Texan Fundementalist Christian on a Crusade; an alcoholic, coke-raddled, chimp IQ'ed, dupe of the even more rabid and dangerous Cheyney and Rumsfeld, who've been slavvering for a war for a decade.
I wonder if Georgey-boy (the "W" stands for Warmonger) used his Christian "affiliations" to peddle a moral crusade to Poodle-boy Blair?
Whatever they're really thinking (and I believe Rumsfeld is on the record as saying that this is just the start of America's vision for converting the the world as it now is, into one more befitting his (no doubt divine) vision,) this is the end of the UN, and the end of the rule of law.
Hell, the fella was even pressing for the use of chemical weapons ("calmatives," pepper spray and CS Gas - all banned under International Law) because when the US wants to do something, it's OK, and the White House only has the best intentions, yada yada.
This is a return to "Might Is Right," and George with his Born Again Christian moral certitude, is the greatest threat to peace and stability in this age.
The greatest damage that will take place because of this invasion of Iraq, will not be the thousands killed, or those whose lives are devistated by the effects of dispersed particles of Depleted Uranium, for generations to come, it will be the damage that is caused to what constitutes lawful behaviour by nation states against other nation states for... well, who knows for how long.
George has pissed the good will and sympathy the US had after 9-11, up the wall, and damn him that.
Damn him for all his deluded visions of himself as Churchill, and damn him for deluding (apparently) a good proportion of the US public, with the help of his corrupt media friends.
And people wonder how Nazi fucking Germany got it's people all singing from the same hymn sheet: name an enemy, lie and lie and lie about them, and go in for the kill, for the protection of the people.
It's worse here in the UK, Head teachers have banned parents from videoing the school play, in case the tape falls into the hands of a paedophile!
:o/
All reason seems to have been abandoned.
And all this while on my tv, a mum kisses her baby on it's clean, peach-like bot, in a Pampers commercial.
Fucking paedophile filth!
I have to say I think it's insane to call a photograph of a 17 year old engaged in sexual activity, child pornography and both undermines the meaning of what should be considered child pornography and of course criminalises people who are not paedophiles, or abusing anyone.
:)
I know you didn't write the law, and you certainly don't have to defend it, but I think this sort of heavy-handed puritanical law is quite unjust.
I was just reading about a child who had an image of his face placed on that of a female body having sex with a male.
It was placed on a website, and the victim informed.
While it certainly caused some distress and embarassment, those that perpetrated the act, instead of being slapped on the wrist (or punished by the school for bullying) for their childhood prank, were convicted with Pandering Obscenity of a Minor (2nd degree felony).
The law seems quite ridiculous, and unjust; the potential for unduely severe consequences on a person for just having a photo of a 16 year old having a shag, being tarnished with the label of paedophile (if you accept the logic that "child porn" posession = paedophile, which I think a lot of people do) and all the horrific stigma that such a label would bring upon a person, seems to transgress both fairness and proportionality
I guess it's both funny and astounding that you can legally have photographs of 14 year olds in a gangbang in Germany, while still being considered a normal, tax-paying, member of society , but in both the UK and US, you'd be branded an evil satanical paedophile, and driven out of your neighbourhood by angry locals with pitchforks, quicker than you can say kiddyfiddling.
Most people I think, think of the term "child pornography" as being more than an abstract legal definition. I mean, how many 17 year old girls have you met in the last decade that were anything remotely like a child?
Maybe they should rename such material depicting persons between the age of 15 and 18, "teen porn?"
But then I suppose that wouldn't have quite the same disapproval vale as "child porn."
"M'lud, the defendant is charged with the posession of teen porn."
Why society, as we now know it, would collapse!
I think your argument has many merits, but your definition of what constitutes "child pornography" is flawed.
As far as I'm aware, and I speak as merely a member of the human race here, and not a lawyer (are the two mutually exclusive?... I don't know) a photograph of a naked child is not "child pornography," "kiddie porn" or whatever.
If that were true, then there would be parents who've taken photographs of their children in the bath, naked on the beach or running around in the garden who were by that definition child pronographers.
H&M, an old (now defunct?) naturist magazine regularly showed pictures of persons under the age of 18 in a state of undress, and was on sale, legally, in British newsagents up and down the country, for many years.
If this was seen by the law as KP (as I believe it is sometimes quaintly known) then you can bet there would have been dawn raids on every newspaper shop in the UK. This didn't happen.
Also artists such as Balthus, would have found themselves in court, for creating works that could perhaps, at least, be called "child erotica" (there is no actual sexual activity in his paintings, but frequently "suggestive" poses, and allusions to sexuality.)
Child Pornography involves children engaging in sexual activity with other children or adults, which is then recorded. It's not just a 3 year old runing up the garden, naked as the day he was born, to his mother's camera, grinning like a maniac, on a summer's day.
Real Child pornography is not about a social norm being transgressed, although some hard-liners like the people in Kidscape, I believe, define child abuse as having sex with someone under the age of 16, here in the UK; a declaration that certain countries and cultures on the continent and elsewhere throughout the world, are populated by child abusers because of their lower ages of consent.
Of course such a position is somewhat fanatical and isn't worth much of a second thought.
Real child abuse involves events that are traumatic and have an immense impact on people's lives. It always involves the abuse of power, the taking advantage of and manipulation of someone who is less informed, and less able to understand that they are not acting in their own interests.
These people are called children.
This is why there are laws concerning the age of consent, both in sexual activity, and appearing in pornography: to protect the vulnerable.
That in The Netherlands, a 16 year old can be shown involved in a gangband with a dozen men, and the same is illegal in the US, is not the issue.
That a four year old is shown being raped in it's anus, is. I do not believe that this is a cultural issue; it is a humanitarian one.
Here's a possibly more coherent version of the story:
Appellate Court Rules Media Can Legally Lie.
By Mike Gaddy
Published 02. 28. 03 at 19:31 Sierra Time
On February 14, a Florida Appeals court ruled there is absolutely nothing illegal about lying, concealing or distorting information by a major press organization. The court reversed the $425,000 jury verdict in favor of journalist Jane Akre who charged she was pressured by Fox Television management and lawyers to air what she knew and documented to be false information. The ruling basically declares it is technically not against any law, rule, or regulation to deliberately lie or distort the news on a television broadcast.
On August 18, 2000, a six-person jury was unanimous in its conclusion that Akre was indeed fired for threatening to report the station's pressure to broadcast what jurors decided was "a false, distorted, or slanted" story about the widespread use of growth hormone in dairy cows. The court did not dispute the heart of Akre's claim, that Fox pressured her to broadcast a false story to protect the broadcaster from having to defend the truth in court, as well as suffer the ire of irate advertisers.
Fox argued from the first, and failed on three separate occasions, in front of three different judges, to have the case tossed out on the grounds there is no hard, fast, and written rule against deliberate distortion of the news. The attorneys for Fox, owned by media baron Rupert Murdock, argued the First Amendment gives broadcasters the right to lie or deliberately distort news reports on the public airwaves. [emphasis mine]
In its six-page written decision, the Court of Appeals held that the Federal Communications Commission position against news distortion is only a "policy," not a promulgated law, rule, or regulation.
Fox aired a report after the ruling saying it was "totally vindicated" by the verdict.
© 2003 SierraTimes.com
Dude, Fox News, recently fought and won a court case arguing that it had a constitutional right to deliberately and purposefully lie to it's viewers.
The issue was regarding lies it told about some hormone they put in US milk, and The Murdoch Evil Empire, claimed it had free speech protection to deliberately distort the facts it reported to it's viewers.
That's not my definition of an admirable job, and I doubt it's yours either.
Here's the story:
Hidden Danger in Your Milk?
JURY VERDICT OVERTURNED ON LEGAL TECHNICALITY
Welcome to the online news source for anyone who drinks milk or consumes other dairy products and depends on the news media to report suspected health concerns accurately and honestly.
Here you will find behind-the-scenes details about how a large share of America's milk supply has quietly become adulterated with the effects of a synthetic hormone (bovine growth hormone, or BGH) secretly injected into cows...and how pressure from the hormone maker Monsanto led Fox TV to fire two of its award-winning reporters and sweep under the rug much of what they discovered but were never allowed to broadcast.
After a five-week trial and six hours of deliberation which ended August 18, 2000, a Florida state court jury unanimously determined that Fox "acted intentionally and deliberately to falsify or distort the plaintiffs' news reporting on BGH." In that decision, the jury also found that Jane's threat to blow the whistle on Fox's misconduct to the FCC was the sole reason for the termination... and the jury awarded $425,000 in damages which makes her eligible to apply for reimbursement for all court costs, expenses and legal fees.
Fox appealed and prevailed February 14, 2003 when an appeals court issued a ruling reversing the jury, accepting a defense argument that had been rejected by three other judges on at least six separate occasions. for more details on latest ruling.to view how Fox13 reported the ruling. The whistle-blowing journalists, twice refused Fox offers of big-money deals to keep quiet about what they knew, filed their landmark lawsuit April 2, 1998 and survived three Fox efforts to have their case summarily dismissed.
It is the first time journalists have used a whistleblower law to seek a legal remedy for being fired by for refusing to distort the news. Steve and Jane are now considering an appeal to the Florida state Supreme Court.
The journalists happen to be married to each other and this website, created by their friend and former television news producer Jon Duffey, was posted on the day the whistleblower suit was filed. It continues to provide details of the suit and subsequent appeals, as well as recent developments regarding rBGH and other genetically engineered foods.
Copyright ©2000-2003 Target Television Enterprises, Inc.
On a related note, you might like to read this article in Wired, documenting very much your position, and that of many other US Citizens, it would seem.
Go with Osama: Reviled, feared, supposedly powerful, Big Fish. Easy and obvious, but more impact and relevance than the other choices.
As for the symbol, how about "Al Qaeda" in Arabic script?
I don't know if this is it:
Al Qaeda
Or
Al Qaeda
[From a Google Images search.]
I don't think it's either a joke or a troll.
The poster is just saying that it's non-news, just a new/different/updated way to store music.
"Insightful" may be overstating it, but possibly more accurate than informative or interesting.
But since when did moderation become an exact science?
""It's a no-brainer. Anything which lets people pirate more music like this has to be very bad news for the music industry," says a spokesman for Britain's record industry trade association, the BPI."
...even if you've bought the original music you're transferring.
:)
Because consumer copying, now equals piracy...
AOL (yes I use AOL and I don't care what you have to say on that subject) has on their exit screen an advert for the MusicNet thing.
It says:
"MusicNet on AOL: Burn CDs safely and legally with satisfaction guaranteed."
Erm... since when was burning a CD illegal... or risky (assuming low burn speeds?)
I mean... safely... is that a threat?