seansean
Member
um....I guess I better stop doing those yahoo searches for "lusty latinas"....on a more serious note, now that I know that yahoo gave up the search records, I will no longer use them. for anything.
Feds seek Google records in porn probe
- Thread starter rick_reno
- Start date
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um....I guess I better stop doing those yahoo searches for "lusty latinas"....on a more serious note, now that I know that yahoo gave up the search records, I will no longer use them. for anything.
Lupinus said:
Not quite right. Fox news is almost as bad as Al Jazeera.
The Justice Department wants the court to compel Google to hand over 1 million random Web addresses from its search index as well as all the terms users typed into its search engine over a one-week period.
The reason: The government is in a legal fight to defend the constitutionality of the Child Online Protection Act. Although the case, Gonzales vs. ACLU, does not involve Google, the government says it needs the information from the search firm to ``understand the behavior of current Web users, to estimate how often Web users encounter harmful-to-minor materials in the course of their searches and to measure the effectiveness of filtering software in screening that material.''
Source and opinion - http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/opinion/13669370.htm
RealGun
Member
cuchulainn said:
That's the part that goes too far and establishes precedent for exercising the same judgement and power on something less offensive.
cuchulainn
Member
A person who views child porn is paying someone else to rape a child and take pictures of it. The only precedent established is that a person cannot pay someone to commit a violent crime and record it for viewing pleasure.
The point is that if you knowingly participate in a rape, even if only indirectly, you commit a crime. You are aiding and abetting the crime by paying someone to do it.
If no child is violated in the creation of the porn (an 18 year old who looks 14), AFAIK, it wouldn't be a crime
RealGun
Member
cuchulainn said:
Nah. I reject the cause and effect argument. Supply is more guilty than demand.
cuchulainn
Member
So, if Mr. X pays someone to rape your daughter and take pictures of it, Mr. X commits no crime because he doesn't do the actual raping or picture taking? Spare me.
It's not the viewing -- per se -- that's illegal (a cop can keep a database of kiddie porn for investigative purposes, for example). It's the aiding and abetting.
This is like hiring a hit man. You don't do the actual killing, so you commit no crime, right? Wrong.
A person cannot pay someone to commit a crime for him. That's what he does when he is a child porn consumer.
Beren
Moderator Emeritus
Using your logic, it becomes "okay" if the child porn is distributed freely?
cuchulainn
Member
Yes, I focused too much on the money part.
It's also typically a crime to entice someone to commit a crime for you, even if no money is exchanged. If a woman talks her boyfriend into killing her ex-husband, even if no money is exchanged, she commits a crime.
Again, it's the aiding and abetting that's the crime. It's the knowing participation in and encouragement of a rape -- even if only indirectly.
m0ntels
Member
It doesnt look like this has been posted yet...Google is saying no to turning over the data...
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060120..._R34T0D;_ylu=X3oDMTA5aHJvMDdwBHNlYwN5bmNhdA--
Randy
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060120..._R34T0D;_ylu=X3oDMTA5aHJvMDdwBHNlYwN5bmNhdA--
Randy
RealGun
Member
cuchulainn said:
I liken it somewhat to a drug user versus a drug dealer, the dealer being more the demon in common references. I expect that the rationale will depend upon the emotional investment.
cuchulainn
Member
How you "liken it" and emotional investment are irrellevant. The fact is that when someone encourages and entices someone else to commit a crime, it's aiding and abetting, which also is a crime.
In any event, your drug analogy fails because it involves just two parties: the the dealer and the user. Kiddie porn has three parties. The dealer, the user and the child-victim. Thus, we can argue that drug use involves no victim. We cannot argue that use of kiddie porn involves no victim.
The question is whether the "user" -- who aid and abets the rape, often paying to see it committed -- shares some of the criminal guilt.
He does.
Beren
Moderator Emeritus
Not much of a fan of that comparison, either. Were heroin a legal product, that "drug dealer" would be your local pharmacist. Would we still picture the dealer as a "demon" in that context?
Child pornography is a secondary crime. It documents the sexual abuse of a child. It isn't the recorded images which are criminal to me, nor its replay, disgusting as it is. The crime is that which was recorded, and that crime should be aggressively prosecuted.
Here's another logic puzzle for you:
Suppose someone creates realistic child pornography that is entirely computer generated - should its creation and consumption be prosecuted the same as "regular" child porn?
RealGun
Member
Beren said:
I wouldn't think so. No child has been harmed or corrupted.
Daniel T
Member
Yeah, tell that to the slightly retarded guy I know in Dallas who stupidly accepted deferred ajudication for the "sexual assault" of a "minor" that only existed in a chat room.
I do happen to agree with you though. Too bad the whole situation is so fraught with emotion that there can never be an objective look at it.
Sindawe
Member
Based on this article on Wikipedia, U.S Supreme Court as ruled such. http://supct.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/00-795.ZS.html
Beren said:
Not entirely true. Child pornography has been determined to be so heinous that mere possession of an image is a felony. Just like the War on Drugs, The War on Child Pornography is being prosecuted from both ends; the users as well as the producers.
cuchulainn said:
The word you're looking for is "conspiracy". It's illegal to conspire with others to commit an illegal act, even if no act occurs. Thought crime.
cuchulainn
Member
No, the words I'm looking for are aiding and abetting since kiddie porn involves a crime actually occurring, with the viewer being an active and knowing participant in the rape.
If I read that correctly, SCOTUS struck down a law against "virtual child porn." I can live with that since no actual child is violated in its creation.
Actually, everyone on both side of the debate in this thread has been doing a good job of keeping the emotionalism in check, so it is possible to take an objective look at it.
Sindawe
Member
Unless of course one of the conspiritors happens to be an agent of the law. THAT person is free of blame, even if they were the most active or driving participant.
cuchulainn
Member
Incidentally, not every image of a minor in a sexual situation is child porn.
Remember the scene in American Beauty in which Thora Birch takes her shirt off in front of a window? It was cleary sexual, and she was a minor (age 16) when it was filmed.
Remember the scene in Pretty Baby that showed full frontal nudity of Brooke Shields (12 at the time of filming) in a pre-sex scene?
Thus, the law does accomodate the use of naked children in sexual situations for "art."
In Birch's case, her parents were present at the filming, as were (IIRC) child-protective representatives, etc. I assume that also was the case in the 1970s with Shields, but I don't know.
Remember the scene in American Beauty in which Thora Birch takes her shirt off in front of a window? It was cleary sexual, and she was a minor (age 16) when it was filmed.
Remember the scene in Pretty Baby that showed full frontal nudity of Brooke Shields (12 at the time of filming) in a pre-sex scene?
Thus, the law does accomodate the use of naked children in sexual situations for "art."
In Birch's case, her parents were present at the filming, as were (IIRC) child-protective representatives, etc. I assume that also was the case in the 1970s with Shields, but I don't know.
Malone LaVeigh
Member
Some years ago, a school counsellor told me about a really good book about the issues facing girls the age (at that time) of my daughter. It was the Ophelia book, don't remember the full name. When I got home, not knowing the name, I went to a search engine and entered "teen girls book". You can imagine what I got.Lupinus said:
So I suppose I'm in their database now...
Malone LaVeigh
Member
Wouldn't that apply to all porn, then? Someone is filming an act in which someone is getting paid to have sex. Sounds like aiding and abetting prostitution to me.cuchulainn said:
Not that I think prostitution should be illegal, but I'm just one of those leftist libertarians.
Camp David
member
If you are downloading it, chances are it is! You'd be hard pressed to defend it. I think that settles issue then and there!cuchulainn said:
odysseus
Member
Malone LaVeigh said:
That's a great question to a conversation I had at a dinner party not long ago (yes sometimes we go into fun talks
). If prostitution is illegal in most all jurisdictions, then how is most adult pornography legal since they are filmed in the same jursidictions? How is there an entire billion dollar industry that is pure prostitution, with "agents" (pimps) and "stars" (da ho's) being paid money to have sex, all be it in front of a camera? Also not all the time is say the male participant being paid, as was brought to my attention - so it really sometimes is paid for pleasure, but filmed.I am not trying to take a position on this from asking, what I am trying to find out is what is the legal framework that allows this form of prostitution to be legal and not another?
cuchulainn
Member
The difference is that prostitution (and other acts of adults getting paid for sex) -- like drug sale/use -- does not involve a third-party who is an innocent victim.
In any event, I see the rape/molestation/violation of a child as mala in se, while prostitution merely is mala prohibita.
It is legal to view both movies (American Beauty and Pretty Baby) -- you can get either at any Blockbuster -- even though they involve actresses who were minors when they filmed sexual scenes while nude/partially nude. Thus, I don't see how it would be illegal to download the scenes or still shots to your computer (other than copyright violations, but that's another matter).
Lobotomy Boy
Member
- Joined
- Feb 16, 2004
- Messages
- 2,449
This is an interesting conversation about child porn, but the issue here is the government prying into our records. Child porn is a nasty business, but I have yet to see any hard data on how prevelant it really is. Often when the government trots out some heinous issue to use to scare us into forfeiting our civil liberties, that issue is something of a smoke screen. We all hate child porn, or at least most of us do, I assume. And someone, somewhere must be making a profit off of child porn. But what percentage of pornography on the Internet is child porn? Given the severe penalties and the relatively small audience for child porn, I'd have to guess the percentages are infintisimile.
Besides, the Justice Department is not even talking about child porn. The problem, as they see it, is that children are viewing regular porn. While this sounds like an issue of proper child supervision to me, with the socialist nanny-state mentality governing our society we seem to believe that it is government's job to supervise the children and not the parents' job. Thus the government is trying to use the straw dog of pornography to get some control over the Internet. (Think how hard forums like this one make it for the government to herd the population like mindless sheep.)
As for the mentality that the government is appealing to in order to accomplish this task, the following quote nails it:
We loathe in others those qualities we most fear within ourselves.
Besides, the Justice Department is not even talking about child porn. The problem, as they see it, is that children are viewing regular porn. While this sounds like an issue of proper child supervision to me, with the socialist nanny-state mentality governing our society we seem to believe that it is government's job to supervise the children and not the parents' job. Thus the government is trying to use the straw dog of pornography to get some control over the Internet. (Think how hard forums like this one make it for the government to herd the population like mindless sheep.)
As for the mentality that the government is appealing to in order to accomplish this task, the following quote nails it:
We loathe in others those qualities we most fear within ourselves.
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