I can see the internet getting a lot slower for a lot of people as ISPs stop running proxy servers. “I’m sorry, Mr G-man, but we don’t run a proxy server service so we have no records to give you.”
See…um…the point is…how do you know it’s false?
I’m sure you recall the way it worked when they caught that writer with pics of kiddie porn on his computer, and convicted the hell out of him.
He claimed to be writing an expose and fighting child porn. Certainly could have been what he was doing, but that’s not how the courts saw it.
The general default position in America for those poor bastards who happen not to be in possession of Special Rights, as the current administration fancies it is, is: have pics of naked kids = you ARE a child molester. SHOW pics of naked kids = you ARE a child pornographer.
When the standard Straight Dope threads wishing death to child molesters and chil pornographers came up in the past, did you step in and say “Wait a minute, we ought to assume these people are fighting against this! I’ll bet they sleep well at night!”
I’m guessing you didn’t. Probably because those poor slobs weren’t Special Rights people.
So we’ve established that the thread title meets the standard used in the American dialogue and on the STright Dope for being a child pornographer – he had pictures, he showed them, he claims to have some legitimate reason, but we never give credit to ythose claims.
Is the title of the thread inflammatory, despite being (as just shown) esentially accurate? No more inflammatory, for sure, than calling the post “slanderous”. Looks like a tie to me.
Eh. You are surely aware the AG can already get the cooperation of those people for that purpose at any time byvisiting a judge and obtaiing a warrant, right?
So this meeting wasn’t “designed for getting cooperation” since that can already be done. This meeting was designed for bypassing the warrant requirement. You know, that nasty 4th amendment.
Think it through, we’ll help you.
Sailboat
Well, you see, part of the problem is that the rather obvious step 2 will be to make it so they CAN’T choose what to hand over or not.
Today, an ISP can honestly answer “but we DON’T gather and keep all that information, nor do we keep what we do for that long” if asked to assist in a broad fishing expedition, and they can’t be accused of maliciously not cooperating.
The display of KP was indeed a brilliant pitch move. An act of crass emotional blackmail: “Prove you’re not in favor of this, by going along with us. There’s no possible reservation you may have when THIS is on the line!”
You’ve never heard of the Attorney General of the United States before?
Oh sweet Jesus. :rolleyes: First of all, there’s a lot more to the Internet than Kiddy Porn. (Monkey Porn, for instance.) In addition, Internet Service Providers are already indemnified from providing illicit content: (emphasis mine)
The underlined section is important – ISPs cannot be held accountable as long as they do not actively censor their content. If they do proactively censor certain websites, message boards, chat rooms, newsgroups, email attachments, AIM’s, etc. for salacious material, then they ARE potentially liable for the stuff that slips through the cracks. (The law is mainly designed for more pertinent issues like copyright infringement, libel & slander, etc.)
Bullshit. Kiddy porn ain’t the problem. Child molesters aren’t even the problem. It’s the ultimate red herring…yes, sometimes shocking cases like Polly Klass & Elizabeth Smart happen, but they are extremely rare. What’s far more common – in fact, it’s virtually endemic – is the ongoing psychological abuse of children performed by their PARENTS. Treating them like private property, failing to validate their emotions, eschewing parental responsibility, leaving it up to MTv and the Internet to raise their kids, then whining and complaning when they start piercing their noses and listening to Marilyn Manson.
Oh sweet Jesus. :rolleyes: First of all, there’s a lot more to the Internet than Kiddy Porn. (Monkey Porn, for instance.) In addition, Internet Service Providers are already indemnified from providing illicit content: (emphasis mine)
The underlined section is important – ISPs cannot be held accountable as long as they do not actively censor their content. If they do proactively censor certain websites, message boards, chat rooms, newsgroups, email attachments, AIM’s, etc. for salacious material, then they ARE potentially liable for the stuff that slips through the cracks. (The law is mainly designed for more pertinent issues like copyright infringement, libel & slander, etc.)
Bullshit. Kiddy porn ain’t the problem. Child molesters aren’t even the problem. It’s the ultimate red herring…yes, sometimes shocking cases like Polly Klass & Elizabeth Smart happen, but they are extremely rare. What’s far more common – in fact, it’s virtually endemic – is the ongoing psychological abuse of children performed by their PARENTS. Treating them like private property, failing to validate their emotions, eschewing parental responsibility, leaving it up to MTv and the Internet to raise their kids, then whining and complaning when they start piercing their noses and listening to Marilyn Manson.
These are not ordinary business people. these are people who provide the avenue for the distribution of child pornography.
I never , never implied that.
Its a pretense , not a false pretense
Look you asshole, I take this child pornography problem very, very seriously. More fucking seriously than your right to hide from your federal government.
And you’d be ok with it if these were pictures of you as a child being molested? Or of your own child or other loved one? I find it unlikely they tracked down the kids in these pictures and secured their consent.
Big fucking deal. I’m opposed to the war in Iraq as well, but I’m well aware there’s a lot more to America than its involvement in Iraq.
Big fucking deal. What’s your point? I’ve never promoted legal action against ISPs. Getting their cooperation against the purveyors and recipients of kiddie porn is a legitimate objective for a law enforcement agency.
This is the most stupid statement that I’ve ever come across in my entire life.
Manda JO, the issues you raise are mild compared to devastation wrought by pornographers. Absolutely, if I was the object of a child pornography video being used against these assholes, there is no question that my cooperation would be given. I might add that Gonzales did not use the internet to display this child pornography. I would draw the line there.
Right, but having the chance to agree to cooperate to say, helping train people or something, is different than finding out after the fact that a political figure used your pictures as a rhetorical device.
And I would suspect he got the photos OFF the internet. They were examples of what was avalible, presumably.
Right. They’re ISPs. You’re dealing with one, or you wouldn’t be posting here. Therefore you’re helping to support someone who provides the avenue…
In other words, American freedoms mean nothing to you as long as we’re “fighting crime”?
The Government has the power to decide it wants to know anything and everything it chooses to about you? You chose your name well, Mr. Vandervecken – you are certainly not anyone I or any other person would want to claim as a compatriot, if that is how you feel.
On its face, this display has no relationship to the narrowly-carved exemption to the child porn laws permitting such collection and use of evidence. If the facts are as advertised, lock 'im up.
Well, yeah, I do sort of take issue with a high-level law enforcement official violating the law. Duh.
Well, sure…but it isn’t the allegation that you were accusing them of making. You said
Now, perhaps you weren’t accusing the OP of this, but it sure sounded like it. If I am wrong, I will certainly apologise. But I don’t see where your note of the OP’s thread title (“Alberto Gonzales: Child Pornographer”) automatically parses into “Alberto Gonzales: Child Molester” (which you seem to be implying that it does). Maybe I’m missing something (Og knows, it’s happened before).
I don’t have much of an opinion over the ISP issue, so I won’t comment on that. Let’s face it: ISP’s don’t care what I think, anyway.
I don’t have an issue with you, just to get that out of the way. I certainly respect others’ opinions, because I would like them to respect mine.
That being said, I’d STILL like to see some proof that kiddie porn is molestation by definition. Sure, that’s how it CAN happen, but if we are going to unilaterally condemn it on that basis, then it damned well better be true all of the time (and not just because we say so). One of the problems that I have with the universal hatred of child pornography is that it is predicated upon the believe that it is ALWAYS harmful to the child…which is true (I will grant you) in our current culture, but NOT exclusively because of the activity itself (as far as I know). Our social condemnation of it does as much (if not more) to traumatize the children as anything, yet we don’t seem to care anything about that.
If we care at all about our kids, then we SHOULD.
I find it unlikely, too. So, if the pornographers are at fault for exploiting these children and not getting their consent, then why isn’t the AG? I think THAT’S the question being asked here.
A cite for that would be nice (not that I’m arguing with you, but “Fighting Ignorance” and all). I don’t get the impression that the “devastation wrought by pornographers” is entirely their fault. Our objection as a society has to play a part, and should take its responsibility…but it doesn’t.
I suspect it won’t anytime soon, either.
There is an assumption on your part that I’m making a moral judgement on these ISPs. I’m not. All I’m saying in the context of the OP that enlisting their participation in ferreting out child molesters is a legitimate objective.
So which freedom would you suggest I’m willing to sacrifice? The freedom to diddle a child ?
Hopefully yes if a judge is convinced enough to provide a warrant.
I never said I was a saint.
You are an asshole, aren’t you?
Even the most diligent defender of the Bush Administration, save you, has been willing to concede that it’s quite unlikely that the Justice Department will restrict its ability to research what it likes from ISP records to simply the ferreting out of child pornography. And personally, I’d find it very unlikely that Mr. Gonzalez’s staff will have the moral stamina to refrain from snooping around to find what they can find – such as means to play dirty tricks on their political opponents?
In any case, you have effectively poisoned the well, there. Obviously, the only possible reason why any person might not want any governmental official who so chooses to browse at random through his or her Internet use is because they’re fixing to commit underage sex. :rolleyes:
I am assuming that we are talking about photographic or video records of acts that would qualify as sexual assult of a minor–not sketches or written erotica or anything. The issue isn’t whether or not the picture is molestation–it’s a record of the molestation that is the issue. You want to discuss what degrees and types of contact and behavior ought to count as “molestation”, debate away. You don’t need photos to point at and say “ok, should this here be illegal? What if his hand was two inces to the left?”
He should be. That’s my point. Images of children being humilated should not be used to make a rhetorical point. That, in and of itself, is a violation of privacy that is ironic when coming from someone who would have us believe he takes privacy very seriously.
That was real Christlike Polycrap :rolleyes:
That seems (IMHO) to be part of the problem here. Sure, I’m going to object to documentable proof of “acts that would qualify as sexual assault of a minor,” because I object to sexual assault on anybody. The law, however, doesn’t quite see it that way, and that’s where I’m in a slight disagreement with them (and possibly you…but only possibly). Just because a participant in sex is a child doesn’t automatically mean they’re being abused, IMHO. Society feels otherwise, of course…but I’d sure like to hear a legitimate rationale for that.
I don’t personally believe that age should be the defining metric of abuse. From my perspective, eliminate the age factor: is it still wrong? If not, then not. If so, then so. The arguments in favor of age-related descrimination don’t seem to hold water, to me.
I agree with this. Children should NOT be exploited, regardless of which side of this debate you are on.
That’s where (IMHO) AG made his mistake: He seems to think that exploiting children is wrong, except when HE does it.
I call bullshit.