I’m having an argument with someone about this and would like any factual information possible.
The argument is thus- A reporter investigates a website that he thinks hosts child porn and finds some. He downloads it and blurs the images and writes about it using those blurred images. He also tells people the site he got it from and admits to not contacting the site owner or the police about the site.
I told my nephew (who is arguing with me about this) that the man himself is culpable himself in distribution and owning child porn and that he broke the law.
Nephew argues back that the man was doing a public service and that the people should praise him for bringing this to everyones attention and the cops wouldn’t possibly arrest a whistleblower.
I argue back (before we drop it and open presents) that he isn’t a whistleblower at all because he never contacted the authorities and just wanted to publish a sensationalist story and that he is in serious legal trouble for doing so. It would be like a reporter buying drugs to show the police that someone is selling drugs.
Nephew says back that it was never the persons intention to use the material as anything other than an example and even blurred it out and that the police will look past all of this and the man is a hero.
What do you think Dopers? Am I wrong or what? What are your thoughts on this and Merry Christmas! (Quite an odd Christmas topic I know! Didn’t expect it myself actually)
Assuming the reporter works for reputable publication I would think we would be protected by the first amendment. I also presume that he would have to surrender any downloaded material to the police for any possible prosecution.
Its perfectly possible for something to be both socially beneficial and illegal; laws aren’t perfect. Seems pretty clear to me that he’s breaking the law, and since he mentioned the source I’d argue that he’s increasing demand for CP and therefore making society worse.
Actual child porn is most definitely **NOT **protected by the First Amendment, so good luck trying to use that. As soon as he found it he would be obligated to notify the authorities of its existence and location (i.e. IP address). And without downloading any for proof, that’s the police’s job. And making it’s existence & location known to the public would probably be considered another crime in and of itself (distribution).
Not saying I agree 100% with all of the above, but that’s how I believe the law would see it…
Child porn is ridiculously easy to find on the net. Any reporter who names the site claiming it’s for the public good is full of it. It would be like writing a story revealing that web sites can end in .com.
If a reporter or anyone comes across a child-porn site or child porn on a site where it’s obviously misplaced, there’s no need to reveal it. It’s revealed already. Call the cops.
The laws about this vary from one country or state to another, so you might have to parse individual laws.
However, it is likely that he’s broken a law. It may be illegal to knowingly download the content in the first place. Some of the laws say that you must destroy the content as soon as you become aware of it, and he’s kept it at least long enough to blur it. On the other hand, maybe blurring it counts as “destroying” for that purpose. I don’t know whether the blurred context still qualifies as child porn (thereby making him a distributor of it), but there’s a good chance it might. (In part, we get back to that old debate where even the courts have said “I know it when I see it.” Blurred content is probably safe in that sense… but a literal reading of a law might still be an issue.)
If the reporter was smart, he wouldn’t admit to doing any of this himself. He’d say “My anonymous source sent me this URL, a description of his experiences, and these blurred photos.” Now the reporter is safer (assuming that the blurred photos are not considered child porn at this point) because anything illegal was done by the anonymous source.
And do what exactly? Reveal and admit there are child porn .jpgs on your computer’s hard drive? Each of which is a serious felony? You’d have to be crazy to do that, and the local DA will issue a warrant to seize and search your computer faster than you can say wait. They will find the child porn .jpgs.
Which brings up a good question, if one accidentally runs across child porn, or someone posts child porn to a forum or website what are users who accidentally see it or the admin of the forum or site supposed to do, without admitting that they have committed a strict liability crime where intent doesn’t matter? I’m honestly curious what the best course of action here is.
(I recall an episode of COPS that featured an older woman calling the police and handing them a bag of cocaine she found, although the officer was apologetic he arrested her anyway as she was in possession!)
EDIT:If you see a picture in your web browser, it has been downloaded and is on your hard drive.
In the US jurisdiction it has already been ruled there is no exemption for investigative journalism in the law against downloading and holding childporn:Case cite. That reporter even contacted the FBI about the ongoing research.
The journalist that comes across an active kiddieporn site in his research and just announces the site without alerting the authorities first would be (a) telling the casual public where to get child porn and (b) letting the site publisher know they’re compromised and giving them the chance to bolt before action could be taken against them.
grude: as I understand it, the current state of things is that reasonable prosecutorial discretion applies (in that COPS episode, I bet that while *the policeman *had to arrest her, she would not have been *prosecuted *if it could be shown possession was merely accidental. And if she had left it where it was and merely brought the police to it, not even arrested unless it was on her own property). The reporter will have their computer and internet access be run through forensics. If it records just one or two hits on the very first page where childporn can be detected, immediately before calling it in, that will likely be cleared with a wagging finger to next time contact the local vice squad *before *launching such an investigation. Similarly a site admin who can show he’s dilligent at intercepting and deleting unauthorized illegal material will not be in trouble.
:dubious: I’m not sure, in 1994 certainly; in 2014, not so much for the *casual *web browser – at least not outright real live-action preteen hardcore. Today that takes more than merely casual skills at getting content. But OTOH some of the skeevy “model” exploitation sites that try to skirt just a hair’s breadth this side of the law are still around.
(Mind you , I’m using the Supreme Court’s definition of childporn here, meaning real live human minors were photographed/filmed/recorded to make it. I’m disregarding CGI or Anime images, those are everywhere.)
I dont know about the legalities of it all. Though the Townsend case in the UK does have similarities to this, and he was cautioned. If you were to do such an act it would be preferable if you OK’d it first with your editor etc. This at least helps show the “expose” was above board; that an article was intended. Even then it’s still a grey area.
Turning your cache off doesn’t stop the browser from downloading the image–it just keeps the images from being retained. Without downloading the image, your browser can’t display it, and it certainly doesn’t securely delete it.
Turning off browser history only removes that browser’s record of where you’ve surfed. Most operating systems have another history, your router will have a third, your ISP has to have one (if only briefly). Other parties collect and store everyone’s browsing history as widely as they can.
Thanks for the replies!
I assumed the guy lived in the USA and after seeing some replies on here I asked my nephew if he knew where the guy lived. He said he lived in Canada, if that changes anything.
And thanks for the replies Dopers! Hope you all had a merry Christmas!
It is possible that an image seen on your browser screen wasn’t saved to the hard drive. If you have sufficient RAM available, the computer might keep it there in volatile memory rather than writing it to the disk.
However… if you’re looking at illegal content, this is not something I’d rely on. The safest thing is to assume that every image is written to the hard drive at least temporarily, even if you turn off caching.
I’m not yet paranoid enough to use a virtual private network, and thanks to the knowledge gained post-Snowden I doubt it would have any effect anyway.
But in the spirit of doing what one can, I use an AppleScript, built and modified over many years, to quit the browser (Firefox) and securely delete files within it (to the extent that the OS really does so), along with operating-system files Firefox uses to remember and track, in addition to a myriad of browser extensions, written by others and freely available for the same purpose. I also modify Firefox’s configuration files directly rather than through any extensions that may or may not exist for the purpose.
In any event, my reply to grude was to the statement that if you see a picture using your web browser, it has been downloaded and is on your hard drive, which suggested to me that grude meant it’s necessarily on the computer for the long-term.
I work in this area in criminal cases involving amongs other things Child Pornography (aka Child Exploitation Material - CEM)
In very simple terms and across most jurisdictions it is illegal to Possess CEM, and in other jurisdictions it is also illegal to be Reckless as to the presence of CEM ( e.g. your cruising habits were pretty certain to end up with CEM on your computer at some stage)
In the Possession instance there are exemptions for legal purposes such as Police and Prosecutors in the investigation and prosecution of a crime, or in my case as a defence expert I can possess the material with the consent of the Prosecutor or a via a Court Order.
Most of my cases revolve around the issue of Possession - which has a strict legal meaning and requires that the accused know they have the material and what that material is. It is not necessary for them to know it is prohibited material or anything about the applicable law.
I have been involved in a couple of cases where the defendant claimed the material was for research purposes. There is no such exemption in my jurisdictions and I doubt there is anywhere else either.
If you possess the material and you know what the material is then you will be found guilty. The only variation is how you plead in mitigation and what the resulting sentence is.
Slightly off-topic, minor variations in improvised defendant excuses include:
A virus must have put it on my computer
I went to a porn site and suddenly all this CEM came down - but I deleted it
Someone else used my computer
Someone texted it to me (on a phone)
Someone emailed it to me
Mostly these are weak made-up-on-the-spot excuses. I have however been involved in 3 cases where the ‘somebody else used my computer’ excuse was quite plausible. Sadly two were convicted and jailed. The third was aquitted.
I’ve never seen a guilty person aquitted, though one case required a retrial to get a conviction after a hung jury in the first trial
There are also quite a few cases where the defendant inadvertently download CEM and immediately deleted it. So long as there is not a consistent pattern of this (and yes some perps do it that way to provide a potential excuse) they usually won’t get prosecuted.
In the instance in this question The researcher will download images that will leave traces all over his computer. It doesn’t matter that he blurs one copy for further work. His computer will have other copies in deleted sectors and web browser caches and image editor caches.
These will be used as evidence in support of any admissions he may make as to Possession. Depending on the jurisdiction they may also be used in evidence on a Recklessness charge - where it will be alleged he was reckless as to the presence of CEM on his computer after he blurred a copy of the image. Prosecutors can and do charge on the same material under a Possession Charge and also under a Recklessness charge.
This inadvertent copying is why, if I ever have to view suspected CEM, I use a cloned hard drive in an analysis computer and afterwards I blow the hard drive image away a cryptographic erasure program.
One of my customers headed a regional team enforcing child pornography crimes. I had a conversation about how they investigate and prosecute. It’s been a while and he was a police officer not a lawyer so the laws may be different then what I understand them to be. This is also specific to MA and even then only one area of MA.
In order to prosecute the DA required they be able to provide evidence of more than one element of crime. They categorized them as follows.
Possession. Having CP in any format, digital print etc
Distribution. Transfering CP to any individual or or entity
Pursuance. Actively looking to acquire CP
Manufacturing. Creating CP
The expectation was the police needed to prove to the DA the perpetrator did at least two before they would consider bringing the case to trial.
So if someone was found to have CP on their computer but they police could not also prove they created it, acquired it or sent it out the DA wouldn’t prosecute.
Someone searching for it unsuccessfully would also be off the hook.
Manufacturing could generally stand on it’s own as there were always other charges they could bring outside the scope of CP.
One of the big changes in the presence of CP on the internet is Google got involved. The FBI has a data base of every piece CP they have found to date. Googles bots actively compare against that data base. Anytime CP is found in this way the FBI is notified and there are automatic steps to remove it. If it’s on a website it would have to be behind some level of security for Google to miss it. This has pretty much wiped out ‘I accidentally ran into CP’ If it can be found in a Google search it’s already been reported and removed. People who distribute or pursue CP usually have to send or receive through more direct means.
The DA may choose not to prosecute the reporter but he’s committed all the required elements of the crime. He can most certainly be convicted in my area. It’s an incredibly stupid act on the part of the reporter to knowingly break the law. I think most DA’s would prosecute as it’s an exceptionally easy case for them to win thus improving their personal statistics.