I have a little problem that has been worrying me for the past few days. One of my on-line “buddies” gave me a link for what he said was some great pictures. When I followed the link it led me to a pornography site. I haven’t been into the Internet porn stuff for about 5 years, but I was bored and decided to look around. After all of about 30 seconds I realized that these girls were Waaaaayyyyy to young for my tastes. It was disgusting, some of these girls weren’t even teenagers yet! (Not that, that would have mad a huge difference but go with me on this) Now my question is a simple one, do I have to worry about the police kicking my door down for trafficking in child pornography? I was on this sight for less than a minuet. Can the feds track me down and lock me up? I could just kill that guy who sent the lings to me. He claims that he didn’t know that it was young girls. As far as I could tell the only way he could miss it was if he was looking with his eyes closed. So dopers am I going to jail?
This is waaay out of my knowledge base, so my suggestion is that you talk to an attorney. Call the local bar association, and they should be able to hook you up with an initial referral for free or for a low cost.
My guess is that the attorney would tell you to report the site to the local cops or the FBI (there are also private anti-kiddie porn groups that work closely with the FBI.) This would probably keep you out of legal trouble and, more importantly, would be the Right Thing To Do.
Sua
I haven’t seen the pictures so I can’t really tell.
In san jose, california, they had a bbs for years called Amateur Action that sounds like what you are talking about. They got away with it because the pictures, although nude & underage, were not sexual. You know, like people taking pictures of their kids on the beach.
Frankly I would just forget about it. Let someone else report it eventually, but remember, as I said above, its not always illegal even though it may be tasteless.
-
-
- There’s at least one (pay) site that shows underage girls naked that claims to be legal, because the girls aren’t involved in any lewd acts. It has been up for quite some time, certainly long enough to be closed down if the local authorities wanted to. The site also has a .ru extension and Russia has arrested people in child porn operations, so exactly what standard is applied locally there I don’t know. I wouldn’t worry about the cops coming for you on that alone, anyway.
-Then again, I never worry about them coming for you. My advice is for you to eat your HD while they’re breaking down the door.
~
As an aside, -did you ever notice how when they arrest a guy, he’s got thousands of photos on his HD? Maybe they just look for wierdos with their own rack servers and T1’s…
~
- There’s at least one (pay) site that shows underage girls naked that claims to be legal, because the girls aren’t involved in any lewd acts. It has been up for quite some time, certainly long enough to be closed down if the local authorities wanted to. The site also has a .ru extension and Russia has arrested people in child porn operations, so exactly what standard is applied locally there I don’t know. I wouldn’t worry about the cops coming for you on that alone, anyway.
-
- I haven’t ever run across actual XXX child porn in all the sewer-surfing I have done. I understand that it is mostly traded between individuals in AOL chat rooms (he-he! just kidding-). —Seriously, it is traded directly beween individuals through file-sharing programs, not posted on a regular site. - MC
I surfed through some pretty low-class porn sites, and I’ve never seen anything where I thought that the girls might be underaged. In fact, most of these websites go out of their way to reassure you that everyone is an adult, and they’ve got proof on file, and suchlike.
Of course I meant to say that “I have surfed through some pretty low-class porn sites,” not that I went out and found some just now :D…
As a precaution, you might also want to clean out your cache/internet history just to be on the safe side.
To the OP:
One has to hope that whatever law enforcement personnel might possibly be monitoring traffic to a site will use their judgement to see that a person came to it once, stayed for “30 seconds”, and then left, never to return. Since anyone could be directed to a link on accident, and you are not downloading massive amounts of files from the site, etc, etc, it seems difficult to believe anyone will waste their time with you.
It’s the same situation with illegal MP3s. Say you have a dozen illegal MP3 rips on your HD, and the RIAA know about it. What are they going to do? Waste their time on someone with 12 illegal MP3s? Or will they be going after a dorm that has a server set up with 10,000 illegal MP3s on it? Likewise with the porn - who are they going after - the accidental peruser, who will be able to easily make a defence case in court, or the pedophile that has gigabytes of stuff on DAT tapes?
[sub]* Note I am specifying illegal MP3s. MP3s themselves are by no means necessarily illegal just by their nature.[/sub]
my understanding is you can only be prosecuted if you have paid for the pictures. if you havent paid for them and they are on your computer, who knows how they could have got there?
Seriosly, your Honor, my cat loves porno! Whenever I leave the house, he has his paws all over my computer! Of course, he looks at kitty porn.
I wouldn’t use that as a defense, Niobium Knight.
It would seriously help if I could spell.
but you see it could have got there by some dodgy site that downloads it to your computer with some sort of virus program, totally unknown to you.
however if they find records that you have used a credit card to access this sort of site, it is easy to prove.
I don’t think this is correct. From 18 U.S.C. 2252A:
There’s nothing in the entire statute which says that money has to change hands, including in the provisions related to producing or distributing child pornography
As far as the O.P. goes, the word “knowingly” should provide some comfort. Anthracite is also correct; not only will law enforcement authorities use their judgement about this sort of thing, but it is fact written into the law that they do so:
Depending on how much time the O.P. spent on the site and how many links the O.P. clicked on before saying “Ewwww”, he may have violated the “3 images” rule, but between the word “knowingly” and making some effort to delete any of the stuff from his hard drive (as Guinastasia suggested; be sure especially to check the “Temporary Internet Files” folder in C:/WINDOWS), he’s probably in the clear.
Geez!! None of you have answered correctly here. The easiest thing to do in order not to get into trouble is *** to turn the disgusting piece of trash website in to the FBI !!!***
There are several anti-kiddy porn groups that surf the web constantly, looking for the type of web site you seem to be talking about. They turn the kiddy porn sites in fairly regularly.
MEBuckner did.
Every image you looked at is likely still stored in your browser’s cache. The link(s) you visited are likely still stored in your history file.
Just curious - why wouldn’t you want to report it to the FBI? The fact that children’s pictures are on there likely means that children were victimized - youngsters were forced, by someone, to pose in sexually explicit ways for a camera, and now have their faces being broadcast to whoever clicks on that link.
Now, you may be one to say, “Hey, I don’t want to get involved.” And that’s your right. But why not simply do what the FBI recommends? Go here and click on the “Report Online” button, and then fill out the offending web address.
It’s the right thing to do.
- Rick
When federal law authorities arrest your online buddy–and eventually they will–he might well attempt to link you with him in some twisted way. First, I would stop all communications with this pervert. Second, I would block all e-mails from him to you. Third, you must contact the FBI about this site–these kids are almost certainly being sexually and emotionally abused and need your help. Fourth, contacting an attorney, even if a third-year student at the local law school, cannot hurt.
Evil must be confronted, exposed, and crushed. You have a responsibility to turn in the offenders who operate this site. Ignoring the problem only makes you complicit. Your friend, from the way you describe this despicable site, is probably a twisted sicko very much into child porn.
Sometimes I should actually read all of the posts before openning my big mouth! 
'Specially the first response to the OP.
Sua