I saw a thread in the Pit about someone who got KP spam through ICQ, and turned it in to the feds. Some others worried that the feds would nail him for trading KP, even though he’s innocent.
Here’s my proposal for those who turn in KP traders.
=> Assumption of innocence: Everyone would be considered innocent until proven guilty. No exceptions. The person who turns in the deves would be presumed to be an innocent bystander until proven otherwise.
=> Confidentiality: Nothing would be leaked. Everything would be done under strictest secrecy. Any agent who leaks info would be prosecuted.
=> Anonymity: I could turn in a KP spammer and keep my identity totally unknown to the feds. They wouldn’t be able to do a damn thing to me unless their investigation of the KP guy reveals that I’m assisting/have assisted him.
=> Ease of reporting: All I’d have to do is email an url to kiddieporn@fbi.gov or whatever. That’s it.
=> Full co-operation with ISPs: The feds would be on friendly terms with every ISP in the United States that provides web hosting. If a webmaster finds a KP site on his server, he just passes it over to the feds, who QUIETLY investigate him.
KP is so illegal that having more than 2 photos in your possession is prima facia evidence, regardless of how it is acquired, accidentally or otherwise.
The spammer could produce phony e-mail saying that the ‘informer’ requested the KP.
Web sites can be reported already, and are shut down relatively quickly.
If I’m not mistaken, a person accused of a crime has the right to confront the accuser and any witnesses. This is to make it harder to get wawy with slander, I believe.
Ugh. Explain this phrase. I wasn’t aware that there were levels of illegality (barring the difference between a felony and a misdemeanor). Or did you mean “KP has such a hysteria-inducing vile factor that…”?
(Live model) KP is vile. It’s sick. Even the computer-generated and text-based KP is, at the very least, disgusting, though the justification for including them in KP legislation is thin (and the justification for including the use of of-age actors who look younger is outright illogical). But it’s no more illegal than any other crime. There’s just a visceral disgust associated with it that sets it apart from things like murder or theft.
jayjay, I don’t think it’s such a stretch to see that society has levels of illegality. One could even say that crimes that have harsher penalties are more illegal than those with less harsh penalties.
Levels of severity, perhaps. But not of illegality. Illegality is a binary state…something either is illegal or it isn’t. Now whether the crime which is the object of the adjective “illegal” is more severe than a similar crime is another discussion.
Understand that I do not advocate child pornography, but I do think that the entire legal branch that deals with it has been submerged in hysteria on occasion, usually by a public that’s been whipped into a frenzy by demagogic politicians. Which is why I metaphorically roll my eyes when phrases like “KP is so illegal…” pop up. It’s a felony. It’s no more illegal than murder or any other felony in the (theoretical) eye of a (theoretically) blind justice system.
jayjay, mere possession of KP makes the burden shift to the defendant. In some cases, that is all the evidence that is heard; the defendant has no effective defense. And woe to those that claim some form of vigilanteism. Even the SCOTUS all but santion this absolute ban.
Oh BTW, the law against nude photos of people who look younger but are 18+ has been declared unconstitutional by a federal judge.
I understand that many of the websites exist because they’re located in countries who don’t particularly care, or have resources, to go after them. Russia, f’r’instance, in the current Pit thread.
What I don’t understand, though, is that there are Usenet newsgroups devoted to it. I’m not talking text stories, I mean binaries, pictures. I would assume that many of them are just automatic spam from programs hurling standard pornspam at anything with .binaries. in the newsgroup name, but some of them are probably actual KP–not particularly eager to check that myself. US-based ISPs carry them freely on their newsfeeds. Mindspring/Earthlink does for sure, some are right there when you look through the list of all groups.
Why? This has always just flummoxed me. To pick a very bad metaphor (particularly since my attitude towards drugs is extremely libertarian), it’d be like having a giant building labeled Cocaine City! in giant neon letters that people were free to wander in and out of at will filling garbage bags with nose candy.
Should text-based KP be legal? Now before I go further, let me emphasise that I absolutely hate ANYTHING that shows children in a sexual light. But in my mind, a fantasy text-based story isn’t the same as a pic/movie. Why? Because with text, no actual children are involved. All you need to make textual “porn” is some horny deve with a copy of WordPad.
In my view (and I know I’m gonna get totally flamed), text based “KP” should be legal, as long as the text is pure fantasy and doesn’t encourage others to molest children. Like it or not, we here in the US have freedom of speech, and it seems to me that fantasy text that doesn’t encourage breaking the law would be covered.
For those of you who are even now composing a flame on me, if text-based “KP” was banned because it depicts illegal sexual acts, then ALL fictional media depicting the characters doing ANYTHING illegal would also be banned. There goes just about every action/adventure movie ever made, every video game, literally thousands of books, etc etc etc. You may argue that children need special protection–and I agree–but that doesn’t mean that we need to ban anything that doesn’t necessarily involve them. If you’re going to argue that textual “KP” fuels a child molestor’s desires, see above point–we’d also have to ban depictions of all illegal acts on the grounds that they MIGHT inspire someone to do what’s depicted! :rolleyes:
Bottom line: We can do a LOT better by fighting real child abuse, as opposed to some deve cranking out text in his basement.
(Oh yeah–the above applies to drawings, fake pix created in Photoshop, and any media which doesn’t involve actual children.)
“KP”? Is that the newspeak for it now? Let’s have a catchy buzzword we can toss around that can be immediately vilified without requiring any thought. Sheesh. Annoys me almost as much as “ChiCom”.
As for the discussion at hand: anyone having anything to do with child pornography, fictional or otherwise, even merely reporting it, must be immediately hunted down and burned at the stake as quickly as possible. Obstacles like trials and “innocent until proven guilty” merely give the wi–er–“KP trader”-- more time to do their awful hideous damage.
Now, we track one who does some of KP literature, pitchforks wielded and torches lit, only to find out that the literature are the musings of a fourteen year old girl. what to do then?
Stop and think about what you’re advocating. Do you really want that sort of society? What if some wiseguy hacker came in through one of your open ports, stuffed your computer with KP (yeah, I call it that, learn to love it), then used your Internet connection to email a confession to Officer Friendly? Are we going to investigate and prosecute all website owners in North Korea because their ccTLD happens to be .kp?
Mekhazzio, I hope you’re being sarcastic. But what if you really think that way? I guarantee that you won’t be advocating that much longer when that kiddie snert whose parents don’t spank him enough does what I described after you pissed him off in an IRC session or Usenet post. It’s one thing to advocate raping the Bill Of Rights, but you’ll think differently when it’s YOUR ass in the dock.
Read history. Remember the Puritan witch hunts, or the McCarthy Communist witch-hunt? Remember the Satanic sex-abuse cases which ruined a lot of innocent people? Although sexualizing small children is repulsive, I find denying the rights of the people to be far worse. IMO, raising a child in a Stalinist despotism is even worse than having sex with it.
You accuse me of tossing around the term KP to avoid logical thought, then you turn around and advocate mindless violence toward anyone who’s even been in the same time zone as KP. Can we say “hypocrite”?
By nailing people who simply report the stuff, you are guaranteeing that decent people won’t report it. The trade will simply continue unhindered until a fed stumbles across it. Is that what you want? Well, that’s what you’ll jolly well get if you get your way.
Really think about this before you respond. I have.
:stopping my rant here to keep this thread outta the Pit:
Yes, that was indeed sarcasm. I thought it was extreme enough to be painfully obvious, but I guess not. It bothers me greatly that common attitude has become so immediately and violently knee-jerk that my hyperbole was assumed to be an honest viewpoint. It disgusts me to see common sense thrown away the moment someone screams “DO IT FOR THE CHILDREN!!”
But then I’m just a wacko who doesn’t have much problem with child porn, especially fictional, in the first place. I tend not to agree with the ridiculous “age < 18 = asexual” theory at all. So don’t mind me.
As someone who was sexually abused over and over as a kid and is still dealing with its effects today, I don’t really care about the fictional crap that pedophiles read…
But in the real world, there can’t be any kiddie porn without some kid getting victimized… There is NO excuse for screwing up a kid’s life for decades so some pervert can get his rocks off…
There’s a big difference between molestation and porn. The line might be blurred a little at the younger ages (Sexual experience at the age of 3 or so would probably be rather… Bad. The child would probably have no idea what’s going on, and probably not want to do it, in which case it’s molestation, plain and simple). But “kiddie porn” includes kids as old as 16 and 17, which are not only of consentual age in many states, but not too unlikely to be sexually active, themselves. I know people who have had sex since they were 12 or 13, and completely aware of the consequences and all (Granted, that’s more the exception than the rule). But because of the way the laws are, if a consenting 17 year-old couple were to take photographs of themselves in sexual situations, it would be illegal for ANYONE to have those, including themselves, if I’m not mistaken. It’s saying that them having sex is fine, but any photos of the act, even if taken by themselves, is victimizing them and screwing up their lives? That seems more than a little absurd, to me…
Mekhazzio and Dijon Warlock, thanks for the links. This is exactly why I’m against vigilanteism. Someone inevitably winds up hurting the innocent. This is exactly why the right to a fair trial and presumption of innocence is so precious. One can never find justice from a lynch mob.
As for the pediatrician who was victimized by people who thought the word “pediatrician” was synonymous with “pedophile”, I must ask–what the hell are they smoking in the UK? Let’s hope those vigilantes are sterilized before they have a chance to reproduce. :rolleyes:
