I was reading a true crime biography today that eventually caused me to remember the hitman book by paladin press. It was a hitman how to guide that was later used as a template for a murder. A us court found it was not covered under protection from lawsuits by the first amendment.
But I don’t think the book ever became illegal itself. Which got me thinking, what media is illegal to own?
I know certain kinds of pornography are illegal to own. Child pornography and beastiality.
Aside from that, I really don’t know.
Is owning pirated media even illegal? I thought it was only illegal to distribute it, not own it.
What about stolen documents or government secrets? Glenn Greenwald owns a lot from Edward Snowden. But he has never Ben prosecuted for owning them. Does he have special rights as a journalist that the public at large would not have?
That is all I can think of. Any other forms of media illegal to own in the US?
As always some laws are going to vary from state to state. Also there are things like stolen property which you can’t own but can possess so I’m going to go with your ownership meaning possess.
Slaves, of course, are illegal.
I’d think certain radioactive substances like enriched uranium might be illegal. Certain weapons like assault weapons are illegal at least in some places.
Some drugs and drug paraphernalia must be illegal to own.
Certain wild or endangered animals are illegal to own.
I’ve never heard that beastiality pornography is illegal. It probably technically is in some jurisdictions, but I’d suspect that law would be found unconstitutional if challenged.
In general you have no obligations towards keeping secrets unless you are bound to do so by your employment or position. While it was illegal to steal the secret documents it’s not illegal to receive them. Journalists aren’t special in that regard.
In the 60s and 70s, it was illegal for stamp collectors to own postage stamps issued during certain years from Cuba, Rhodesia, and probably a few other countries. Even postally-used stamps on the original envelopes, even though the US post office had to (by treaty) deliver mail sent from those countries. So technically, US government agents were delivering unsolicited contraband right into people’s mailboxes.
Stamps were the visible tip of an iceberg of Treasure Department regulations prohibiting possession of anything produced in those countries. (Except critical chromium, which the US imported in huge quantities from Rhodesia, laundered through third countries.)
Interesting point. If they were copies of the documents (or computer files where nothing original is destroyed or removed) I don’t think this would hold. IANAL but I think that it would only apply if you’ve deprived the owner of the original. Just like there are differences with laws regarding theft and intellectual property I think the differences would apply here.
In many cases in the past reporters have been in the clear for getting leaks or pilfered information so I would imagine there’s precedent. Can someone more knowledgeable point to the legalese on this?
From Wikipedia
*In November 1997, a U.S. appeals court ruled 3–0 that Hit Man was not protected by the free speech/free press clause of the First Amendment and thus Paladin Enterprises could be held liable for a triple murder committed by one of its readers.[2][3]
On May 21, 1999, Paladin Press’ insurance company agreed to settle the case out-of-court, against the wishes of Paladin Press themselves, who were confident that they would prevail in court; however, Paladin’s insurance company balked at going to court again, figuring expenses for a lengthy trial in federal court, plus the posting of a bond in case they lost and appealed, would have cost much more than the settlement.[4] Under this settlement, Paladin’s insurance policy paid several million dollars to the families of those killed by the murderer, while also agreeing to destroy the remaining 700 copies of the book in their possession and surrendering any rights they had to publish and reproduce the work. Jon Ford, Paladin’s editorial director, called the settlement "economic censorship.*
What stinks about the insurance company not fighting it is, it creates precedent. Had they fought it is more probable than not that they would have won, even if it had to go all the way to the supreme court. Now there is pretty much nothing stopping anyone from suing any writer for anything written which is later used in the commission of a crime. There never was anything stopping anyone in the past, but now there is a successful case of it on record.
The shocking thing about that book is that it was allegedly written by a bored housewife. I have a copy of it and it’s pretty technical and intricate. She really covered a lot of bases.
U.S.C. Title 18would suggest that knowingly receiving or publishing classified information is a criminal act.
However in the Pentagon Papers case, while Daniel Ellsberg was indicted on charges of stealing classified documents (he was later freed after a mistrial and not retried), the New York Times, to which Ellsberg had given the entire 43 volumes, was never charged with any violation of federal law. (The government case against the Times centered around the more narrow question of whether there was a compelling reason not to publish the report (and the government lost that case.)
Along with child pornography and bestiality, the John Ashcroft era cracked down on scat pornography under obscenity laws. Lots of arrests, but very few convictions.
Watching a recent online thing about movie censorship, I learned something interesting: the first movie censorship law enacted in the United States didn’t deal with sex - it was a Maine law, enacted in 1897, which prohibited movies which depicted prize fighting. Prize fighting at the time was illegal in Maine and most other states but an entrepreneur had filmed a boxing match in Nevada (where it was legal) and was going around the country showing the movie.
A while back, there was some uproar over the AACS encryption key being deemed an “illegal number.” The uproar and legality vs free speech aspects seem to be still undecided, so to protect the SDMB, I won’t post it or link to it, but it is easily searched.
There’s also a similarly illegal number related to jail breaking the PlayStation 3.
Distinguish between the physical media and the content. Possession of physical items - papers, files, computer media - that are were owned by someone else like the government, then stolen is possession of stolen goods, whereas if the items are copied onto media you own, all they can do is go after you with something like the official secrets act.
The problem is that if the government tries to prosecute a newspaper or other big public media for publishing state secrets, they run into a detail called the First Amendment, which trumps laws. I suppose then they would have to show not just that the information was secret, but that there was no good reason to publish it and it obviously recklessly endangers lives of government operatives so badly it outweighs the publics right to know when their government screws up.
Despite government bluster, Snowden, Assange, and Manning, like Ellsberg, have never actually been shown to have endangered anyone or thwarted any investigation into a real threat. Endangering re-election chances probably does not qualify as damage worth censoring.
There may not be specific items illegal to own like hitman or explosives “How To” manuals, but possession of these when they come looking for you during a criminal investigation will be one more item brought up in court.
There was the story about the university student in the 80’s who did some research on how to make an atomic bomb. The state of general published physics knowledge has advanced a lot in 40 years, and he found a lot of critical information was available in textbooks. When the government tried to block this sort of information, it boiled down to something like - the textbooks were not classified, but if certain passages were highlighted with a marker or underlined, now the book was classified secret.