Rick Falkvinge: Why free speech is harmed by the ban on child porn

   But possession of child pornography is a strict liability offense, like possession of cocaine, at least in the entire United States, as well as several other countries. Intent, mens rea, is irrelevant: if you have it, no matter why, you're guilty.

The Child Pornography Prevention Act also prohibits speech having serious redeeming value, proscribing the visual depiction of an idea -- that of teenagers engaging in sexual activity -- that is a fact of modern society and has been a theme in art and literature for centuries.

"It’s not illegal to film a murder. It’s not illegal to possess a film of a murder. But it’s still illegal to murder people. And it’s illegal to initiate a murder for the purpose of filming it. If you have taken part in a murder and have film of it, the film may be usable as proof against you. I can’t see that Rick suggests anything different here – i.e., I see no suggestions that it should be OK to molest children for the purpose of filming it. That’s good."

Cocaine seems (to me) to be somewhat less severe drug than, say, alcohol.

Same applies to child porn. A lot of stuff qualifies as child porn recently, including stuff originally not meant to be any kind of porn neither produced with any harm to kids. Unless child porn prosecution proponents can limit themself with some strict definition of child porn (which they would not do), I say we lose by criminalizing possession of random pics that were considered OK thirty years before.