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

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

#91

Post by droithomme »

Falling3 wrote: post #69
barik wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked for the Department of Homeland security as a contractor in 2009 to develop software for exactly such a use case. The operation for such merchandise is to ship products to basically an arbitrary address (sometimes knowing that the actual resident is on vacation, I suppose), and then have someone on the delivery end intercept the package. In these cases, the only realistic option for officials is to intercept…

I'm not saying it doesn't happen. I'm saying that the risk-reward ratio is way too skewed for me to give it a second thought.

In this subthread we were evaluating the legal scenario where that those receiving cocaine in the mail, regardless of whether they had knowledge or intent of it, should be arrested.

Under this premise, cases of people who do not ever receive drugs in the mail is not relevant.

Statistically, one relevant question to ask is, of those who have cocaine bricks delivered to their front porch, what percentage were actually involved in receiving cocaine compared to those who were a drop point for a pickup involving two other unknown parties.

As Barik (a contractor with direct investigative knowledge) pointed out above, using strangers' homes as drop points for cocaine brick delivery is common in the US in the context of illegal drug deliveries by mail. It is entirely possible it accounts for the vast majority of cocaine brick by mail deliveries.

If this accounts for more than an inconsequential portion of cocaine brick mail deliveries, then it is utterly unjust and unreasonable to advocate or defend laws that criminalize mere possession and not knowledge of what you have, and/or intent.

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

#92

Post by prunebeads »

Cushman wrote: post #37
prunebeads wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But one has to wonder: What if it were? What if YouTube had a button for "Report Illegal" that forwarded the video to law enforcement, hid it, and cleared it from your cache? Then you'd probably get police forces overwhelmed with bogus complaints.

Maybe. They seem to handle copyrighted content pretty well.

Content providers don't blindly forward anonymous accusations to the police forces, do they?

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

#93

Post by mrkurt »

guard-of-terra wrote: post #85

The real problem is not the child porn. The real problem is "morals", "christianity" and "religion". Only by slaying these you can fix the problem in the long run. So: - If you happen to be religious, quit it right now please. - Press everybody to do that. - If you find yourself pressing your "moral values" on somebody over, quit. - Press everybody to do that. It's pointless anyway since gods aren't real. And your mo…

"Protect the children" is a much, much broader issue than oppression for religious regions.

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

#94

Post by ScottBurson »

crazygringo wrote: post #56

There's a lot of food for thought here, and important points. But in one area, the author completely glosses over a crucial distinction: > why is it only documentation of sex crimes against minors that are being banned in this way? The lawmen are perfectly fine with a video documenting how a teenager is being stabbed with a screwdriver in both eyes, then murdered. ... why is the ban just related to anything sexual, a…

Here's a proposal. Mere possession should be legal, as Falkvinge argues. What should be illegal is purchasing child porn.

You might reply that it might be difficult to prove that money changed hands, particularly in this brave new Bitcoin world. Fine. Let's say that possession of images that are known to have been sold to anyone at any time constitutes prima facie circumstantial evidence that the person possessing the images paid for them.

Another objection might be that this law might not suffice for catching cabals of child pornographers who create and share images, but without money changing hands. Fine -- let's generalize the criterion to include any exchange of value, including in-kind exchanges. So trading images without monetary payment would still be illegal. (Of course, creating the images would remain highly illegal.)

The outcome would be that the provenance of the image would matter. Possessing an image taken by oneself, or by a friend, possibly by the subject -- all these would be legal, so long as no other crime was committed in the creation of the image or in obtaining it. But downloading material that was being circulated on the Net would still be very dangerous -- the probability of picking up an image that someone had paid for (or bartered for) sometime would soon approach 100%.

Let's call such images "tainted images". The provision that possession of a tainted image constitutes prima facie (i.e., rebuttable) evidence is important. It means that if you visit a Web site that pops up images of child porn, you haven't thereby committed a crime, so long as forensic examination of your computer supports your contention that this was accidental and not part of a pattern of behavior (e.g. there are only a couple of such images and they're only in your browser cache). Well, IANAL and I probably don't know exactly how the law should be phrased, but I think it should be along these lines.

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

#95

Post by objclxt »

guard-of-terra wrote: post #85

The real problem is not the child porn. The real problem is "morals", "christianity" and "religion". Only by slaying these you can fix the problem in the long run. So: - If you happen to be religious, quit it right now please. - Press everybody to do that. - If you find yourself pressing your "moral values" on somebody over, quit. - Press everybody to do that. It's pointless anyway since gods aren't real. And your mo…

This is a really terrible argument. You say "if you find yourself pressing your "moral values" on somebody over, quit", but then impose your own moral values upon everyone else.

I'm an atheist, but I also accept that religion isn't necessarily the cause of all moral problems, but merely a conduit through which they flow. Find me a Catholic who's against abortion and I'll find you an atheist who feels the same way.

A wholly atheistic society would still have many of the moral and ethical problems we face today - the arguments for and against them would merely manifest themselves differently.

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

#96

Post by stickfigure »

birdcircle wrote: post #74
drcube wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In this case both destroying the evidence and possessing the evidence are crimes. What are you supposed to do?

I challenge anyone to find actual foundation for the claim that unwittingly recording a child rape in the park is a crime even if the witness reports it and provides the video evidence. Seems to me that this is the "slippery slope" argument taken to unreasonable extremes.

Twenty years ago I would have challenged someone to find a case of a 17 year old being prosecuted for child pornography for taking a picture of themselves. Or a 19 year old being forced to register as a sex offender because of a 17 year old partner.

These laws have already been pushed to unreasonable extremes.

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

#97

Post by guard-of-terra »

mrkurt wrote: post #93
guard-of-terra wrote: post #85

The real problem is not the child porn. The real problem is "morals", "christianity" and "religion". Only by slaying these you can fix the problem in the long run. So: - If you happen to be religious, quit it right now please. - Press everybody to do that. - If you find yourself pressing your "moral values" on somebody over, quit. - Press everybody to do that. It's pointless anyway since gods aren't real. And your mo…

"Protect the children" is a much, much broader issue than oppression for religious regions.

It is a symptom. The cause is religions - people who think they've got to impose their interpretation of morality (to which they themselves do not conform) on wide public.

It is made clearly in the article that bad laws are lobbied by religious fundamentalists. Since religions have no value, I say clean it up.

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

#98

Post by guard-of-terra »

objclxt wrote: post #95
guard-of-terra wrote: post #85

The real problem is not the child porn. The real problem is "morals", "christianity" and "religion". Only by slaying these you can fix the problem in the long run. So: - If you happen to be religious, quit it right now please. - Press everybody to do that. - If you find yourself pressing your "moral values" on somebody over, quit. - Press everybody to do that. It's pointless anyway since gods aren't real. And your mo…

This is a really terrible argument. You say "if you find yourself pressing your "moral values" on somebody over, quit", but then impose your own moral values upon everyone else. I'm an atheist, but I also accept that religion isn't necessarily the cause of all moral problems, but merely a conduit through which they flow. Find me a Catholic who's against abortion and I'll find you an atheist who feels the same way. A…

The problem with Catholics lies not in the fact that they are against abortion, but in the fact that they are against somebody else's abortion.

They somehow got the idea that instead of helping poor raise their children, talking to pregnant girls, all the good stuff - they can just take a big stick and make things illegal. As if it helps anybody.

This is where we have a problem, as you can see. Mentoring people to not have sex because Jesus didn't is one thing. Throwing people in jails is a kind of mortal sin, but for religion. They did it so now they aren't saved.

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

#99

Post by darklajid »

sudonim wrote: post #24

When I lived in Houston and was buying a house I used a website to look up sex offenders in the neighborhood. I remember seeing one guy who was in the sex offender database because when he was 19, he had sex with a 17 year old. It made me feel a little uncomfortable. It struck me because I was in my mid 20s and I think we were around the same age at the time. Something is amiss in a system that punishes him for life…

Excuse me, I don't mean to accuse or judge.

Why are you checking that database in the first place? In my world your access to this information is the reason for its right to exist in your social context. I doubt that it's possible to check these lists and criticize them at the same time. What lead you to check it out?

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

#100

Post by [deleted] »

sudonim wrote: post #87
parfe wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I remember seeing one guy who was in the sex offender database because when he was 19, he had sex with a 17 year old. The age of consent in Texas is 17 with a 3 year Romeo and Juliet exception.

Maybe I misremembered the ages? They were very close because my shock at the time is etched in my brain. Could have been 18 - 16. And I'm guessing this guy was convicted before Romeo & Juliet laws. Looks like Rick Perry also vetoed that law in 2011? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_consent_reform Wikipedia is a little unclear on the issue.

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