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UK official involved in national porn filter arrested for child porn

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Re: UK official involved in national porn filter arrested for child porn

#21
post #12
post #7

I still find it incredible that merely possessing some files is enough to get you arrested and possibly end your career. Weirder still, it seems to be ok to have just about all other sorts of horrific photos depicting, say, brutal violence..

I could be wrong, but I think there's far less of a market for producing photos of brutal violence than there is for producing photos of illegal pornography - the law is really about trying to kill the market, rather than it actually mattering that they are looking at the photos (really the only reason to punish people for looking at them is that by stopping these people you can help take away the incentive for peopl…

Maybe there's scientific evidence that paedophiles who look at cartoon images are more likely to become sex offenders than those who avoid all pornography? Even then, not sure it's the right approach... but who knows.

Or maybe there's evidence that looking at any type of pornography decreases illegal behavior and the people making the laws don't give a crap about real data?[1]

[1] http://freakonomics.com/2011/08/04/porn-and-rape-the-debate-...

Re: UK official involved in national porn filter arrested for child porn

#22
post #7

I still find it incredible that merely possessing some files is enough to get you arrested and possibly end your career. Weirder still, it seems to be ok to have just about all other sorts of horrific photos depicting, say, brutal violence..

Our complete inability to even suggest trying to think rationally about these issues is much worse than that.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/labour/4949555/Harr...

Re: UK official involved in national porn filter arrested for child porn

#23
post #7

I still find it incredible that merely possessing some files is enough to get you arrested and possibly end your career. Weirder still, it seems to be ok to have just about all other sorts of horrific photos depicting, say, brutal violence..

similar things just happened in germany.

> Edathy announced his resignation from parliament "for health reasons" on February 7, 2014. Just two days after his resignation went public, his home and offices were searched by authorities; media outlets asserted that the searches were made on allegations of possession of child pornography.[] 14 February 2014, Hans-Peter Friedrich, resigned from the ruling CDU–SPD grand coalition government reacting to imminent legal investigations into incidents during his tenure as Federal Minister of the Interior. Friedrich was accused of betraying state secrets about legal investigations to SPD party heads during the coalition negotiations after the federal elections in 2013 about information showing Edathy's link to a globally-operating child pornography syndicate and plans to take up an investigation against Edathy on suspicion of possessing such material. "The SPD's top leaders, who received the intelligence information from Friedrich, said they have not given any tip-off to Edathy and they kept the information secret."[] They are Economy Minister Sigmar Gabriel, who is also Merkel's deputy; Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier; and the party's parliamentary leader, Thomas Oppermann.

what i didn't know until recently was that edathy was overseeing an investigation on the verfassungschutz (a german intelligence gathering institution to fight threats concerning democratic order etc.) [2]

essentially a few police informants essentially ran a terrorism cell targeted at immigrants. when investigations happened a lot of the official records were destroyed. [3]

according to the news edathy bought pictures of naked children. he might have, but who knows.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sebastian_Edathy

[2] http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/Bundesamt+f%c3%bcr...

[3] http://www.news.ch/Behoerde+vernichtet+Akten+von+Zwickauer+T...

Re: UK official involved in national porn filter arrested for child porn

#24

The most interesting thing about this to me is that shortly after the advisor was arrested, the rightwing Daily Mail started a smear campaign against senior members of the opposition, effectively accusing them of having supported paedophilia in the 1970s[1]. It dominated UK headlines for about a week, until the Ukraine crisis, at which point the (much more serious and concrete) allegations against the government advi…

The DM broke this story too. Defo an interesting timeline of events.

Re: UK official involved in national porn filter arrested for child porn

#25
post #12
post #7

I still find it incredible that merely possessing some files is enough to get you arrested and possibly end your career. Weirder still, it seems to be ok to have just about all other sorts of horrific photos depicting, say, brutal violence..

I could be wrong, but I think there's far less of a market for producing photos of brutal violence than there is for producing photos of illegal pornography - the law is really about trying to kill the market, rather than it actually mattering that they are looking at the photos (really the only reason to punish people for looking at them is that by stopping these people you can help take away the incentive for peopl…

[deleted]

Re: UK official involved in national porn filter arrested for child porn

#26

The most interesting thing about this to me is that shortly after the advisor was arrested, the rightwing Daily Mail started a smear campaign against senior members of the opposition, effectively accusing them of having supported paedophilia in the 1970s[1]. It dominated UK headlines for about a week, until the Ukraine crisis, at which point the (much more serious and concrete) allegations against the government advi…

The DM broke this story too. Defo an interesting timeline of events.

That's interesting. Check out how far down the front page it is, though!

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/index.html

Re: UK official involved in national porn filter arrested for child porn

#27
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's worse, it doesn't actually need to be child pornography. Even computer-generated/digitally modified images/videos where actors resemble children, and even drawings that can be interpreted as children having sex, are illegal!

There need to be prohibitions that don't discriminate on the basis of age. If someone's being abused, against their will, that's the same thing. It doesn't matter if they've crossed the magical line where they're an adult. If you're going to make a stand, at least make a principled one ("We're trying to prevent abuse") and not one on emotional basis ("Think of the children!")

There is a bill to ban the possession of adult rape pornography currently being introduced into law (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criminal_Justice_and_Courts_Bi...)

Re: UK official involved in national porn filter arrested for child porn

#28
post #18

In a double dose of irony it was the Daily Mail who originally broke the story, the very same paper who are being petitioned to stop posting pictures that sexualise under age girls. https://www.change.org/en-GB/petitions/daily-mail-mailonline...

Why is that irony?

Because, you see, it's a lot like rain on your wedding day.

Re: UK official involved in national porn filter arrested for child porn

#29
post #12
post #7

I still find it incredible that merely possessing some files is enough to get you arrested and possibly end your career. Weirder still, it seems to be ok to have just about all other sorts of horrific photos depicting, say, brutal violence..

I could be wrong, but I think there's far less of a market for producing photos of brutal violence than there is for producing photos of illegal pornography - the law is really about trying to kill the market, rather than it actually mattering that they are looking at the photos (really the only reason to punish people for looking at them is that by stopping these people you can help take away the incentive for peopl…

But how can be the market destroyed when there is a demand. We should understand that there are those people who are being attracted to minors (we call them pedophiles), call this a disease, or whatever, but these people exist, and the vast majority of them are normal people in the real life. We, normal people (or what is normal?), are attracted to other adult people, but it doesn't make us rapers just because we imagine having sex with somebody. And it doesn't make those people child-molesters if they are only imagining it. And we are allowed to watch porn. If we want to kill the CP market (so the criminals stop shooting new CP material) let's give those people the possibility to watch it legally (because if not they are going to do it illegally). Let's collect all those already made illegal materials and give it to them for free (like the medical marijuana) so they can somewhat fulfill their sexual desires without harming anybody.

Re: UK official involved in national porn filter arrested for child porn

#30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The DM broke this story too. Defo an interesting timeline of events.

That's interesting. Check out how far down the front page it is, though! http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/index.html

It is hugely prominent on todays dead tree front page though http://www.thepaperboy.com/uk/daily-mail/front-pages-today.c...
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