Viewing Child Porn now Legal in New York

[evilneko]

actually, yea, something along the lines of what you said.

A story ran a while back of a IT guy repairing someones computer when he came across dozens of pictures and videos on the guys computer.

However, he was in possession of the computer at the time, and even though he turned it over to police he was also charged with possessing child pornography.

At least this lets people who see it report it without fear of being arrested..... if you live in New York at least.

I seem to remember hearing something like that. I don't remember what came of it. A good lawyer should've been able to get him off the hook though. Hmmm, google time.

Personally, if its drawn, cartoon, or anime, then it really shouldn't matter, it isn't a real person.

I'll drink to that.

Preliminary results of searching: Not the same case but a similarly innocent user, and even Fox News sees the absurdity of it! [http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,244009,00.html] And this poor kid whose only crime was getting a virus is now a sex offender? Yeah, shit needs to change. 2007 story so hopefully something has...

 

[chadachada123]

I actually agree wholeheartedly with making it not illegal to view.

Much like in Japan, where violent rape is at a lower rate now that violent rape porn is more-easily accessible, I think that kiddy-diddling will lower if pedophiles are able to view material from the comfort of their mothers' basements rather than trying to find it in the real world over risking years of imprisonment for looking at some pixels.

It's not like a pedophile or ephebophile actually CHOOSES to be attracted to younger kids, after all, and punishing them for NOT harming someone is a retarded thing to do.

That said, naturally, I wish that people would only be attracted to people their own age, but I realize that this isn't how human brains work.

 

[omicron1]

Solution: Move all FBI child-pornography checkers to New York. Sure, some might slip the net due to this law, but I bet anything you'd catch a huge portion of them on other charges.

 

[chadachada123]

You are looking at images of child abuse. By all accounts, this makes you complicit in the abuse if you make no attempt to inform someone of the abuse being carried out. You are directly handing money over to people who commit acts of child abuse which means you most certainly should be judged to be a criminal. Finally, if the image you are looking at is an image of a sexual interaction with a child, rather than simply an image of said child nude, then you are looking at rape. By all accounts.

Someone who deliberately obtains images of rape or abuse is scum. There is no way that said image can be obtained without abuse coming to a child down the line.

Oh, Lookie, I just contradicted myself. This certainly is an interesting issue.

And whilst many people are pointing out that it is hard to browse the internet without coming across rather horrific things... Although I admit this is the case (Clicking on a NSFL issue on /r/wtf has left me with a memory that I cannot unsee.) there is a difference between that and coming across a hell of a lot of CP.

I think it really depends about... quantity.

Say, if you went through someones cache and browsing history and it turns out they viewed a single picture in which there was someone under the age of consent engaged in a sexual act or wearing absolutely nothing (Carefully avoiding the technically legal act of viewing a picture of an underage person as long as no sex organs are involved, despite many of said pictures being utterly questionable) then ignorance could be used as a defence.

But if it turned out there were dozens, hundreds, thousands of said images? I think it would be safe to say that they are not innocent of deliberately seeking out pictures of child abuse. Unless, naturally, these pictures came up following said person informing the police that the website they thought was safe was actually hosting pictures of child pornography, hidden among legal pictures...

Couple of issues with your statement:

1) How in the hell does viewing some images equate to "DIRECTLY HANDING money over to people who commit acts of child abuse"?

On an imageboard, the uploaders don't get any compensation. No money is exchanged. Your statement would only work on sites where the pedos are also in control of the domain.

2) Equating the viewing of a crime to enabling a crime is, I feel, incorrect. I've got a plethora of gore on my harddrive, including beheadings and the like, some of which are most-likely still unpunished. There's no obligation for me to show these to the police, since I got them online from a random imageboard and have not the slightest clue about what country the crime happened in, so why should I be legally held to hand evidence of crimes against children to the police?

Plus, this says nothing of the images that girls willingly make of themselves and post online, and the police that have arrested and charged the girls themselves for possession/distribution of child pornography, and which doesn't fit under your proposed criteria also.

 

[mrhappy1489]

"Merely viewing Web images of child pornography does not, absent other proof, constitute either possession or procurement within the meaning of our Penal Law," Senior Judge Carmen Beauchamp Ciparick wrote for a majority of four of the six judges.

"Rather, some affirmative act is required (printing, saving, downloading, etc.) to show that defendant in fact exercised dominion and control over the images that were on his screen," Ciparick wrote. "To hold otherwise, would extend the reach of (state law) to conduct - viewing - that our Legislature has not deemed criminal."

A person can view hundreds of these images, or watch hours of real-time videos of children subjected to sexual encounters, and as long as those images are not downloaded, printed or further distributed, such conduct is not proscribed.

It isn't made legal, as Gizmodo suggests, it's just not illegal to look at pics and such. It's only illegal if you're found to be in direct possession of it.

Kind of makes sense, watching it isn't as big of a problem as finding the people who actually make the stuff and cause direct damage to the children doing it. Can see it being used as a way to help persuade people to tell where they say said content.

Should be interesting to see how it all plays out.

I kind of agree with you here. But I think the objective should be to continually vilify the entire situation, we're not trying to encourage this sort of behaviour, we're trying to stop it, or at least stem the tide. You're never going to be able to stop it, but doing this seems more like encouragement than anything else, once it's on the internet does that mean the person who made it can delete it off his computer, then say he stumbled across it? The US congress really should step in here, but the best I can see is the republicans catching wind of it and accusing all democrats of being child porn pervaders.

 

[Leg End]

AFAIK drawn/CG child porn isn't actually illegal in the US. Also did you edit in the quote from me? I didn't get a notification. >.>

That is a misconception. It actually is illegal in the US.

This would appear to be correct. 18 USC sec 1466A [http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1466A] (enacted 2003 under Shrub in the PROTECT Act) does indeed appear to make, for example, lolicon hentai illegal to produce, possess, distribute, or receive. According to wiki, it's been tested in court and has resulted in convictions.

In which case gelbooru better not be hosted in the US. (heck, even safebooru might have problems)

[small]And also the scanlation group SaHa better hope that a judge can see the literary value of Kodomo no Jikan. >.>[/small]

Actually, it's currently in legal hell.
And unconstitutional. To my recollection, it was actually put on the back burner as soon as it was signed in.

So, it's illegal by an illegal law that was nulled yet has been actively used in court on at least one occasion while the Supreme Court won't actually have a hearing on the damn thing so nothing will get done.

So, it's a legal gray area, to put it very simply. Oh, and it's only "illegal" in cases where it is "obscene", an idea that I'm pretty sure has the founding fathers turning over in their graves. :/

So, legal status of it in the United States is: Do whatever you want because the law has no actual opinion on it.

Say it with me now, Land of the Freeeeeeeee, and the Home of the Brrrraaaavvvvveeeee~


Please excuse me for any incorrect info because I cannot find any info that is consistent and I just woke up so my eyes are seeing double and at a clarity of shit-filled water. :L

EDIT:I also beg people to actually follow the link and read the MSNBC article. The thread title is highly misleading, though likely unintentionally.

 

[funcooker11811]

How do you benefit the creators?

People say that but never back it up, the creators aren't using adsense and getting revenue from that.

Because monetary gain isn't the only possible benefit, and I'm guessing it's not even the main reason that they post them? Serial killers don't collect trophies to sell on eBay once they hit it big, they do it so they can always remember what they did. Pedos make videos to relive it as often as they want, and to share with other pedos for fun, glory, and the occasional profit.