The Reality of Child Porn – 2

Recently another case appeared highlighting the vast chasm between what government, law, and their media puppets would like us to believe:

Child pornography is now seen as ‘the visual record of the sexual abuse of a child, either by adults, other children or which involves bestiality’. (Source)

and the reality:

Rebert said in Dull’s case, “What made them offensive was their graphic nature. A little girl with her bare butt showing, kind of looking over her shoulder.

“It’s a difficult distinction to make. What’s a cute butt and what’s pornographic? (Source)

Rebert is the York County, PA, district attorney. I’m not a district attorney, but I know the difference between a cute butt and pornography. Someone who can’t make that distinction has no business overseeing child pornography charges against a 56 year old grandmother.

The best piece I’ve found on this case is at Reason.

What makes this case extra interesting is the treatment given the grandmother when she was arrested for a picture of “a little girl with her bare butt showing, kind of looking over her shoulder”.

Dull maintains she was handcuffed “tightly in a rough, vigorous and aggressive manner” and slammed into a parked car with enough force that her head bounced off the vehicle, resulting in injuries to her back. (Source)

Why is it that the police felt it was OK to treat a 56 year old grandmother this way? Most likely it was the idea of crimen exceptum.

The clear relationship between the elements that make up the police state, including the inevitable ‘legislative creep’ that makes it possible can be seen from the above. A key sub-element in the doctrines and dogmas is the crimen exceptum, the designated crime for which normal law and the processes of justice are suspended – heresy, witchcraft, being a Jew in Nazi Germany, child sex abuse, child porn, and so on. Note how child porn has been used to transform the Internet into a tool of repression and fear and a powerful device for the police and prosecution state. (Source)

The Reality of Child Porn

I’ve started a new category I call The Reality of Child Porn inspired by three blog posts I found on another WordPress blog. The author of this blog made three detailed posts in 2007 and 2008. There’s no use in my summarizing them here. It’s better for you to read them for yourself. The author does great work and I wish he’d continue. Lord knows there’s dozen of more examples of the government and law enforcement lying, abusing their power, and using child porn as an excuse to curtail civil liberties. Links to the individual posts are below with their full titles.

Gonzales, Mueller, McDade and Eichenwald: Did They Violate 18 USC 2252A?

Alleged Child Porn Victims Identified—As Adults. Prosecutor Ignores Evidence, Insists They Are Pre-Teens, And Proceeds With Prosecution.

Defendant Charged With Thought Crime After Alleged Child Porn Revealed To Be Adult Porn

I tip my hat to the author of these posts.

Legalizing Drugs? Legalizing Child Porn?

Pulitzer Prize winning columnist Leonard Pitts Jr. suggests in a recent column that “maybe we should legalize drugs.” I suggest maybe we should legalize child pornography.

Then there’s the collateral damage. ”When somebody gets arrested,” says Cole, ”it’s not only that person whose life is crippled. It drags down their whole family.” This, because the conviction makes it nearly impossible to get a job, go to college, even rent an apartment.

With child porn, the collateral damage also affects whole families. Increasingly, the child porn witch hunt is ensnaring the very people the anti-child porn laws are supposedly meant to protect.

If the girls are charged and convicted of child pornography violations, the plaintiffs contend, they would have a felony record and could be subjected to state Megan’s Law provisions, which would require them to register as convicted sex offenders.

What warrants such punishment? The rape of a child? No. The sexual abuse of an infant? No. How about:

The first image shows two teenage girls lying side by side in their bras. One of them is talking on a phone, while the other makes a peace sign.

In another picture, a third girl is seen just as she emerged from a shower, wrapped by a towel but with her breasts exposed.

There’s more on this case at a Wall Street journal blog post. That is what the child porn witch hunt has come to. I’m sure some hard core child porn does exist, but over-zealous police and prosecutors and lawmakers are no longer content to go after those responsible for the real abuse of children. Now children themselves are the targets.

Pitts writes more:

And for what? This ”War” has been an exercise in futility. In 1970, says Cole, about 2 percent of the population over the age of 12 had at some point or another used an illegal drug. As of 2003, he says, that number stood at 46, an increase of 2,300 percent — yet we’ve spent over a trillion dollars and imprisoned more people per capita than any country in the world in order to reduce drug use?

The laughable “war” on child porn follows the same trajectory. More police, more resources, more prosecutions, more time in prison, more sacrifices of our civil liberties, and what do we get for our efforts? A problem that is “exploding”.

How many hundreds of billions of dollars will we spend, how many hundreds of thousands of men will we imprison for decades before we realize the uncanny similarities between the “war” on drugs and the “war” on child porn? How long before we realize that when there is a demand, and when there are people (suppliers) able and willing to meet that demand, the demand will be met?

I’m Back

After a long hiatus from posting I’ll be making more frequent posts. I’m returning by quoting a paragraph from an online book by John Robin Sharpe, who is the subject of a child porn case that reached the Canadian Supreme Court. The bold text is my doing, not Sharpe’s.

The metaphor of “sending messages” is a favourite of those who advocate harsh penalties including judges. Somehow it is assumed that the intent of the message sent is identical with the meaning of the one received. But what message do harsher penalties send to those who engage or are tempted to engage in prohibited activities? It is true that some, the more timid and less aggressive potential offenders may be dissuaded. Harsher penalties are an escalation of social conflict and lead to violence, murders and more resources and “glamour” for the police. The adjustments to more restrictive laws and harsher penalties favour organized crime, corruption of our police and justice industry, and the use of weapons. We have seen this happen in the case of drugs where the police, courts and corrections, as well as the legal profession are as dependent on our drug laws as any junkie is on heroin. With high taxes we know we can create a similar situation with respect to cigarettes and smuggling. A few centuries ago during a crime hysteria much like the present one hanging was introduced by the “Reform Party” minded of the day for crimes such as theft and robbery. While some would be robbers may have been discouraged others took the logical step of eliminating witnesses to their crime. As a result murders increased. Because of a “tough on crime” attitude it was centuries, and thousands of unnecessary murders and executions later before the penalties were “softened”. Eventually juries and judges often refused to convict despite overwhelming evidence of guilt. The popular theory promoted by politicians, the media and advocate/activist groups is that harsher penalties, with a dollop of “education” will solve problems of crime. It is seen as a sign of moral weakness to acknowledge that the severity of penalties feed back into the type and nature of crimes committed.

The United States seems in the midst of a artificially constructed child porn panic designed to strip its citizens of liberties and funnel money to its law enforcement agencies. All this comes at the expense of its taxpayers, of men who look at legal adult porn featuring youthful looking women, and even of teenagers who make risque pictures with their cell phone cameras. Will child porn become the next vice on which the police, the courts, the prison system, and the legal profession become dependent?

The decades of the war on drugs, which physically exist and must be physically transported from producers to consumers, has been a disaster. Almost all child porn trade would seem to now take place in the virtual world, were it traverses the globe in seconds. We can’t keep drugs, a physical item, out of our prisons, yet people think we can keep JPEGs and MPEGs off the computers of people who want them?

The more I read about the anti-child porn efforts, the more I see similarities between the war on drugs and the war on child porn. We’re throwing more and more money at the child porn problem, characterizing teenagers and comic book collectors as child pornographers, and opening the door to government surveillance of the Internet. And what do we get for all the money, damaged lives, and curtailed liberties? We get a problem that isn’t getting any better, but is getting worse, possibly as a result of our misguided efforts to fight child porn in the first place.

Even someone who recognizes how the scope of materials considered child pornography continues to grow may find such materials repugnant. But repugnant as it may be, do we really want to have control over the production and distribution of such materials left to a criminal underworld, or would we be better off with a legal but tightly regulated marketplace for child porn and child erotica (they’re not the same thing)?

Miscellanea

Innocent images update

The Innocent Images Project was delayed because I couldn’t get myself registered with the Pirate Bay’s blogging service. They are new to the game, so maybe they are still working out the bugs. But I’ve had success in using their image hosting service. For now the Innocent Images Project will have it’s text hosted here but the images whose links you’ll have to affirmatively click in order to see will be hosted on Bayimg. The subject of the first Innocent Images post will be Robert Mapplethorpe’s Rosie.

Where I’ve been visiting

A fact of life in child porn blogging is getting called a pedophile and accused of surfing for child porn just because you question the government’s claims about child porn. On that note I’ve discovered sites online where self declared pedophiles visit and post messages. Not surprisingly, they sometimes talk about child porn. In fairness to these self declared pedophiles, I’ll say that child porn represents only a very small percentage of their postings. Most messages there don’t have anything to do with child porn, and those that do usually involve efforts to criminalize artistic representations of children, or teens being charged as child pornographers for photographing themselves. I respect the intelligence of my readers, so I won’t insult your intelligence by protecting you from seeing legal sites that I’ve seen. I’ve seen nothing on either site that in my non-lawyerly opinion could be construed as illegal in the United States. These sites were interesting because there I saw intelligent discussion of child porn, not hysterical over reaction and blind acceptance of government rhetoric. Despite my non pedophile status, I was allowed to register at both sites. In the second week of October, I posted an introduction at both. As a follow up to my introductions, one poster told me that “pornography is really a side issue here”. From what I’ve seen he’s right, and that got me to consider why I blog about child porn. Eventually I wrote back to him.

You know, I don’t really see what I’m doing as being about child porn. I just use child porn as a focal point. It’s really about abuse of authority, thought policing, the government’s desire to work around the constitution to censor the public, the prison industrial complex, and more. The parallels between the war on child porn and the war on drugs are frightening.

The sites are called Girl Chat and Boy Chat. Both are primitive message forums where you read posts without having to register. Read if you wish. My name there is the same as here, CP Explosion. I’d suggest not leaving these sites up on your screen for your boss or significant other to see. He/she might wonder what you’re up to.

What this blog is not about, but still a link

I never intended this blog to be about sex offenders. But the issue of sex offenders is very complex and is fraught many of the same issues as child porn. But I’ve decided to post one link to an essay dealing with sex offenders. Why? Well, for two reasons. One reason is that in the United States, and I think in Britain also, those convicted of viewing child porn are considered sex offenders and are subject to enrollment in sex offender registries. I find it weird that people who look at pictures are cast into the same bin with people who forcibly rape real people. The other reason is that this essay’s anonymous author also uses a quote I’ve used before.

The state must declare the child to be the most precious treasure of the people. As long as the government is perceived as working for the benefit of the children, the people will happily endure almost any curtailment of liberty and almost any deprivation. – Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf

Please think to read Does America Really Need Its Own Holocaust?

Coming soon

Chatter, and a chapter by chapter book review.

Innocent Images Project

In about a week I want to launch the Innocent Images Project. This project will slowly amass and present to you images that have been suspected of being child porn, but have been cleared of that accusation.

Given the habit of the media to blindly repeat the mantra that child porn is a permanent record of children being sexually abused I think it’s important for the public to know and see just what kind of images were suspected, but fortunately cleared, of being permanent records of children being sexually abused.

In my opinion, any adult who cannot look at an image of a naked child without being disturbed or disgusted may have some kind of disorder or phobia and should seek professional help.

Spokane firefighter may sue over {child} porn arrest

Child porn is at the heart of our new sexual absolutism. Its laws have criminalized both artistic representation and objective intellectual examination and speculation. -The website http://www.inquisition21.com/

This is the first of a new category of posts I’m calling ‘Other Victims’. I’ll be highlighting the forgotten victims of the child porn inquisition. For background a full reading of The Crimen Exceptum will be helpful. It begins

The crimen exceptum is central to every inquisition, whether it be heresy, witchcraft, being a Jew, a Red under the bed or today one accused of child sex abuse or accessing child pornography. The crimen exceptum requires the suspension of due process and all real processes of justice. You do not need to be tried and convicted, merely accused.

Lt. Todd Chism, a Spokane, Washington firefighter, is one soon to be forgotten victim. Lt. Chism “was arrested and accused by the Washington State Patrol of possessing child pornography, then was released after investigators determined he was innocent”. The full text, as long is it remains available is here. The evidence used to justify the arrest was flimsy at best. The problem is that these days being arrested and accused of child porn possession or downloading is tantamount to being found guilty. Why? Well consider that case of Michael D. Gates of Coopersburg, PA. As of today, October 2, 2008, Gates has been arrested and charged, but not tried or convicted or plead guilty to child porn possession. Some of the comments to the news story I linked include

“Shoot him” – Dave1206

“Hang him by his testicles.” – OMG

“Tattoo his forehead ‘pervert’. Then castrate him!” – Parent of Two

This is what people are saying about a man who has not yet been convicted of anything. Gates has not yet had his day in court. Gates has not yet been tried by a jury of his peers. Gates should be presumed innocent still since he’s not yet been found guilty of anything. Yet we get responses like those above. I think Gates probably is guilty as charged, and will either plead guilty or will be found guilty at trial, but he deserves his day in court. Now consider that the comments being made about Gates are probably the same kind of comments that were made about Lt. Chism, a completely innocent man, when news of his arrest first broke.

Fortunately for Lt. Chism

Marcus Lawson, a forensic expert and former federal agent hired by Chism’s lawyer and now the president of Global CompuSearch, concluded that the evidence used to arrest Chism and search his home was “insufficient for a search warrant, let alone an arrest warrant.“

……………..
The case originated in the patrol’s missing and exploited children Unit with a tip that included a Yahoo e-mail account associated with downloading hundreds of digital images of child pornography.

Investigators found Todd and Nicole Chism’s credit card had been used in one of the internet protocol addresses associated with the Yahoo account, “but they couldn’t definitively link the porn to the Chisms’ computer or home address or anywhere,” DeVere said.

Detectives found fraudulent activity had been reported on three of the four credit card numbers associated with the Chisms’ Bank of America account but not the fourth, which was the one used to buy the porn, DeVere said.

This reeks of the travesty know as Operation Ore in the UK, where hundreds, perhaps thousands of identity theft victims may have been falsely accused of downloading child porn. The police agency, the Washington State Patrol, responsible for this miscarriage of justice against Lt. Chism, as you might expect, feels they’ve done nothing wrong. They state

“When you have this type of crime, where time is of the essence for evidence destruction, we have to do everything we can for the safety of children and people,” DeVere said. “We are going to investigate that crime very vigorously to make sure that children are not exploited.”

So DeVere, can you enlighten us about how looking at pictures, even if Lt. Chism had been doing that, which he wasn’t, would have been exploiting children? Evidence destruction? They didn’t have any evidence. The Washington State Patrol went fishing for evidence armed not with a fishing pole but with an arrest warrant.

SCOTUS Affirms Legality of CP Explosion

(SCOTUS is the acronym for the Supreme Court Of The United States.)

In United States v. Williams, the United States Supreme Court has affirmed the legality of speech advocating for the legalization of child pornography, although that wasn’t the constitutional question in the case. The law in question is part of the the PROTECT act. Justice Scalia first takes a humorous stab at the naming of such laws in defining the section of law in question.

After our decision in Free Speech Coalition, Congress went back to the drawing board and produced legislation with the unlikely title of the Prosecutorial Remedies and Other Tools to end the Exploitation of Children Today Act of 2003, 117 Stat. 650. We shall refer to it as the Act. Section 503 of the Act amended 18 U. S. C. §2252A to add a new pandering and solicitation provision, relevant portions of which now read as follows:
“(a) Any person who—
“(3) knowingly—
. . . . .
“(B) advertises, promotes, presents, distributes, or solicits through the mails, or in interstate or foreign commerce by any means, including by computer, any material or purported material in a manner that reflects the belief, or that is intended to cause another to believe, that the material or purported material is, or contains— “(i) an obscene visual depiction of a minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct; or “(ii) a visual depiction of an actual minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct,
. . . . .
“shall be punished as provided in subsection (b).” §2252A(a)(3)(B) (2000 ed., Supp. V).

In layman’s terms, it appears that the law prohibits speech offering (or requesting) child pornography, even if the offerer (or the requested party) doesn’t actually have child pornography to provide.

The opinion clarifies things with this example.

Thus, an Internet user who solicits child pornography from an undercover agent violates the statute, even if the officer possesses no child pornography. Likewise, a person who advertises virtual child pornography as depicting actual children also falls within the reach of the statute.

(Regarding virtual child pornography, I think that in the United States, SCOTUS has established that virtual child pornography is illegal only if obscene, the same criteria applied to adult pornography.)

While the court upheld the law, Justice Scalia specifically notes that

As we have discussed earlier, however, the term “promotes” does not refer to abstract advocacy, such as the statement “I believe that child pornography should be legal” or even “I encourage you to obtain child pornography.” It refers to the recommendation of a particular piece of purported child pornography with the intent of initiating a transfer.

So there it is, straight from Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, that blogs and speech advocating changes to child pornography laws or even advocating the legalization of child pornography are constitutionally protected speech, as such speech should be.

My last comment about this case goes back to that “unlikely title”. Talk about hyperbole. The Prosecutorial Remedies and Other Tools to end the Exploitation of Children Today Act of 2003. The act is now over four years old and to date, if we are to believe what we hear in the media, it would appear the act hasn’t made any impact at all on the so called problem. FBI director Robert Mueller says so himself.

U.S. law enforcement is losing the battle to combat child pornography and child exploitation on the Internet, FBI Director Robert Mueller said today during a House Judiciary Committee hearing.

Did anyone really believe that the PROTECT act would make more than a token impact? Does anyone really believe that any constitutional law will eliminate child pornography? Do they really believe it?

Is Child Porn Ubiquitous?

My reading of child porn news reports seems endless. Sometimes I think I’m one of the few men in the world not collecting child porn. That feeling was reinforced today when I read this story from the United Kingdom.

An expert hired to set up the Government’s £10 million database of violent sex offenders has been jailed for almost three years for distributing child pornography.

Vincent Barron, 50, a senior probation service manager, was seconded to the Home Office ViSOR project because of his expert knowledge of offenders. He helped set up a national computer database containing the details and photos of more than 60,000 of the most dangerous criminals, including 25,000 registered sex offenders.

At Durham Crown Court he was jailed for 33 months after admitting 21 charges of distributing indecent images and one charge of possessing 3,800 indecent images.

More details are here and here and here.

Every day I hear of police or clergy or teachers or coaches or lawyers arrested or sentenced on child porn charges. And now a man with “expert knowledge of offenders” who was working on a government database of offenders turns out to be an offender himself. How fitting. I guess Mr. Barron will soon be listed in the very database he helped create.

The Journal story is a good example of lies, myths, doublespeak, and shoddy journalism in action. It quotes the judge in Barron’s case as saying “Each image represents a child being often horribly sexually abused” yet the same article states that only two of the 3,800 images were of the most serious (category 5 – ’sadism or bestiality’) while “the majority of the images – 2,798 – were of the least serious type” (category 1 – ‘erotic poses’).

Incidents like this make me suspicious of other self-proclaimed child porn expects such as Ernie Allen of NCMEC’s , John Walsh of America’s Most Wanted, and Andrew Vachss, author of novels featuring themes of sexually abused children. These three men share a willingness to perpetuate lies, myths, doublespeak, and shoddy journalism about child porn. I have long-term plans to write more about each of these men in the future.

Interesting Quotes

“Child porn prosecutions have become the modern-day equivalent to McCarthyism, the Spanish Inquisition, or the Salem witch trials. Once accused, it seems that there’s no defense that can save you, not even innocence.” -Me, in a comment I left to Megan’s Flaw.

“That is a very scary statement, and exactly how the witch trials were conducted.” -The blog author’s comment back to me.

“When the possibility of child pornography consumption is raised, the court system slips into some sort of guilt-until-proven innocent trance.” -David Berlind, an Executive Editor at ZDNet, in Beyond a shadow of a pornographic doubt, don’t rush to judgment.