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Yankee "Doodle" could go to Jail
Imagine you're at home one evening and decise to "doodle" a picture of two kids having sex. It a product of your imagination and for your own use. John Ashcroft wants to put you in jail for it.
Dear Readers,
You’d think that what a person draws in their own home, for their own use, would be something beyond the reach of the government. This, however, may not be the case. Proposed legislation would, "prohibits all obscene pornographic images of prepubescent children, including drawings, cartoons, paintings and sculptures."
Lord forbid your child should draw a fantasy picture of their having sex with another child. They might be labeled as a sex criminal for life. While it’s not against the law to be adult sexually attracted to children this new "proposed" law would come close to making it so.
If nothing else it brings up the question, "What is a thought crime?"
This purposed legislation follows the landmark 1995 "U.S v. Stephen Knox" decision in which a " known pedophile was sentenced to jail for possessing tapes of young girls in leotards whose dancing the court qualified as "lascivious." The article states the following:
http://www.mit.edu/activities/safe/safe/cases/knox/94a0734p.htm
"However, proving lascivious intent in court is extremely difficult. The prosecutor would have to demonstrate that the producer of the material intended to elicit a sexual response with the images or that the subscriber viewed the images for sexual arousal.
Unless the images are in a folder called something like, "hot little kids I'd like to have sex with," it would be hard for prosecutors to argue that the subscriber had lewd interest in the material.
The material could also prove damaging in cases where a defendant has previous convictions for child pornography or molestation, he added. In the 1995 landmark case, U.S v Stephen Know, a known pedophile was sentenced to jail for possessing tapes of young girls in leotards whose dancing the court qualified as "lascivious."
What’s terrible about the U.S v. Stephen Knox case is that pedophiles are know to have a sexual interest in children. Consequently, two people might posses the same picture of a child. However, based soley on the sexual orientation of the pedophile he might go to jail for possessing the picture because it could be argued he viewed it for sexual arousal. Stephen Knox Case:
As the article, "House Refines Virtual Porn Ban," by Julia Scheeres says:
http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,53510,00.html?tw=wn_ascii
"The House approved the "Child Obscenity and Pornography Prevention Act of 2002" (COPPA) Tuesday, 413-8, barely two months after the Supreme Court struck down a similar measure seeking to prohibit computer images of people under 18 engaged in sex."
What’s frightening about this newly proposed legislation (COOPA) is that the act is not aimed at pornographic pictures of real children engaging in sex. The act would not only ban computer images that are indistinguishable" from real child images and which the U.S Supreme Court ruled legal. The proposed legislation would "also prohibits all obscene pornographic images of prepubescent children, including drawings, cartoons, paintings and sculptures."
As you might guess much of the leadership for this legislation comes from John Ashcroft and his right wing cronies.
"Katz and others say the legislation goes too far. COPPA would make it illegal, for example, for people to draw doodles of young kids engaging in homosexual acts, even if they are doing so in the privacy of their own home and the doodles are based solely on their own depraved mental imagery."
While the U.S Supreme Court will probably find the proposed legislation also illegal it is not comforting to know that people like John Ashcroft, and his god fearing contingency want to put people in jail for what they drew in the privacy of their homes.
To get more of an understanding of this issue I suggest the following articles:
"Round Two on 'Morphed' Child Porn," By Declean McCollagh
http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,52285,00.html
"Justices Preserve Dirty Thoughts," By Declean McCollagh
http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,51877,00.html
You’d think that what a person draws in their own home, for their own use, would be something beyond the reach of the government. This, however, may not be the case. Proposed legislation would, "prohibits all obscene pornographic images of prepubescent children, including drawings, cartoons, paintings and sculptures."
Lord forbid your child should draw a fantasy picture of their having sex with another child. They might be labeled as a sex criminal for life. While it’s not against the law to be adult sexually attracted to children this new "proposed" law would come close to making it so.
If nothing else it brings up the question, "What is a thought crime?"
This purposed legislation follows the landmark 1995 "U.S v. Stephen Knox" decision in which a " known pedophile was sentenced to jail for possessing tapes of young girls in leotards whose dancing the court qualified as "lascivious." The article states the following:
http://www.mit.edu/activities/safe/safe/cases/knox/94a0734p.htm
"However, proving lascivious intent in court is extremely difficult. The prosecutor would have to demonstrate that the producer of the material intended to elicit a sexual response with the images or that the subscriber viewed the images for sexual arousal.
Unless the images are in a folder called something like, "hot little kids I'd like to have sex with," it would be hard for prosecutors to argue that the subscriber had lewd interest in the material.
The material could also prove damaging in cases where a defendant has previous convictions for child pornography or molestation, he added. In the 1995 landmark case, U.S v Stephen Know, a known pedophile was sentenced to jail for possessing tapes of young girls in leotards whose dancing the court qualified as "lascivious."
What’s terrible about the U.S v. Stephen Knox case is that pedophiles are know to have a sexual interest in children. Consequently, two people might posses the same picture of a child. However, based soley on the sexual orientation of the pedophile he might go to jail for possessing the picture because it could be argued he viewed it for sexual arousal. Stephen Knox Case:
As the article, "House Refines Virtual Porn Ban," by Julia Scheeres says:
http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,53510,00.html?tw=wn_ascii
"The House approved the "Child Obscenity and Pornography Prevention Act of 2002" (COPPA) Tuesday, 413-8, barely two months after the Supreme Court struck down a similar measure seeking to prohibit computer images of people under 18 engaged in sex."
What’s frightening about this newly proposed legislation (COOPA) is that the act is not aimed at pornographic pictures of real children engaging in sex. The act would not only ban computer images that are indistinguishable" from real child images and which the U.S Supreme Court ruled legal. The proposed legislation would "also prohibits all obscene pornographic images of prepubescent children, including drawings, cartoons, paintings and sculptures."
As you might guess much of the leadership for this legislation comes from John Ashcroft and his right wing cronies.
"Katz and others say the legislation goes too far. COPPA would make it illegal, for example, for people to draw doodles of young kids engaging in homosexual acts, even if they are doing so in the privacy of their own home and the doodles are based solely on their own depraved mental imagery."
While the U.S Supreme Court will probably find the proposed legislation also illegal it is not comforting to know that people like John Ashcroft, and his god fearing contingency want to put people in jail for what they drew in the privacy of their homes.
To get more of an understanding of this issue I suggest the following articles:
"Round Two on 'Morphed' Child Porn," By Declean McCollagh
http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,52285,00.html
"Justices Preserve Dirty Thoughts," By Declean McCollagh
http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,51877,00.html
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Touching is a control issue, and viewing a child is a matter of perception or thought. The sooner we come to the conclusion that it's not unusual for many people to be sexually aroused by children or pictures of children, the sooner we'll come to a more humane way of dealing with so called "child pornography, and adults who are attracted to children as whole human beings rather than calling them "perverts."
I know this issue makes people feel "creepy" but there are important human rights issues involved.
Part of the insanity of dealing with child porn laws is that often it's not the pictures themselves that are under question. It's whether the viewer is being sexually aroused by the picture. If this doesn't bring up some questions regarding free speech I don't know what does.
One article "Legal Porn Under Fire" illistrates the problem.
http://www.msnbc.com/news/730491.asp?cp1=1#BODY
As the article by Mike Brunkner says"
"March 28 — The photos of 12-year-old “Amber” cavorting in a swimsuit and various skimpy outfits wouldn’t have raised so much as an eyebrow if they had been posted on a family home page. But on lilamber.com — one of a growing number of “preteen model” sites operating in the legal gray area between innocent imagery and child pornography — they have drawn the attention of the Justice Department and prompted a congressman to declare war on the “reckless endangerment” of such kids by their parents and Web site operators."
“This is legal child porn,” said Ken Lanning, a retired FBI agent who studied deviant sexual behavior during most of his 30 years with the bureau. “It’s not against the law, but it’s exciting and stimulating and arousing for people with a certain deviant interest.”
While most parents may not like having their children viewed a sexual objects how people view the visual images of children cannot be controled. People should be judged on their behavior and not on their desires. Child pornorgrpahy should not be defined in terms of how a person respoonds to the picture of a child. This is what happened in the U.S. v. Knox case and is equivialent to a thought crime.
If my reading of the law is wrong on this issue I would greatly appreciate a correction.
If people have other examples of people being persecuted for how they view children rather than the nature of the picture itself please post your message.
Dennis Bejin