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I have been watching this situation closely and I figured this would be the outcome.
Here are some excerpts from the article. I capitalized some of the words in the passages to enhance their importance.
"""A bill named for two women whose childhood images were turned into heinous pornography was handily passed in the Senate on Wednesday.
The Amy and Vicky Child Pornography Victim Restitution Improvement Act was approved by a 98-0 vote.
The measure gives hope to victims that they will finally be able to win major compensation from any SINGLE person who illegally viewed, made or distributed their images.
Victims of child pornography and other sexual exploitation “ought to have access to full restitution from any single perpetrator for their losses,” said Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, Iowa Republican.
The bill establishes a MINIMUM for damages for certain child pornography offenses and makes any SINGLE perpetrator responsible for the FULL damages created by a crime that involves multiple perpetrators, Mr. Grassley’s office said.""""
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Here are some excerpts from the article. I capitalized some of the words in the passages to enhance their importance.
"""A bill named for two women whose childhood images were turned into heinous pornography was handily passed in the Senate on Wednesday.
The Amy and Vicky Child Pornography Victim Restitution Improvement Act was approved by a 98-0 vote.
The measure gives hope to victims that they will finally be able to win major compensation from any SINGLE person who illegally viewed, made or distributed their images.
Victims of child pornography and other sexual exploitation “ought to have access to full restitution from any single perpetrator for their losses,” said Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, Iowa Republican.
The bill establishes a MINIMUM for damages for certain child pornography offenses and makes any SINGLE perpetrator responsible for the FULL damages created by a crime that involves multiple perpetrators, Mr. Grassley’s office said.""""
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Having said all that, there is a bigger picture here.
We all know that when the government wants to pass a law or when a DA wants to convict a defendant with CP charges, they bring out the "every time an image is viewed, the victim is re-traumatized and abused all over again."
This is always the tired, worn out theme and it is predictable.
I don't agree with all that, but for the sake of my argument my opinion does not really matter.
If someone is so re-victimized to such a degree that they have to be paid large sums of money in the form of restitution and if it is true that the young ladies go through so much trauma when her images are viewed, then WHY IN THE HELL did the FBI take over a child porn site and run it for several weeks? Why did they allow more and more "re-victimization material" to be downloaded and traded???
Is that not re-victimizing the young lady? Every time the FBI "permitted" one of these images to be downloaded, were they not culpable in the damage to they young ladies? Did not the FBI themselves contribute to the victimization of Vicky and Amy?
Are Amy and Vicky somehow LESS victimized when the FBI ALLOWS one of their images to be downloaded and viewed?
If the government really cared or if the government really believed the hype regarding the re-victimization when an illicit image is viewed, they would have shut down that CP site the minute they found it so it would not further cause emotional harm to these young ladies.
This web site apparently had thousand and thousands of pictures capable of re-victimizing these young ladies, yet they allowed the downloading to continue.
The hard truth is that the government does not GIVE A DAMN about these two girls at all.
It is smoke and mirrors, folks.
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To me, it seems like the Govt and their lawyers have whored them out.
The government sends them some notification through the mail that another one of their images has been found.
It has always seemed to me that if the government notifies these young ladies when an image is found, then the government itself is contributing to the abuse via revictimization, using the government's own definition. If they would quit notifying these girls, nobody would be the wiser.
If this revictimization is so horrid for these girls, why even make them aware that one of their images is found?
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You are absolutely correct that notifying these young ladies is just further abuse by the government.
BUT the government is willing to sacrifice Amy and Vicky once again to promote their "War on Child Pornography."
Why spare their feelings when the government can use these situations to their advantage?
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One way or the other the prisons will continue to be filled...
I want to remind the mothers and wives that only the Vicky or Amy images will trigger this restitution. Unless I am mistaken, these two young ladies are the only ones who have sued an offender in civil court. The series of Amy or Vicky pictures/videos were two of the biggest sets among CP collectors.
Also I don't think this will be applied retroactively.
The Mandatory Restitution provision has its roots in the Violence Against Women Act of 1994. In fact, there is a provision within this act that allows for restitution.
http://tinyurl.com/mv59vqq
http://tinyurl.com/mauvobm
http://tinyurl.com/lhkmpfu
All the courts agreed that Amy and Vicky were entitled to some form of restitution, but the courts disagreed as to who was the "proximate" cause of these young lady's suffering. Some courts ruled that the downloaders were liable for the full amount of damages and some ruled that the downloaders were not. Their reasoning was that the downloaders were not the "proximate" cause and that the proximate cause was the people who manufactured the CP.
This is how I understand the situation. If anyone has anything to add, please feel free to chime in here.
BTW, I believe in federal prosecutions that a video counts as 75 images.
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I did not mean to imply that the bill was written only for Vicky and Amy, but they are the only young ladies that, as of now, have successfully sued for restitution. I do remember a case of another young lady being filed but I do not think it has been resolved yet.
The restitution can be for any young lady that has a case.
On another but related topic, prosecutors and lawmakers have been busy promoting laws which would give the government the ability to confiscated property of the downloaders of the CP, much as we saw in the forfeiture cases in drug prosecutions. And no, I am not talking just about computers and digital devices, but things like houses.
Scary.
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