Simple possession of CP should not be a crime. Having it in a shared folder and not realizing it could be shared with others in a P2P environment should also not be reason enough for a distribution charge either. Makers of CP and distributors in mass quantities, on the other hand, need to have very long----60 years or more----sentences.

The harshness of these CP laws are based on fear and flawed premises, which I may discuss later.

I see a distinct parallel with the War on Drugs and the War on CP.

I thought this country learned its lesson with such misinformation after our ill-fated War on Drugs, but I guess not. The public is buying into many of the myths with CP as they did with the War on Drugs.

Just as it was asinine for a drug offender back in the 1970's to receive years and years in prison for possession of marijuana, it is just as asinine now to give a person five years or more in a federal prison for basically looking at a picture of an underage person.

I have expressed my discontent many times with these CP laws.

This country will prosper when the citizens learn to think for themselves instead of allowing others to think for them. I doubt that will ever happen, but we can always hope.

I may say more but for now I have to attend a funeral.

rewdiazepam

I could not agree more and I'm terrible sorry you have to attend a funeral today.

CP possession should not be a crime? Of course it should. Thats fine if you wanna debate the SENTENCES for it or the way they determine DISTRIBUTION charges or something. But CP possession should always be a crime.

techmaster could you explain your stance on that? I would be interested to know. I am going to go out on a limb here and guess that it is becasue you buy into the jargon that everyone that views the Cp is victimizing the victim again? There are those here that believe that but myself and some others do not and we have had that debate many times. back in the day when the only way to possess CP was by going down to the seedy part of town and buying it. When it was a commodity then yes I would say that it was possible that the market kept the practice going - but back in that day possession was a misdemeanor (even on a federal level). Today there is no market for it - it is freely available on the internet. . Many times the person having it does not even know they do becasue young people often download thousands of files on their computer. it is also a fact that the FBI has actually imbedded certain files on the internet with CP. Then, as in my sons case, there are young men (19) seeking out dirty pictures of teenage girls. However, regardless of the situation ALL possession is treated the same regardless of the content. In FL a cartoon drawing of CP is illegal. There have been instances where a room mate downloaded CP and all that lived int he home were charged becasue "possession is possession." Personally I do not buy into the rhetoric that a simple viewer and possessor re-victimizes the victim. If we buy into that then every person that ever looks at photo of a murder victim or a fatal car accident victim is guilty of murder or vehicular homicide. Just my opinion.

And yes it is a interesting debate but I think the reason the con one is because unfortunately many folks just vote that way "because it is the right thing to do" when considering the subject.

But CP possession should always be a crime. : techmaster

Tell my 25 y.o. son who accidentally downloaded 3 cp among over 2300 music videos. Ask him about his time spent in federal prison, incarcerated at the age of 20. His 15 years of supervised release he now has to deal with, plus his picture on a sex offender registry..

I hope you don't have loved ones who download music or videos because they've probably seen cp in their searches.

Let's lay out the facts.

1. There is no way ethical way to show a correlation between one viewing CP and then going on to commit sexual abuse/rape against children. There is a backwards correlation, some studies show that up to 80% of people in prison for contact crimes against children have viewed CP. Does this prove CP causes contact crimes? Not at all. This irrationality that viewing something heinous causes us to then go out and do something heinous, it's hogwash. Do you after watching silence of the lambs go out and chop your neighbor up and eat them? (If you do, don't say anything before talking to an attorney)

2. The proliferation of CP. The government is going after the demand side of CP and giving outrageously long sentences for it. The cat is out of the bag, the government is trying to put it back in the bag, but the internet is just too big. Why not have task forces of computer geeks try and get rid of it instead of prosecuting the people for it. Can't they send viruses to people who share it and corrupt the CP files? It seems like it would make more sense to stop the supply of it not punish the demand.

They call that censorship and we have this Bill of Rights that keeps them from policing the information like that.

Another thing, all the computer geeks know that once it is out there, it is OUT THERE FOREVER. Is FOREVER that hard of a concept for the government to grasp? Once a piece of data is out on the internet, it could be cashed in 30 different countries on 100+ different servers. Redundancy at its best.

So since the supply can not be stopped (just like prostitution, and the prudes in the world have been after that profession for as long as there have been human beings on this earth) the demand is where the police have to get their bread and butter from. Besides it is easier to punish than it is to prevent. Look at the way the USA runs their incarceration system, it isn't about rehabilitation or reintegration, but only about punishment and making a person "PAY" for their crime in some way. With the feeling of vengeance behind it cause if it weren't there the drive to make someone 'Pay' wouldn't be there either.

Independent and Wisconsin are exactly right. They hit the nail on the head regarding CP.

The major problem with the government is that LE is trying to arrest their way out of this CP problem. That did nothing but fill up the prisons, sending tens of thousands of young men to prison for unusually long terms for minor offenses, and costing this nation billions of dollars in the War on Drugs and look what it is doing in the War on CP----the same thing.

Instead of going after the producers or dealers, LE is going after the low hanging fruit.

I have news for the people of this country. They can never arrest their way out of this problem as substantial amounts of CP is being produced every day. By whom? Teens and even preteens are getting on these web cams or sites like Omegle, Younow, or Vine and stripping and doing sex acts for anyone that watches. They do this for attention and they think it is funny.

These sex acts by the younger teens are then passed around the net on many sites.

In LEs wide and liberal definition of CP, they have created such a wide net that this campaign against CP is perpetual. Instead of narrowing down the definition of CP and concentrating on the worst offenders, they are arresting everyone.

I also cannot believe that so many people are drinking the kool-aid regarding the reasons the CP laws are so harsh. If anyone can give me a valid reason----not the rhetorical nonsense----for this War on CP, please do. I would like to hear any valid reason.

So much ignorance in this country.

rewdiazepam

I have never understood why they allow those images on the internet in the first place. Boggles my brain.

because the way the internet works it is not possible for images to be censored for content like that.

I think another reason they can't arrest themselves out of a CP issue, is because they do not have jurisdiction in other countries either. It was called the World Wide Web for a reason. The number of servers and places for images to cashe on drives out there in the world is more than anyone can count.

I just got done watching the series Amish Mafia that was made by the discovery channel. As entertained as I was, at the end when the whole thing blew up in the faces of producers and the Amish folks involved, I felt HORRIBLE about how sucked in I was.

Yes they agreed to be on a TV show. But the way they reacted to the added attention, the way we the viewers ate it all up.... I was intrigued because I live in Amish country here, I pass by many on my way to and from work. I have talked with many of them, some more friendly than others. I was curious about the show because of the Amish I knew, the nice, the good horse people, those that weren't good horse people. But that is what drew me to the show. Then I watch and I realize as the seasons went on the real toll it was taking on all the people that they were filming. Some paid some really high prices to be on that show.

What I am trying to get at here is that when something is filmed, produced and then broadcast, be it on TV or online (I watched this on HULU.com so it was online) the people in the entertaining film are experiencing something quite different. Possibly quite bad and once posted online, is out there forever.

Just last week Microsoft & Google have announced efforts to restrict over 100.000 search terms for child pornography.

Microsoft also announced a new technology that can determine if a picture or video IS CP.

http://tinyurl.com/p8ukuuz

@FreeToBreathe - You beat me to it. Sorry Wisconsin but it is possible to censor for content like that. Transmission of the known CP images and videos could halted overnight without "digging in" to anybody's computers or devices or implicating First Amendment issues and the PhotoDNA software Microsoft developed has proven to be extremely effective at detecting unknown images of child abuse with an unbelievably low number of false positives.

it isn't about the false positives, but the false negatives... Not only that, does this applications look at the images to determine if it is detecting CP or is this some kind of known file name query?

How many proxy servers would need to be implemented? Where? Who would pay for that? Being possible, being economically feasible are two different things. As for the 'measures' implemented at Google and Microsoft don't give me any more of a warm and fuzzy either. I have seen Facebook tell me I am trying to upload copy written content when it is all original. Those Applications are only as good as the human that wrote it, humans are not perfect and are prone to lots of mistakes. As are their applications. How many dance recitals will be deemed too risque to be posted online? How many sporting events cheerleaders will never get their routine shown? Should all the women start sporting long dresses. Censorship is a slippery slope, one of which I hope none of you wish to go down for the sake of CP.

I do hope none of you want us to go down the slope to China and start having our internet censored. If it came to be, I would fear that this site, since it has to do with sex offences would be one of those to get axed... along with our free speech....

Besides if you own the server, you can put whatever you want on it... you can even tag it with benign keywords that aren't in Google's list... And just cause Microsoft will prohibit CP from being uploaded to their servers, what about the all the others that they do not have control over. Has GoDaddy agreed to this too?