Thank you Allenbaugh for keeping us informed – I really appreciate it!

I was saying in another thread the other day that I never realized that I had been guilty of ‘buying into’ the line that the viewing of the porn re-victimizes the subject. I just accepted it even though I knew there was something about the assertion that seemed a little vague. Then I was reading some articles and they presented all kinds of arguments as to why that assertion does not make sense. Many of these arguments were that some of the CP was created many years ago in countries like Holland that were legal at the time. Another was that many of the subjects have either passed away or are adults now. Still another argument was that much of the CP are photos of adults that look like children The problem with those arguments is that one could create a counter-argument that there still remains much CP that was created by the abuse of children that were kidnapped, etc. I wonder what the true statistics are of that crime since experts say ‘stranger danger is a myth’ and that would likely be perpetuated by a stranger (I would assume). But the argument that did hit home with me on the subject was the analogy that if the viewing of CP re-victimizes then the same analogy would be true for viewing the pictures of any crime. I made that connection somewhat myself when they kept showing photos of the injuries from the Boston bombings – I found it quite disturbing. Also, in my non-legal brain (lol) it seems to me that if a person with a porn addiction re-victimizes the subject by mere viewing then you would have to allow that ALL viewing of that photo is victimization. So every time the FBI or any law enforcement views it, embeds it, shares it, etc. that would also re-victimless. I do not know how I would feel if I had been victimized that way but it seems to me that the best healing would be to try to get it all behind me – getting paid for my victimization would not remove the knowledge that people are viewing it every day. I hope that the judges are wise ones.

Also, just a side note since you are in Florida (as I am) how does (if at all) the Florida law that I believe was passed last year sometime that says that cartoon depictions and photo shopped depictions of CP are illegal also … there is no crime and no victim! That law really bothers me! LOL

I get so tired of these cases where the victim over reaches in an attempt to win some compensation. Sure, the kids in the images were victimized BUT the people only looking----merely looking----at the images were not the proximate cause of their victimization. The proximate cause was the monsters who raped or molested them, filmed it, and placed it online.

Lets use another example. I was wrongly convicted in 1992. After my eight year prison term I was released in 2000 and I was placed on the registry.

The victim came forth in 2005 to say that it was a lie and that I did not even touch her. We could not get her testimony in court to clear my name, as the DA threatened to charge her with perjury and take away her two children if she testified on my behalf.

BUT, BUT, what if she had been able to testify and my name had been cleared and I had been exonerated in 2005?

Could I then sue the state and the DOC for allowing people who went to the web site and LOOKED AT---only LOOKED AT---my picture on the registry? I could say that I was victimized for the five year period from 2000 to 2005. After all I was victimized by the state and if not for the state my picture would have never been there in the first place. I was labeled a sex offender and a rapist and thousands of people viewing the registry saw that. Is that not a form of victimization? Would not the state be responsible, after all they created this mess.

I cannot think of anything more shameful, more humiliating for a person to have his picture splattered across a sex offender web site for the whole world to view.

The state victimized me when I was wrongly convicted and then they placed the fruits of that wrong conviction on the web for everyone to see.

Would I ever sue? Of course not. I am a real man and I would never use the victimization card. I have always dealt with my situation with class and dignity.

I know what the proponents of the pro-get-tough- on-crime crowd will say. They will say that the images of children getting raped is a crime and the downloader is viewing a crime in process.

But what about the cp cases in which the images only show a child standing there naked? That is not a crime in process, as the child is only standing there, yet anyone who is caught with that picture will be prosecuted. Or what about the cp cases in which the child is clothed, but the camera has zoomed into the child's private areas?

What if all the men ever falsely convicted of a sex crime with the subsequent placing of their picture on the Internet claimed they suffered emotional distress because of that? Are they victims? Surely they are victims of the state in which they were prosecuted?

Do you see how crazy this victimization thing can go?

This restitution by the downloaders on behalf of the victims is just a money train for an opportunistic attorney who wants to make millions by jumping on the band wagon.

It is all about money, pure and simple.

rewdiazepam

great post REW! You are exactly correct!

Advocate, when it comes to the cartoon and photoshopped porn, it's not just the states like Florida that are prosecuting. The feds also prosecute...they consider anything that's not in their definition of artistic value to be illegal. Just last year in my area a man was sentenced to 3 years in federal prison for possession of CP because he had comics on his computer that depicted underage sex. Not one victim, yet this man is now a convicted felon and will be a registered citizen for life when he gets out.

Here is what I don't quite understand and I think I have pretty good common sense.

In these cartoons and photoshopped "cp" images, there is no child to be re-victimized whenever someone looks at the picture. In fact, there is no victim at all. A cartoon picture cannot be a victim.

Who is the victim in these photoshopped or cartoon images?

To be a sex offender, I would think you would have to offend against someone or something. Who did the people who get arrested for this cartoon or photoshopped "cp" offend against?

The problem in this country is that we have lost all our common sense.

rewdiazepam

I think the child victim should get restitution from whoever took the photos/videos in the first place. An adult who was forced into it should, too. Plus, if the victim's reputation is in some way damaged or if they suffer from being treated differently because people found out that she/he was in porn, they deserve restitution. In that case, whoever made it public so that she/he could be recognized should pay restitution. That could include not only the original maker, but also anyone who passed it on.

Beyond that, I can also understand that, if no one would look at them, then there would be no market for them and, therefore, less incentive to make the porn in the first place. Not that porn would disappear, but I do believe it would lessen. After all, while for some it is about looking, for many it is also about money. If you cannot make money, that would cause quite a few, I think, to stop making it. In that sense, perhaps, the viewer is culpable, too.

A person who watches a crime and does nothing to stop it is guilty of being an accessory. Every time someone looks at child porn, are they not contributing to the initial crime in a way, by creating a market for it?

Am I to understand that CP is legal in some other countries? If so, that makes it very tricky here. A person can never be sure if what they are looking at is "legal" or not, which means that complete avoidance is the best thing.

Also, in our country, is it just possession of CP that is illegal? Or is it looking that is also illegal? What about the person who looks on the internet, but does not download? Although, in order to look, doesn't the image have to be technically downloaded, even if just to a temporary cache? If looking is illegal, then it really does not matter where it was made or how "legal" it is in another country.

As for drawings, I agree that there is no victim...unless the drawing was made of a real person who is recognizable in the drawing. With photoshopping, if a photo (or drawing) of a real person is used, even if only a part of their body is used, then there is a victim. I am assuming that by drawing and photoshopping you are referring to a totally made up image based solely upon imagination. In that case, I see no victim.

Deena - I respect your opinion but I disagree. If you are walking down the street and see someone committing a crime are you guilty of that crime because you do not report it? So far in our country the only crime one is obligated to report is child neglect etc. and in most states only by certain professions. One reason for that is because to hold every citizen responsible for every crime is impossible - what is child abuse to you? Some people think spanking is child abuse - some people do not. Some things are obviously child abuse but even that is relative or circumstances are not always what they seem. Have you ever seen a parent treating their child in a way you thought was harmful but you didn't get involved or report it? Does that make you guilty of the abuse?

Think about this - if someone is murdered and a picture is circulated of the dead body. Passed around and around the internet - are all those people that view it guilty of murder or guilty of re victimizing the person? Certainly morbid but not a crime. In my American History class I show pictures of lynchings - does that make me guilty of a crime? Do you see how far reaching it can become?

When you start opening up that door the possibilities are catastrophic - lets say this becomes a precedent for restitution to be paid to victims of the making of CP by everyone who views it. First, you have to identify every single person in the pics or films. We are talking millions maybe billions. Then you have to find the person and many of them are dead already. Many of them are legally made so are we going to include those? What about the ones made in other countries (which a lot of them are) - then that means that every time a person is arrested for possession thousands of dollars have to be spent to match the pics the person has to the victim. As far as I can tell looking and possessing is basically the same thing as far as charges.

In my sons case he was 19 and purposely looked for pics of teenage girls - seems perfectly normal to me. But it is against the law. But do I think that that he re-victimized those girls when he looked at it? No not for a minute - in order to be victimized you have to be harmed in some way and have knowledge of the harm. My son did not harm those women - the harm was already done. The captivity or forced activity was not repeated to them because one in a million looked at the photo. I have sympathy for the victims but i think that the real solution to stopping this is to purge the photos every time they are found - but law enforcement does not do that. The biggest problem with the CP stuff is usually peer to peer networks - shut them down for petes sake -

If we are going to start paying restitution to everyone that may or may not had a hand in the victimization of people how about some restitution for the families and children of RSOs? Those people suffer everyday and the only crime they committed was loving someone convicted of a sex offense. The adult can make a choice but the child cannot.

When you talk about passing it on that is distribution and CP possessors are often charged with that. However, some courts have said that the mere action of sharing a file on a peer to peer does not constitute distribution. The court said in order to be distribution the possessor has to say to the receiver hey I have a pic of XYZ and I am going to send it to you

geez brightside are you kidding me?? So now the feds are judges of what is art form and what is not??

the more I think about that brightside the more upset I get - basically that man is being punished for thinking about something. No one was harmed even no matter how you look at it. It is a depiction of a thought on paper. His crime is about what he MIGHT do. if he is thinking it then he must be guilty? Absolutely insane. There is no doubt that the majority of people in our country have no idea what freedom really means and because of that we have lost a lot of it and are losing more of it everyday. Better not draw a picture of a murder ...

Advocate2, if it were that easy to delete things like that from the web and then subsequently from anyone's computer that has cashed it in a TEMP file somewhere on their computer a half dozen times, the cops would do it. But to do it, is in violation of a whole bunch of laws and a some constitutional amendments.

The internet is just........ way to big....

As far as the peer to peer goes, shutting them down is so much more than that. Servers can be housed anywhere in the world, subsequently governed by the laws of the land they are in. So again the only people that can be 'targeted' in this is the person that downloads it or if they can be traced back the person that had it out available for download. There are many countries that don't have the kinds of laws, regulations and policing going on. Here and in China they police very heavily, China more than the US as there is Freedom of Speech here. LOL So shutting down the servers isn't as easy as it sounds, especially when they are on foreign soil.

So it is in violation of the Constitution to remove a crime - oh yeah please preserve my freedom to commit a crime! LOL I know about the Constitution - I have studied it and I teach it but I think it has been turned inside out into a piece of paper that means nothing because the people that are supposed to preserve its rights do not. And judging by my students their are not many people that really understand what true freedom means.

Also, if China can shut down Facebook (which they do) then other things can blocked. From what I understand China blocked the servers not shut them down. I know the logistics and the violation of rights and all that rhetoric but I do believe a dent can be made in it. At this point I am getting to where i do not give a crap about the rights - I want the ruination of all these young men to stop.

now the question is, who do you want to have all the admin power to tell you what is 'appropriate' for you to view, because that is what china does. Who do you trust in our government to look out for what is really best for you rather than what is best for them?

China allows only China things to be the most prevalent in their country, they drive everyone towards it. They have stolen technology, intellectual products, and what was left of our GDP. We are heading towards a communist regime if things continue here in the USA the way they are. It won't be tomorrow or even in 20 years, but the cycle of a democracy and its type of government demands it due to human nature.

This was posted on here once already, but it fits here again... I don't agree that would necessarily be a dictatorship, but it certainly wouldn't be free.

Two centuries ago, a somewhat obscure Scotsman named Tytler made this profound observation: "A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the majority discovers it can vote itself largess out of the public treasury. After that, the majority always votes for the candidate promising the most benefits with the result the democracy collapses because of the loose fiscal policy ensuing, always to be followed by a dictatorship, then a monarchy."

The exact same technology used to track known CP can be used to block it. Your ISP is probably already using it to track CP but instead of blocking it, they are required to report it to law enforcement and/or the NCMEC which in turn sends out a Cybertip report to a local agency to put a name to the transmission for arrest and prosecution. Mr. Allenbaugh just posted about a sentencing downward departure and if you read the linked article this is exactly how that man was arrested and prosecuted. Instead of doing something constructive, the State would rather put people in prison.

Since CP obviously doesn't enjoy Constitutional protection I'm pretty sure legal hurdles to implementing real filtering would be few and far between since this would not be affecting anyone's personal property.

The USA is not free anymore -

So what would be deemed CP? Parents picture that they emailed to their family of their child in the tub? what would be considered too sexy for a child? Who would decide that for us?

You're right the US isn't really free any more, it hasn't been in a long time. Although much less in the last 20 years than the 50 years before that. An acceleration of our demise.

The NSA is tracking much more than any ISP is filtering for, has the time to do anything with and the resources to do something about it. If we want to get really bitchy about it, why aren't the people that watch it all doing anything about it? Because there is just too much of it to do anything about, unfortunately. It is like trying to empty the ocean with a tablespoon.