Child pornography is illegal because the production itself involves actual victims. The laws date back to a time when it wasn't possible to produce CP without actual children. It therefore made sense that sale, distribution and possession of actual child pornography was made illegal, but the slippery slope started when the governments around the world began to outlaw child pornography without actual victims. The first prohibition does not violate free speech, because the material featuring actual children is integral to criminal conduct, but the second prohibition on computer generated images and cartoons is a regulation of thought. And Julian and others are really missing the point if they assume that the realistic nature of the depictions is the borderline between permissible and impermissible speech. The Supreme Court of the United States ruled in one of its more speech friendly cases that regulation of virtual child pornography on the assumption that such will incite viewers thoughts is impermissible regulation of thought. You can't be an anarchist and defend thought crime legislation. Child pornography without actual participants is victimless speech and is no more abuse than crime comics, or ordinary adult pornography some want to ban. And yes, true untraceable anonymous communication can't coexist in a society with thought crime legislation. Rick Falkvinge has succinctly argued why child pornography laws in their current sweeping form pose a risk to privacy and free speech. The question is very simple: If the price for enforcing anti-child pornography laws is banning truly untraceable communication, enforcing EU style data retention on all data packets flowing over the network, is the price too high? It isn't a price I am willing to pay, not even for the children. _______________________________________________ tor-talk mailing list tor-talk@lists.torproject.org https://lists.torproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tor-talk ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com http://postbiota.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE