Tim May <tcmay@got.net> writes:

Journalists have no special rights. None. They are simply those who are (usually) paid for their words. This does not exempt them from any laws. The First Amendment does not confer special rights to writers; in fact, it says that government may not create such distinctions by "approving" certain journalists.

A journalist who buys pot or coke for a story on drug abuse is as vulnerable to the drug laws as any other person (including cops, by the way) who buy drugs.

... Yes, of course this is true. However, child porn laws, with the exception of those very few laws whose goal it is to prevent specifically identifiable children from experiencing the harm of the porn-producing workplace, are clearly unconstitutional. The courts simply ignore this fact, and pander to the moral witch hunt driven by the political and religious right wing. The entire doctrine that non-obscene material depicting the sexuality of minors can be made illegal rests on a single Supreme Court case, that of Ferber. Ferber revolves entirely around the notion that identifiable minors featured in porn are harmed by exposure to the workplace in which the porn is produced. So - laws criminalizing material featuring only social and recreational nudity on the part of consenting minors are unconstitutional, as no one is harmed in its production. Laws criminalizing the possession of old porn made before child porn laws were passed are unconstitutional. Laws criminalizing the production and possession of simulations of the sexuality of minors, involving no actual humans, are CLEARLY unconstitutional. Laws criminalizing the possession of material in which the models, now adults, have no objection to its distribution, are unconstitutional. Laws criminalizing the possession of material legally produced outside the US are unconstitutional. Laws criminalizing the importation of such material are equally illegal. Futhermore, Ferber suggests that the link between porn possession and harm to minors in an unhealthy work environment only exists when the people producing the porn sell it for money to the people who possess it. Clearly a reporter downloading images for free to write a story doesn't cause any further "exploitation" of the underage models, any more than possession of footage of 12 year old Palestinians being deliberately shot by Zionist Entity snipers makes one an accessory or participant in such behavior. Child porn laws are about the elimination of counterexamples to a certain segment of the population's ideas about morality. They are not about protecting children, real or virtual. They are about the public being forced to listen to only the government's description of certain material, with anyone else being locked up instantly for looking at it, including legitimate scientists and journalists. Once this doctrine is rubber-stamped by the judicial system, and the Sheeple are used to it, it is highly unlilkely that sexual pictures of minors are the only material it is going to be appplied to. Hakim Bey suggests that plastering large full-color pictures of naked children around ones community is an excellent form of political protest. -- Eric Michael Cordian 0+ O:.T:.O:. Mathematical Munitions Division "Do What Thou Wilt Shall Be The Whole Of The Law"