CDR: Re: Authenticate the "adult field", go to jail...
RAH writes:
...an argument for bearer credentials if there ever was one...
Are you kidding? These people just did the credit card verifications. They'd be in just as much trouble if they provided bearer credential services.
Thomas Reedy, 37, and his wife, Janice Reedy, 32, of Fort Worth, are accused in an 87-count indictment of providing access to several child-porn Internet sites by verifying subscribers' credit cards and assigning them passwords.
The Reedys maintain that they did not know that some of the pornographic sites they provided access to contained illegal child pornography.
In fact if anything this kind of prosecution is an argument *against* getting into the ecash/ecredential business, especially if it is focused on porn as some have proposed. All you need is for someone to use it to sell or authorize access to kiddie porn, and you're going to jail. Obvious. ________________________________________________________________________ Total Internet Privacy -- get your Freedom Nym at http://www.freedom.net
At 02:41 PM 11/29/00 -0500, obvious@beta.freedom.net wrote:
In fact if anything this kind of prosecution is an argument *against* getting into the ecash/ecredential business, especially if it is focused on porn as some have proposed. All you need is for someone to use it to sell or authorize access to kiddie porn, and you're going to jail.
Obvious.
Great way to entrap, too. Switch content, then bang. Some kind of 'common-carrier' protection would be helpful to those providing generic services like credit card validation. If the folks being charged made the case that they didn't know some of the content was 'tainted', they should get off. You'd have to show that they were guilty of thoughtcrime themselves. [This completely avoids the bogosity of the case, given that noone is harmed ---that these are just bits being sent, not people being harmed.]
On Wed, 29 Nov 2000, David Honig wrote:
Some kind of 'common-carrier' protection would be helpful to those providing generic services like credit card validation.
Actually it wouldn't because to get 'common carrier' you've got to open yourself up to other sorts of government regulation and such. It would add an over-head to the business that it doesn't need. What we need is respect for the 1st (where is 'common carrier' in the Constitution anyway?). ____________________________________________________________________ Before a larger group can see the virtue of an idea, a smaller group must first understand it. "Stranger Suns" George Zebrowski The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage@ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------
At 3:57 PM -0500 11/29/00, David Honig wrote:
At 02:41 PM 11/29/00 -0500, obvious@beta.freedom.net wrote:
In fact if anything this kind of prosecution is an argument *against* getting into the ecash/ecredential business, especially if it is focused on porn as some have proposed. All you need is for someone to use it to sell or authorize access to kiddie porn, and you're going to jail.
Obvious.
Great way to entrap, too. Switch content, then bang.
Some kind of 'common-carrier' protection would be helpful to those providing generic services like credit card validation.
The actual credit card companies have never, that I know of, been implicated in any of the Net porn cases (I don't mean "child porn," I mean the various cases we have heard about over the past dozen years, a la "Amateur Action'). This may say that they have a good team of lawyers and that local DAs like to cherry-pick their cases to go after less well-lawyered targets. Or it may say that there is an element of scienter involved.
If the folks being charged made the case that they didn't know some of the content was 'tainted', they should get off. You'd have to show that they were guilty of thoughtcrime themselves.
Scienter, i.e., knowledge. On the other hand, "ignorance of the law is no excuse." Note that hotel operators are not held to be co-criminals when their hotel rooms are used for drug-dealing, prostitution (*), planning of crimes, etc. (* Unless the hotel and/or its managers were knowingly involved, as is sometimes the case with hotels. But, still, if a murder or theft or whatever happens in a hotel room, the hotel owner is seldom charged.) There should be similar inkeeper's exemptions for ISPs and payment intermediaries. There are many examples where credit card companies are used in transactions which turn out to be illegal. So? And the issue is not really whether the CC company "knows" what is being bought. If I buy a gun with a CC number, and it turns out this was an illegal transaction, and the CC company clearly knew that a purchase was of a gun, does this implicate them? How about CC numbers being used at flea markets, where a substantial portion of the goods being hawked are stolen? Or pirated (CDs)? The notion of arresting those who act as financial intermediaries should be tested in the courts. --Tim May -- (This .sig file has not been significantly changed since 1992. As the election debacle unfolds, it is time to prepare a new one. Stay tuned.)
obvious@beta.freedom.net wrote:
RAH writes:
...an argument for bearer credentials if there ever was one...
[...snip...]
In fact if anything this kind of prosecution is an argument *against* getting into the ecash/ecredential business, especially if it is focused on porn as some have proposed. All you need is for someone to use it to sell or authorize access to kiddie porn, and you're going to jail.
I'd like to see the cops trying to arrest the Bank of England. Ken
participants (5)
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David Honig -
Jim Choate -
Ken Brown -
obvious＠beta.freedom.net -
Tim May