Naughty Journal Author Denied Plea Change

[measl at mfn.org]

On Sat, 8 Sep 2001, Declan McCullagh wrote:

> On Sat, Sep 08, 2001 at 03:31:11AM -0500, measl at mfn.org wrote:
> > As I understand this story, the guy had a diary which contained written
> > descriptions of things he would *like* to do, not a photo album of kids
> > bent over a table...
> 
> Your snotty message notwithstanding (I now regret taking you seriously
> in the past, and I'll try not to make that mistake again), my point
> was not to defend the law,

It did not appear [to me] that you were attempting to defend the law.

> as I made clear in the portion of my post
> you conveniently neglected to include.

I did not elide this snippet below.  

That said, I came in from an 18++ hour day at work, and skimmed through my
700++ emails for the day, focusing primarily on those threads of
interest.  As there were an unusually large number of them today, I did
stay closest to the most recent as a kind of "digest" attempt - if the
below paragraph was somewhere in the original thread, it was gone by
the time I responded.

That said, I will respond to this now.

> (In fact, since 1996 and the "morphed child porn" law in effect, Photoshop-
> created fantasies have been illegal to possess, and people have been convicted
> under that law, and their convictions (mostly) upheld.)
> 
> My point was that this is a natural outgrowth of existing child porn and
> obscenity laws,

An outgrowth would imply that it is along a continuum that has the same
basic "footing".  All of your above examples, from the traditional "kiddie
porn" to the Feinswine dirty pixel laws deal with visual imagery of the
photographic "kind".  What we have here is distinctly different: no
pictures of *any* kind, real or constructed, *unless*, we are no
prosecuting the imagery that we are assuming is present in the mind of the
author.  He is using *words*, not *imagery*.

> and if you're upset at this, you should naturally be upset
> at the entire framework.

I *am* upset at the entire framework.  Regardless of which  (or both) of
these footings are argued as somehow "morally valid/justified/whatever",
what it boils down to is the outlawing of *information*.  The outlawing of
DATA is a Pure Thought Crime.  

If we wanted to "Protect The Children" we would make the *act* of engaging
a minor in an *act* of nude photography/sex/dope smoking/whatever a
serious crime, and we would then enforce it to the teeth.  That we do not
speaks volumes about who we are "protecting".

The "drug war" is the perfect analogy here: it is the posession, which is
inherently victimless, which is the greater evil under the "judgement" of
our "society".

Posession of *anything* is a victimless "crime", and should NEVER be
prosecutable.

> -Declan

-- 
Yours, 
J.A. Terranson
sysadmin at mfn.org

If Governments really want us to behave like civilized human beings, they
should give serious consideration towards setting a better example:
Ruling by force, rather than consensus; the unrestrained application of
unjust laws (which the victim-populations were never allowed input on in
the first place); the State policy of justice only for the rich and 
elected; the intentional abuse and occassionally destruction of entire
populations merely to distract an already apathetic and numb electorate...
This type of demogoguery must surely wipe out the fascist United States
as surely as it wiped out the fascist Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

The views expressed here are mine, and NOT those of my employers,
associates, or others.  Besides, if it *were* the opinion of all of
those people, I doubt there would be a problem to bitch about in the
first place...
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