Man Convicted Either For Child Porn Or Nothing
A man has made legal history as the first to be sentenced for downloading "Tomb Raider-style" computer-generated child pornography...The pictures were part of an illustrated story involving child abuse and incest - but involving no real childrenComputer generated still pictures.
The pictures on which Hoque was acquitted were "almost comic strips" with speech bubbles, the court heard.
The six pictures on which he was found guilty were so realistic, the jury concluded they looked like photographs.
No one thought he had molested anyone, and it appears no one even thought he was going to. But the pics are more like heroin, the more you use, the more you want, and maybe then you might become a molester:
"I think you'll get some insight into the damage that children can suffer. This may be on the fringes of it but it's still an entrance, a door into a very murky and distasteful world." [said the judge.]
The problem with this argument is that it doesn't fit the reality. Are you sentencing him for possessing the pictures only, or because it leads down the path to wanting more? Because he already wanted more:
They were among tens of thousands of images on his computer hard drive seized by the police in October 2006, ranging from crude, simple illustrations to cartoon images to complex graphics.
Most were "fairly distasteful and disgusting, but perfectly lawful", said the judge.
In other words, if he had the tens of thousands but not those six, is there no concern? If I had those six, but not the other ten thousand, would I get the same sentence?
You have no idea, really, if it leads to molestation, that argument is a red herring. If it was actually the real concern, then this would not have happened:
The judge did not ban Hoque from working with children.
The problem with policing a thought crime is that we can't agree on what is a crime, let alone a thought. And if you don't have the legal or physical ability to forbid someone from performing a physical action (e.g. work with kids) how do you plan on forbidding them from thinking things?
These are not real kids, this is CGI. As abhorrent as it may be, you can't regulate thought on the assumption it leads to behavior. It is impossible to ask how many virtual child porn users molest. There's no way to verify either.
You can't argue that fake child porn will incite them to molest kids; legal porn wouldn't get them fired up as well? Or the KMart catalog? Or a visit to the playground?Almost Supreme Court Justice-but-instead-we-got-Kennedy Robert Bork made the argument that pornography, especially child pornography, doesn't deserve to be protected speech anyway. Carefully, he hedges that while the government shouldn't have the right to outlaw such "speech," neither does it have the right to prevent segments of society from curbing it themselves. Supporting this nuance, he us that porn as a first amendment issue is a relatively new discussion, despite how the First Amendment, not to mention porn, actually is.
He's right, but he's perhaps purposely avoiding the question of whether it is ok to punish real people for, in essence, looking at stuff.
As I've said elsewhere on the same subject, don't confuse my neolib sentiments for actual lib sentiments: if you want to prevent child molestation, make it a capital crime. But the focus has to be on the act, not the thought, because you can't measure the thought, neither does it translate clearly into act.
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November 17, 2008 2:26 PM | Posted by : | Reply
Another point which has to be included: actual child porn involves a real victim. The issue of free speech becomes secondary to the commercialization and/or propagation of material related to that sexual abuse.
November 17, 2008 2:38 PM | Posted by : | Reply
"As abhorrent as it may be, you can't regulate thought on the assumption it leads to behavior."
Obviously not - and I doubt anyone would seriously try. I don't think anyone really believes it - it's a rationalisation. The jury just really don't like the idea of child porn, even if it's fake, so they convicted him.
Fair enough, but they should just admit that's what they're doing, so we can decide whether that's the kind of society we want to live in.
November 17, 2008 3:11 PM | Posted by : | Reply
Supporting this nuance, he us that porn as a first amendment issue is a relatively new discussion, despite how the First Amendment, not to mention porn, actually is.I'm really confused.
Alone's response: No, I'm an idiot. Fixed.
November 17, 2008 6:09 PM | Posted by : | Reply
It's worth pointing out that the actual conviction is for a specific crime of looking at images that would be illegal if they were real. And (from what I've heard) they have to be difficult to distinguish from real so, e.g., http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_Girls * would be fine, as it's cartoons.
I guess the actual trial itself merely hinged on whether or not the images were lifelike enough to be illegal. And it's newsworthy not because it's a weird/dodgy judgement call by a court, but because it's the first conviction under a new law.
So why does the law exist?
Well, there's the 'real' answer, which is that it's effortless to implement, appeals to base instincts (with a huge dose of self-righteousness and a modicum of titillation), difficult to object to and, most importantly, is protecting people against unverifiable monsters.
Why would you want to distract the public debate on crime from things like muggings, vandalism, burglary and other crimes? Because public perception of the frequency of those crimes is correlated as much with how shrill the press is about them as it is with how often the crimes are actually committed.
Having said all that, I think that there is a reasonable public interest in reducing the amount to which these images are created and viewed, because from society's point of view, there is no upside to them, and there is a risk/harm. Because (see e.g. http://thelastpsychiatrist.com/sadly_porn/ ) these images are likely to damage the social function and sexuality of people who use them for erotic purposes, and (stereotype coming) these people are already those likely to be on the margins already, but not over the margins, I think there's certainly a case to be made that having these images illegal would provide a better boundary to these people's behaviour than the almost imperceptible boundary between a photorealistic sexual drawing/rendering/montage of a child and that of a real photo of an actual child suffering sexual abuse.
So looking at it in terms of the law being a slightly firmer and wider boundary on what is socially acceptable than normal censure, I think that there's a case to be made for this law. And here in the UK, there's no constitution to compare it to.
November 18, 2008 8:24 AM | Posted by : | Reply
RE "how do you plan on forbidding them from thinking things?"
Answer:A psychiatrist forces antipsychotics on the patient.
November 19, 2008 1:07 AM | Posted by : | Reply
So you don't buy the utilitarian argument?
He might value porn greatly but doesn't the value of the the deterent effect of this decision trump his loss of liberty?
And you though it's not obvious from the decision i believe this would work well as deterence.
November 19, 2008 10:24 PM | Posted by : | Reply
This is the same argument used to justify the criminalization of marijuana: they're "gateway" pictures. I think there's a reasonable public interest in allowing people a safe outlet as well. By erecting a firm boundary, you force people to rub up against it and that much more likely for them to burst through it.
BTW, if you search for 'hentai' or 'ecchi' and you'll see there's quite a lot out there.
November 20, 2008 1:09 PM | Posted by : | Reply
I was thinking more along the lines of the social benefit that society gets from keeping itself in the dark about the existence of these kinds of pictures. Deterence in the sense that you have to be able to hide your porn better or we'll come after you regardless of whether they're real or not.
The gateway argument is, i believe, kind of weak.
November 24, 2008 11:30 AM | Posted by : | Reply
Sounds like an injustice to me.
6 out of 10000 that questionably borders on child pornography doesn't seem like a very good reason to charge him with a crime to me. Maybe they were able to demonstrate an strong preference for viewing those particular images out of the 10000 other images, but that doesn't seem to be suggested by the article. So even if you are willing to thought police I think this case is really dodgy.
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