Posted on 03/21/2007 12:04:08 PM PDT by markchild
PROTECT says state is safe haven for child sexual predators
WASHINGTON, March 21 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Maryland has become a legal safe haven for child pornography traffickers, the National Association to Protect Children (PROTECT) said today, and the state's political leaders are fighting to keep it that way.
PROTECT launched a national grassroots campaign on Wednesday to demand that Maryland strengthen its laws against child pornography. Maryland is one of just five states remaining in the U.S. with misdemeanor penalties for child pornography possession, and PROTECT says that hurts children everywhere.
"This is not just a Maryland issue," said PROTECT spokesperson Alison Arngrim today. "When a sexual predator in Maryland goes online to get child pornography, a child somewhere will be raped to supply those movies and images. In the Internet age, children around the world are paying the price for Maryland's tolerance of child pornography."
PROTECT says a major part of the problem in Maryland is Delegate Joseph Vallario (D-Suitland), Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. In recent days, Vallario's committee considered bills sponsored by 29 House members to toughen child pornography penalties. But the only legislation that survived, says PROTECT, was a weak and watered-down bill (House Bill 285) that keeps possession of child pornography a misdemeanor, punishable by a fine.
(Excerpt) Read more at prnewswire.com ...
Thanks for the ping.
I seem to be back...!
It also seems common sense that the tiny cases of someone having porn - especially child porn - on their computer totally by accident would be easily detected. OTOH, a computer loaded up with the stuff, which, if I understand what I read, is generally not for free but must be sought out and paid for, makes it clear who is guilty.
I used to have a yahoo email account and I gave it up because it would be loaded up with porn ads. I never saw any ones that mentioned children - and I never opened even any of them. Just checked delete. If someone's smart enough to be able to use a computer - even a totally non-technical person like me - and avoid having porn hidden in their computer - it doesn't sound like a common thing.
A large proportion of computer users are barely competent to use Outlook Express. Truly cleaning a computer once a virus has struck takes real effort even if you know what you're doing - and suggest cleaning to Joe Public and he will come back with a wet rag and start dusting.
Well meaning laws written by technologically illiterate legislatures don't distinguish in the slightest between a virus free computer with a hand sorted "Child Porn" directory and a file called:
"http://childpornwebsite.com/media/childporn1x1.gif?&tstatus=displayed &type=child&Total=4&adTotal=0&prefTotal=4&basicTotal=0&styleid=100793075 &dl1=p_373752&dl2=p_373854&dl3=p_365531&dl4=p_303961&zip=90802&synpartner=24 &page_code=optionsresults&ps_partner=&dvd=nd&child=nd&dlts=%201174405317968"
placed by malware in a hidden, temporary directory without input from the user.
Until this is addressed, having digital possession a crime at all is already scarily bad law and making it a felony would make it worse.
ROTFLOL! Too true. My daughter is a CS major and some of the stories her computer geek friends have come back with make that scenario look brilliant.
That's why the computer part is so iffy. Before we had pop-ups blocked, we'd run into problems because we'd just go to click on something and a pop up would show up under the cursor just as you were clicking and there's no way to stop in mid click. We ended up having to clean out our computer from that a few times.
My guess is that you don't know what child porn is or what it does to children. Taking innocent pictures of children in bathtubs isn't what child porn is about. Raping children, them crying out "daddy stop", bondage deplictions, etc...that isn't a bathtub photo. If you'd like to keep child porn a misd. in MD then let your children be the victims. Or maybe you think that it's ok to take a picture of a baby being raped? You have to be very sick to want to keep child porn a misd. in MD.
Have you watched the news lately? Do you see that Judges are giving these offenders sweetheart sentences? Do you really want the children of MD even more of a victim because their abuser is fined?
DITTO! But it will be where all of the child porn viewers will be living when they find out that MD will be one of the last states where child porn is a felony. Are those the people that MD wants living in their back yard?
Did you know that there are web sites out there that give laws to those that are interseted showing what state has weak law when it comes to protecting children. MD will be on the top of their list for child porn viewers!
The interesting feature of the struggle against malignant vice is the lack of any effective resistance. Pornographers, sodomites, drug worshipers,kiddie exploiters go from triumph to triumph.
The other states are: california, Iowa, Maine and Oregon.
1) The bill in question (SB 1003) makes allowances for "the baby on the bearskin rug" kind of pictures.
2) The bill in question makes allowances for *accidental* possession.
3) In a study done by NCMEC and CACRC it was found that two-thirds of the people convicted for luring or attempting to lure children over the Internet possessed child pornography.
4) A study done by NCMEC and CACRC found the following breakdown about possessors of child pornography:
80% had images of children aged 6-12
19% had images of infants and toddlers
83% had images of rape
21% had images of sadistic abuse and torture
1% limited their "collections" to images of nude children.
5) Most misdemeanors are not eligible for consecutive sentencing, so 100 convictions would still be a paroleable offense. Also Maryland does not require mandatory sex offender registration for possession -- the only state in the US to not require it.
[NCMEC=National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and CACRC= Crimes Against Children Research Center]
Child Pornography is the memorialized evidence of the rape and torure of a child. People who possess it contribute to the demand for more child victims. And personally, anyone who thinks that some guy who just watches the online, real-time, rape of a child over the Internet is not a danger to children is insane. Just my opinion.
Federal law has an affirmative defense for accidental possession, and most states have copied this in their child pornography laws as well.
Also when's the last time you heard about someone being convicted and only having a few images? While they may be convicted on one count, I'm sure if you asked the investigators they will tell you they had thousands of images and took a deal to plea to a single count. Law enforcement doesn't have the time or resources to go after accidental possession. Out of curiosity I called the Internet Crimes Against Children research center in my state and asked them if they'd ever found someone with less than 10 images of child porn on their computer. The guy laughed and said they'd be happy if they could find one with less than a thousand, and that didn't include DVD's, CD's, video tapes, etc.
A rule of law society needs stronger safeguards than "law enforcement won't have the time to actually prosecute laws on the books." There will be a politically motivated, or hardline ideological, or just plain incompetent prosecutor who can and will prosecute.
The front page of foxnews.com has no fewer than 65 seperate image files. The front page of CNN.com has 126(!). Every one of these will be seperately saved to a hidden cache directory on your PC when you visit. Child porn websites are no different. Just a few malicious redirects over a period of months or even years will leave the requisite "hundreds of images" for slam dunk prosecution.
Police blotter" is a weekly News.com report on the intersection of technology and the law.
What: Teenagers taking risque photos of themselves are prosecuted for violating child pornography laws.
When: Florida state appeals court rules on January 19.
Outcome: A 2-1 majority upholds conviction on grounds the girl produced a photograph featuring the sexual conduct of a child.
What happened, according to court documents:
Combine unsupervised teenagers, digital cameras and e-mail, and, given sufficient time, you'll end up with risque photographs on a computer somewhere.
There's a problem with that: Technically, those images constitute child pornography. That's what 16-year-old Amber and 17-year-old Jeremy, her boyfriend, both residents of the Tallahassee, Fla., area, learned firsthand. (Court documents include only their initials, A.H. and J.G.W., so we're using these pseudonyms to make this story a little easier to read.)
On March 25, 2004, Amber and Jeremy took digital photos of themselves naked and engaged in unspecified "sexual behavior." The two sent the photos from a computer at Amber's house to Jeremy's personal e-mail address. Neither teen showed the photographs to anyone else.
Court records don't say exactly what happened next--perhaps the parents wanted to end the relationship and raised the alarm--but somehow Florida police learned about the photos.
Amber and Jeremy were arrested. Each was charged with producing, directing or promoting a photograph featuring the sexual conduct of a child. Based on the contents of his e-mail account, Jeremy was charged with an extra count of possession of child pornography. Court records don't say exactly what happened next...but somehow Florida police learned about the photos.
Some more background: Under a 1995 ruling in a case called B.B. v. State, the Florida Supreme Court said that a 16-year-old could not be found delinquent for having sex with another 16-year-old.
"The crux of the state's interest in an adult-minor situation is the prevention of exploitation of the minor by the adult," the majority said at the time. The court ruled that a Florida statute punishing sex between teens was "unconstitutional as applied to this 16-year-old as a basis for a delinquency proceeding."
The same applies to Amber and Jeremy. Even though he is a year older than her, he is still a minor in Florida.
In other words, under Florida law, Amber and Jeremy would be legally permitted to engage in carnal relations, but they're criminals if they document it.
Amber's attorney claimed that the right to privacy protected by the Florida Constitution shielded the teen from prosecution, an argument that a trial judge rejected. Amber pleaded no contest to the charges and was placed on probation, though she reserved her right to appeal her constitutional claim.
By a 2-1 vote, the appeals court didn't buy it. Judge James Wolf, a former prosecutor, wrote the majority opinion.
Wolf speculated that Amber and Jeremy could have ended up selling the photos to child pornographers ("one motive for revealing the photos is profit") or showing the images to their friends. He claimed that Amber had neither the "foresight or maturity" to make a reasonable estimation of the risks on her own. And he said that transferring the images from a digital camera to a PC created innumerable problems: "The two computers (can) be hacked."
Judge Philip Padovano dissented. He wrote that the law "was designed to protect children from abuse by others, but it was used in this case to punish a child for her own mistake. In my view, the application of this criminal statute to the conduct at issue violates the child's right to privacy under Article 1, Section 23 of the Florida Constitution."
Excerpt from Wolf's majority opinion:
As previously stated, the reasonable expectation that the material will ultimately be disseminated is by itself a compelling state interest for preventing the production of this material. In addition, the statute was intended to protect minors like appellant and her co-defendant from their own lack of judgment...
Appellant was simply too young to make an intelligent decision about engaging in sexual conduct and memorializing it. Mere production of these videos or pictures may also result in psychological trauma to the teenagers involved.
Further, if these pictures are ultimately released, future damage may be done to these minors' careers or personal lives. These children are not mature enough to make rational decisions concerning all the possible negative implications of producing these videos.
In addition, the two defendants placed the photos on a computer and then, using the Internet, transferred them to another computer. Not only can the two computers be hacked, but by transferring the photos using the Net, the photos may have been and perhaps still are accessible to the provider and/or other individuals. Computers also allow for long-term storage of information which may then be disseminated at some later date. The state has a compelling interest in seeing that material which will have such negative consequences is never produced.
Excerpt from Padovano's dissent:
If a minor cannot be criminally prosecuted for having sex with another minor, as the court held in B.B., it follows that a minor cannot be criminally prosecuted for taking a picture of herself having sex with another minor. Although I do not condone the child's conduct in this case, I cannot deny that it is private conduct. Because there is no evidence that the child intended to show the photographs to third parties, they are as private as the act they depict...
The majority concludes that the child in this case did not have a reasonable expectation that the photographs would remain private. To support this conclusion, the majority speculates about the many ways in which the photographs might have been revealed to others. The e-mail transmission might have been intercepted. The relationship might have ended badly. The boyfriend might have wanted to show the photo to someone else to brag about his sexual conquest. With all due respect, I think these arguments are beside the point. Certainly there are circumstances in which the photos might have been revealed unintentionally to third parties, but that would always be the case.
That the Internet is easily hacked, as the majority says, is not material. The issue is whether the child intended to keep the photos private, not whether it would be possible for someone to obtain the photos against her will and thereby to invade her privacy. The majority states that the child "placed the photos on a computer and then, using the Internet, transferred them to another computer," as if to suggest that she left them out carelessly for anyone to find. That is not what happened. She sent the photos to her boyfriend at his personal e-mail address, intending to share them only with him.
The method the child used to transmit the photos to her boyfriend carries some danger of disclosure, but so do others. If the child had taken a printed photograph and placed it in her purse, it might have been disclosed to third parties if her purse had been lost or stolen. If she had mailed it to her boyfriend in an envelope, it might have been revealed if the envelope had been delivered to the wrong address and mistakenly opened. As these examples illustrate, there is always a possibility that something a person intends to keep private will eventually be disclosed to others. But we cannot gauge the reasonableness of a person's expectation of privacy merely by speculating about the many ways in which it might be violated.
The critical point in this case is that the child intended to keep the photographs private. She did not attempt to exploit anyone or to embarrass anyone. I think her expectation of privacy in the photographs was reasonable. Certainly, an argument could be made that she was foolish to expect that, but the expectation of a 16-year-old cannot be measured by the collective wisdom of appellate judges who have no emotional connection to the event. Perhaps if the child had as much time to reflect on these events, she would have eventually concluded, as the majority did, that there were ways in which these photos might have been unintentionally disclosed. That does not make her expectation of privacy unreasonable.
Just because you read a about a couple of "sweetheart sentences" for sex offenders does not mean that is the norm. And some guy that has a dirty picture on his computer and the person in the picture happens to be under the age of 18 does not make this person an abuser.
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