Supreme Court strikes down ban on virtual child pornography

Associated Press ^ | 4-16-02

[Redcloak]

You're telling us that no one wanted to smoke tobacco until a supply was offered?

Where would you like your dust bunny shipped? I have an endless supply and I'm offering them for sale; therefore, you want one. The supply exists thus your demand must follow. Right?

[Redcloak]

Do you really believe that? Or did you forget to include a </sarcasm> tag?

[Bonaparte]

"That's not a very good analogy. What you describe is prohibited by a deliberately broad reaching statue. But a more "generic" image of a presidential assassination would not be prohibited. Thus an image depicting the death of "President Jones" is legal. The difference, as noted in the case's synopsis, is proximate harm. Your billboard is viewed as a threat to the President, and thus is a proximate cause of harm."

A careful reading of the USSC decision (that Timesink was kind enough to post for us) makes it clear that as long as the image is not "actual," ie. photographic, it is legal to publicly display it. The billboard image I hypothesized, while closely approximating a photographic image of the real President, would likewise not be an "actual" image. By the SC's own interpretation, the sponsor of this display could not be prosecuted for the crime of threatening the President. (As a sidebar, consider what happened to Craig Kilborne when he displayed on national TV an actual photographic image of Bush in the cross-hairs subtitled "Snipers Wanted" -- no action was taken against Kilborne.)

But since your objection has been framed in terms of individual likeness, ie. that the image in question must be "generic" to be legal for display, what would be the legal status of a virtual "generic" image of a black man being hanged by figures in white hoods? That image would not constitute a threat toward any "actual" black man, nor would its creation require an actual lynching. Therefore, it would not be subject to criminal prosecution, right? Can it be said that it would be any different from a "generic" image that depicted a similarly illegal act against a "virtual" child? Both of these images depict crimes and both of them are bound to offend a broad segment of society, but according to this SC ruling just handed down, aren't both of them legal to display, even if they are presented in an approving context?

[firebrand]

I.81  US Supreme Court: The institution of destruction.

D'humain troupeau neuf seront mis a part
De jugement et conseil separees
Leur sort sera divise en deport
Kappa, Theta, Lambda, morts, bannis, egarez

NOTE:
Troupeau: pack, crowd; neuf: nine; leur: their; sort: destiny; divise: divided in judicial judment; depart: separation by vote; Kappa, Theta, Lambda: Greek alphabets, (fig.) human artificial technicality; mort: death; bannis: banished, abolished; egarez: misleading, going astray.

From human pack, nine shall be placed in high authority
By judgment and counsel separated
Their destiny shall be divided in judicial vote
Human artificial knowledges, death, bannishment, misleading

COMMENT: The destructive role of US Supreme Court toward social order and morality especially in the twentieth century.

[Houmatt]

"See The Declaration of Independence..."endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights"

"Definition for unalienable is "Not to be separated, given away, or taken away;"

"This means that all speach is protected unless it infringes upon the unalienable rights of another, such as presents an imminent threat to the life of another."

Uh, no it does not.

For one thing, you are taking the phrase out of context. It ends with "...for among them are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." Notice that the phrase "free speech" does NOT appear.

For another, the free speech clause appears in a totally different document, the Constitution. And it is by no means absolute.

Among the limits is obscene material (Miller v. California, 1972).

[pgkdan]

Nonsense! Your comparsions are ridiculous. If you think driving and SUV, or any of the other un-pc actions that you listed, are the moral equivelant to kiddy porn you need help. Show me the Constitutional guarantees for any kind of pornography. They don't exist...they were simply invented out of whole cloth by the court. Free Speech does not implicitly condone the production and distribution of porn of any kind.

[Doctor Stochastic]

Those children in Lewisville who murdered their brother probably saw much more than 20 murders on TV and at the movies, so does that absolve them of responsibilities for their actions?

It does not absolve them of their crimes. Does it call for the prosecution of WGN for showing Matlock?

[gdani]

Show me the Constitutional guarantees for any kind of pornography

Show me where the First Amendment does not protect pornography (except for child porn which is illegal)

[general_re]

Do I really believe what - that nobody ever considered smoking noxious pollutants into their lungs until unscrupulous tobacco companies came along and marketed their filth?

You really seriously believe that to be the case?

[Houmatt]

See reply 288.

[gdani]

See reply 288

Pornography does not necessarily = obscenity

[BikerNYC]

For another, the free speech clause appears in a totally different document, the Constitution. And it is by no means absolute.

"Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech...."

If, if mind you, we wanted to make this absolute, what more could we say?

[DBtoo]

That's right. Anyone who gets their kicks off of child porn is sick and evil. This only encourages those sick people to act out their twisted fantasies in real life.

[Condorman]

Last I heard, the first three people you mentioned are not specifically known as pornographers. I'm not familiar with the writings of the last three names: Dean Koontz, Bret Easton Ellis, or H.R. Geiger.

We are talking about virtual kiddie porn. When did "known pornographers" enter the discussion? I'm not a "known pornographer," does that mean that anything I write, photograph or film is therefore not porn?

That aside, this discussion is about pornography depicting children that didn't actually use children during its creation. It is illegal to have sex with children, therefore distributing images of such is illegal. I argue that murder is also illegal. So is rape.

Stephen King and Dean Koontz are horror writers. Many scenes in their books depict extreme and grotesque murder and rape. Bret Ellis wrote American Psycho, about a yuppie, NYC serial killer. Tarantino is known for uber-violent scenes of torture and death. Giger is a Swiss surrealist who drew/created the Alien from the films, and several album covers for the music group "Emerson, Lake and Palmer." However, Giger also created works that include material of a sexual nature-- often violently so.

Many scenes and situations in the above films, books, and art show violent, illegal behavior. Some are even in the first person. But the events never happened, and the participants never existed.

The question unanswered is this: What makes a depiction (visual, verbal, or otherwise) of one crime different from a dipiction of another? Also relevant, what makes the dipiction of a crime in one form (i.e. digital imagery) illegal while the verbal depiction of that same crime is legal? (IWO, why can a freaky weirdo write a fictional account about having sex with a child, but a digitally created image of that act is a crime?)

We'll go one further: "America's Most Wanted" uses re-creations of actual crimes in their profiles. Is itself this a crime? The show is on for an hour each week. A regular viewer might see 200 recreated crimes in a year. Is this a danger to society?

Now before you complain, that I'm straying from the kiddie porn issue: Kiddie porn is bad. If you get off on kiddie porn you are not well. If you take pictures of kids involved in sex acts, you should be fully prosecuted. Now, what if you create sexually explicit material without using any human subjects? Yes, you're a perv, but have you committed a crime?

It's a pity you can't tell the difference between a movie made specifically for purveyors of pornography, and a movie made for the general public.

It's a pity you can't read. I'll repeat: if a freaky weirdo somewhere wants to write a rape fantasy in his diary, or sketch a sex scene involving a child (be it digital or hard copy), is that a criminal act, and have anyone's rights been violated?