Thread: Viewing Child Porn On Internet Now Legal in New York

I don't usually post news, but this seemed important.

U.S. News - Viewing child porn on the Web 'legal' in New York, state appeals court finds

Viewing child pornography online isn't a crime, the New York Court of Appeals ruled Tuesday in the case of a college professor whose work computer was found to have stored more than a hundred illegal images in its Web cache.

The court dismissed one of the two counts of promoting a sexual performance of a child and one of the dozens of counts of possession of child pornography on which James D. Kent was convicted. The court upheld the other counts against Kent, an assistant professor of public administration at Marist College in Poughkeepsie, N.Y.

Kent — who said at his sentencing that he "abhorred" child pornography and argued that someone else at Marist must have placed the images on his computer — was sentenced to one to three years in state prison in August 2009.

The decision rests on whether accessing and viewing something on the Internet is the same as possessing it, and whether possessing it means you had to procure it. In essence, the court said no to the first question and yes to the second.

I think this is terrible... your thoughts?

That's just disgusting. I can't believe that this society wants to look at pictures of small children having sex on the internet. It's just wrong.

Anyone who thinks viewing child porn is okay is just wrong. It's absolutely disgusting. I mean, do they want more pedophiles to go after children to quench their terrible lust?

I just don't understand why they would even consider legalizing it in the first place.

With any hope, there will be a backlash and then it'll be made illegal again. I think a backlash will certainly be likely.

Pedos are the only ones who'd view the stuff anyways... Children aren't exactly bearable in terms of appearance... And I technically still am a kid... The law will probably stay until some angry parent files a lawsuit.

Wait... Viewing is legal? I'm assuming posting it is illegal, so how's that going to work?

Although child porn is indeed atrocious I'll give you that, making it illegal in the U.S. would go against part of First Amendment: which is Freedom of Expression. That's why there's still loli fanart and loli Rule 34 around the internet.

That makes sense. But I don't see how this is even right.... There's such a thing as being able to express freedom and just downright creepy. And besides, there are still a lot of things in this country that aren't technically "free". So why is this allowed to be?

I guess they're trying to say "You can watch it yourself, but you can't share it to others".

Either way, this still shouldn't be legal.

Disgusting. Absolutely inexcusable. Fucking sensationalist article tiles.

Originally Posted by Ghetsis-Dennis

Although child porn is indeed atrocious I'll give you that, making it illegal in the U.S. would go against part of First Amendment: which is Freedom of Expression.

Oh yes. The "free speech" and "THOUGHTCRIMES" excuse. That gets thrown around by pedophiles all the time as an excuse to make pedophilia seem less like the horrendous crime it is. Freedom of speech does not give someone the right to think or say or think anything they want. That is like saying that hate groups like the KKK should be allowed to spew their bigoted views because banning it would be infringing on their rights. That is ABUSE of the first amendment.

That's why there's still loli fanart and loli Rule 34 around the internet.

The only reason why lolicon images are allowed is because "drawn" images are considered to inhabit a "grey area" because there are no real children involved. But that's a whole different debate right there.

I don't see how this should be allowed. WTF were these judges thinking? If other states say it's illegal, then there's probably something wrong with legalizing it.

One word: Gross.

"Merely viewing Web images of child pornography does not, absent other proof, constitute either possession or procurement within the meaning of our Penal Law," Senior Judge Carmen Beauchamp Ciparick wrote for a majority of four of the six judges.

"Rather, some affirmative act is required (printing, saving, downloading, etc.) to show that defendant in fact exercised dominion and control over the images that were on his screen," Ciparick wrote. "To hold otherwise, would extend the reach of (state law) to conduct — viewing — that our Legislature has not deemed criminal."

This is the judge's reasoning. And I agree with it. With current laws, you can get in trouble just viewing things that clearly aren't child pornography, but the government may consider it to be (ex: Just silly pictures of young family members in the bathtub. Who doesn't have those?). What this judge is saying that simple viewing is NOT the same as possession, which the current law says needs to happen BEFORE it is a crime.

Okay, guys. Let's actually take a look at what the article said instead of looking at a sensationalist title.

This person had two of his charges dropped. He had "dozens" of other charges, which were upheld.

The issue here is that the court found that the prosecution could not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that having images on a browser cache was sufficient evidence for the charges. Whenever you visit a website for the first time, your browser caches the images on it. If some one were to unknowingly stumble upon a website that had child pornography (this can actually happen), the images on that website would be cached. The person obviously did not commit a crime (assuming they left the site immediately), but the evidence of committing a crime is still in the browser.

Now there is a problem, though, when trying to prosecute people who do not store evidence on their computers. If a collection of hundreds of pictures on a browser cache is not sufficient evidence for a conviction, the person who committed the crime may not be convicted.

Okay, now things are starting to make sense.

Would have been better if this news report had been given a different title then.

Well, "Appeal court's interpretation of current laws reveals a loophole regarding the interpretation of evidence in child pornography case" won't really grab attention like this headline would.