New York Court rules Child Pornography is Legal

[puma guy]

I usually refrain from posting anything from the Huffington Post but it's the only one that had a simplified quote from the judge defining the ruling. There truly, truly are no words.......

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/1 ... 05916.html

[RoyGBiv]

How many times has something you clicked on redirected you to a shocking web site unexpectedly.?

I agree with this part of the ruling..

some images in his computer cache, temporary files automatically stored from sites he viewed, cannot be held against him under state law.

Now... the problem becomes... differentiating between a hijacked browser redirect "viewing" and an intentional "dirty old man" viewing. If you can split that hair, then you catch the criminals without wrongfully incriminating you and me.

The guy in the article was convicted for downloading, saving and deleting images to his hard drive. Only the cache-related charges were affected by the ruling.

The problem now becomes... Will all the dirty old men stop saving images and just resort to viewing? and.. If you bookmark a site, does that become a violation?

[Dave2]

How many times has something you clicked on redirected you to a shocking web site unexpectedly.?

I agree with this part of the ruling..

some images in his computer cache, temporary files automatically stored from sites he viewed, cannot be held against him under state law.

Now... the problem becomes... differentiating between a hijacked browser redirect "viewing" and an intentional "dirty old man" viewing. If you can split that hair, then you catch the criminals without wrongfully incriminating you and me.

In addition to popups and redirects, the cached images could've come from ads and not the "content" (I use that word very loosely here).

[puma guy]

Having a pop-up appear is not what the judge referenced in her ruling.
"Judge Victoria A. Graffeo simplified things, writing, "The purposeful viewing of child pornography on the internet is now legal in New York."

[Dave2]

Having a pop-up appear is not what the judge referenced in her ruling.
"Judge Victoria A. Graffeo simplified things, writing, "The purposeful viewing of child pornography on the internet is now legal in New York."

Ah, well that's a little different...

[Keith B]

The ruling is viewing it online is legal, but downloading it is not. This stems from a case where a man was arrested because his browser cache had child porn images, but there were none saved to his computer. He was arrested and sentenced, but this will probably get him released. New York law, the way it is written, says possessing is illegal, and they court ruled he was not in possession because he hadn't actually downloaded the images.

[Rex B]

From a legal standpoint, the ruling seems proper.
How can just seeing something be illegal?

[philip964]

From a legal standpoint, the ruling seems proper.
How can just seeing something be illegal?

Seeking out and seeing something, promotes people to make the item. Making the item harms children.

What I find interesting in the '70's, this was not illegal and I remember a well known national photography magazine had an article on Brooke Shields and it had fully nude photographs of her, she was about 8 years old at the time. It was presented as "art".

[Charles L. Cotton]

From a legal standpoint, the ruling seems proper.
How can just seeing something be illegal?

Exactly correct even though most of us don't like the end result in the real world. "Possession" is the key and without downloading something it's impossible to prove "possession." If it were otherwise, as others have mentioned, anyone could be criminally responsible for unintentional redirecting, Internet viruses (as opposed to email), etc.

It's somewhat like having to turn a murderer loose because his 4th amendment rights were violated. We don't like the result, but the protection afforded all of us is paramount.

Chas.

[WildBill]

From a legal standpoint, the ruling seems proper.
How can just seeing something be illegal?

I was thinking about this as it could relate to national security. Unauthorized viewing of classified documents is a crime, but passing the information to the enemy could be treason.

[Dave2]

From a legal standpoint, the ruling seems proper.
How can just seeing something be illegal?

Exactly correct even though most of us don't like the end result in the real world. "Possession" is the key and without downloading something it's impossible to prove "possession." If it were otherwise, as others have mentioned, anyone could be criminally responsible for unintentional redirecting, Internet viruses (as opposed to email), etc.

You can't view an image (or any document) on a computer without downloading it. If the computer doesn't download the data, there's nothing to display. How do they discern whether it was downloaded intentionally or accidentally?

[jmorris]

From a legal standpoint, the ruling seems proper.
How can just seeing something be illegal?

Exactly correct even though most of us don't like the end result in the real world. "Possession" is the key and without downloading something it's impossible to prove "possession." If it were otherwise, as others have mentioned, anyone could be criminally responsible for unintentional redirecting, Internet viruses (as opposed to email), etc.

You can't view an image (or any document) on a computer without downloading it. If the computer doesn't download the data, there's nothing to display. How do they discern whether it was downloaded intentionally or accidentally?

As they say in real estate, location, location, location.

If it's in the browser's cache a reasonable assumption is that the browser saved it as part of fetching a page. If it's in the user's documents, pictures, download, etc folder that he controls then the reasonable assumption is that the user saved it.

[Keith B]

As they say in real estate, location, location, location.

If it's in the browser's cache a reasonable assumption is that the browser saved it as part of fetching a page. If it's in the user's documents, pictures, download, etc folder that he controls then the reasonable assumption is that the user saved it.

This is the crux of the issue. The browser will store the images in cache memory when you go to a page, but you haven't actually downloaded them to save them yourself. I have accidentally gone to sites I did not intend to go to. One good example is http://www.whitehouse.gov" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;. I accidentally went to http://www.whitehouse.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;. It is unregistered now, but used to be a porn site. Funny thing is, I did this during the Clinton administration, so wasn't sure I had gone to the wrong site at first.