@BillRM,
Quote:Sorry dear but the issue is clearly up in the air
What issue is clearly up in the air?
Whether child pornography is harmful, and whether it's production, distribution, and possession should be illegal?
The issue may be "up in the air" in your mind, but nowhere else on earth. It is regarded as harmful, and unacceptable, and illegal, in just about every civilized country on this planet, with very good reasons for doing so.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_pornography
That you have an enormous blind spot in recognizing that the main reason child pornography is illegal is because of the abuse and exploitation of the children involved in it's production is just incredible. Your indifference to the abuse of these innocent victims is staggering. You are far more concerned with gratifying the sexual urges and masturbatory needs of pedophiles, and lowering the sentences they receive for their possession and distribution of child pornography, than you are with the welfare of the children who are being harmed and exploited to satisfy those pedophiles.
Quote:you are standing on very weak moral ground...
On the contrary, it is your moral sensibilities which appear to be deficient. You stand on no recognized ground, and give every indication that you have sunk into a dark cess pool where no glimmer of morality or human decency shines.
Both the U.S. Congress and the U.S. Supreme Court have criminalized the sending of messages which offer, or even seek to obtain, child pornography. The issue isn't "up in the air" for them.
Quote:Child porn messages not protected
Offering, asking for images illegal, high court rules
May 20, 2008|
By David G. Savage
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Monday gave prosecutors a powerful tool to attack the spread of child pornography online, ruling that people who send messages over the computer offering or seeking sexual images of children can be sent to prison, even when no such pornography exists.
The 7-2 ruling, which upheld a 5-year-old law, rejected the claim that such messages are protected as free speech.
Monday's ruling goes a long way toward overturning the effect of a 2002 decision that shielded computer-generated pornography. The justices said then that because no real children were involved in producing these images, this material deserved protection as a form of free speech.
In response, Congress passed a law in 2003 making it a crime to exchange online messages about "any material or purported material" that would cause "another to believe" it depicts a minor engaged in sex, whether "actual or simulated." Violations call for at least 5 years in prison.
Two years ago, a U.S. appeals court in Atlanta ruled the law unconstitutional as overly broad. It could apply, in theory, to a grandfather who sends an e-mail entitled "Good pics of kids in bed," the appellate judges said. Other critics said the law could ensnare people who tout a Hollywood movie with simulated sex scenes.
In Monday's opinion, the Supreme Court dismissed those objections.
"Child pornography harms and debases the most defenseless of our citizens," Justice Antonin Scalia said. "We hold that offers to provide or requests to obtain child pornography are categorically excluded from the 1st Amendment."
No prosecutor or jury would believe that a grandfather was offering children engaged in "sexually explicit conduct" when he sends an e-mail describing "kids in bed," Scalia said.
People who advertise or sell movies are not in danger either.
"We think it is implausible that a reputable distributor of Hollywood movies, such as Amazon.com, believes that one of these films contains actual children engaging in actual or simulated sex on camera," Scalia said.
Justices David Souter and Ruth Bader Ginsburg dissented. They questioned the court's retreat from the ruling that protected "fake" child pornography from prosecution.
Monday's decision restores the conviction of a Florida man who told an FBI agent online that he had photos of his 4-year-old daughter engaged in sex.
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2008-05-20/news/0805190427_1_pornography-sexually-explicit-conduct-supreme-court
I just did a Google news search for child porn in Florida, your home state. The following articles are what's current in today's news. Some pertain to arrests, some to convictions. The higher sentences are for possession
and distribution. Most of these people had some sort of involvement with actual children in addition to their possession of child pornography.
Quote:50,000 child porn images lands Florida man in jail
Nov 30, 2011
FORT LAUDERDALE (CBSMiami) - A $1.5 million bond has been set for a South Florida retiree charged with 100 counts of child pornography.
Court records show 66-year-old John Jefferson Field, of Coral Springs, was arrested Monday, November 28th and booked into the Broward County Main Jail.
He appeared in bond court before Broward Circuit Judge John "Jay" Hurley Tuesday morning.
According to a Broward Sheriff's Office report read in open court by Judge Hurley, Field was arrested near SE 21st Avenue for allegedly taking photographs of young girls who were showering on Deerfield Beach.
Lifeguard Brian Bencin said he and two other lifeguards spotted Field photographing young girls at the shower and red flags went up.
"He was getting excited over little kids," said Bencin. "He couldn't take his eyes off them, actually hid behind a tractor focused on the children in the shower."
When Broward Sheriff's deputy Fernando Padron questioned Field, he reportedly referred to himself as a pedophile.
"He said his biggest fetish was buttocks, he fantasizes, it started back in Virginia when he took kids in the woods and played with them," said Padron.
"You told police you have something much worse than a fetish," said Judge Hurley as he outlined the charges against him.
Field told the judge he cares for his elderly mother and had no private assets.
"You said you did this because this is the only place young girls take their clothes off. When police searched your computer at your Coral Springs home, they found 50-thosand of these images," said Judge Hurley.
BSO deputy Fernando Padron questioned Field and said that Field called himself a pedophile and, "his biggest fetish is buttock. It started back in Virginia where he says he took kids in the woods and had them undress and played with him.
When investigators went to Field's home in Coral Springs, they said they found a hard drive with 50,000 images of child porn.
Most of the porn was of girls between the ages of one and twelve.
Field's neighbors can't believe the charges.
"They're sick. They're totally sick," said neighbor Karen Bossert. "They need some psychiatric help or something. Why would anybody do that"
The judge told Field he would like to hold him with no bond but that the law would not allow him to do so. Instead, he set a steep bond of one and a half million dollars.
"Parents need to be aware this is going on and he was adding it to his personal collection," said Broward Sheriff Al Lamberti.
The South Florida Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force helped worked on the case along with the Broward Sheriff's Office.
http://www.wtsp.com/news/article/223574/250/50000-child-porn-images-lands-Florida-man-in-jail
Quote:North Lauderdale man amused by images of child pornography, authorities say
By Danielle A. Alvarez, Sun Sentinel
November 30, 2011
A North Lauderdale man accused of possessing 25 child pornography images had a shocking answer while being questioned by authorities.
Alvin Grullon Bueno said he found the lewd pictures humorous.
"You allegedly made certain admissions…telling police that you were doing this because you thought it was fun or funny to view such images," Judge John "Jay" Hurley said while reading from an arrest affidavit during Bueno's first appearance hearing on Wednesday.
Bueno, 30, was targeted by the South Florida Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, according to officials.
In October, a detective began investigating an IP address that was sharing pornographic images, the affidavit filed in the case said. The address was later traced to Bueno's home.
While carrying out a search warrant at Bueno's home on Tuesday,
members of the task force found 25 images depicting female children, all under the age of 13, in lewd situations, including bondage, the affidavit said.
According to the document, a portable flash drive found in Bueno's bedroom computer revealed that he saved images on Microsoft PowerPoint slides. About 15 PowerPoint presentations were found, with each slide or image containing its own caption.
Authorities said Bueno admitted he created the presentations, telling investigators it was "easier to view the images in PowerPoint format."
Bueno was charged with 25 counts of possession of child pornography. At Wednesday's hearing, Hurley ordered that he be held on $250,000 bond.
Should Bueno post bond, Hurley ordered that he be placed on house arrest and not have private contact with anyone under 18 or use the Internet.
Bueno's was at least the second person in Broward this week to face child pornography charges.
On Monday, John Jefferson Field, 66, of Coral Springs was arrested after investigators said they found 100 files of child pornography on his external computer hard drive. Deerfield Beach lifeguards alerted authorities to Field after he was seen videotaping children showering at the beach.
Field is being held on $1.5 million bond.
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/fl-north-lauderdale-child-porn-arrest-20111130,0,749655.story
Quote:
Friday, 12.02.11
Fla. man gets 27 years in prison for child porn
The Associated Press
ORLANDO, Fla. -- A Florida man has been sentenced to 27 years in federal prison for possessing child pornography and distributing it over the Internet.
The Orlando Sentinel reports that after his relase, 44-year-old Robert J. Harnois will spend the rest of his life on probation.
The east Orange County man was arrested in April and pleaded guilty Aug. 11. Prosecutors say he posted 77 images and two videos of child porn. The newspaper says he posted the items on a child-pornography website for an undercover FBI agent.
The U.S. Attorney's Office says the images were of infants, toddlers and preadolescent girls.
When agents seized Harnois' computer, they found 85 images and 10 videos. Officials say he used his work computer to transfer the files.
http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/12/02/2528097/fla-man-gets-27-years-in-prison.html
Quote:Dale Chisena Jr.: Ocoee man gets 3 years in prison for child porn
November 30, 2011
By Anthony Colarossi, Orlando Sentinel
The Ocoee man arrested last year on child-porn possession charges with his father, a long-time Orange County teacher, was sentenced today to three years in prison.
Dale Chisena Jr., 23, will serve the prison sentence and then five years of sex-offender probation after pleading no contest to three counts of possessing child pornography.
Dale Chisena Jr., and his father Dale Chisena Sr., then a second-grade teacher at Lovell Elementary, were arrested in late March 2010.
Both men were accused of using a file-sharing program to download the images. Investigators said the men had more than 1,000 pornographic images on their computer.
The child porn possession case against Dale Chisena Sr., who spent 33 years at Lovell Elementary, is still pending. He resigned from his teaching position.
He was arrested again, early this year, after authorities said he arranged to have sex with someone he thought was a child in Kentucky. He actually had contacted a cybercrimes investigator posing as a child.
Kentucky investigators contacted Florida Department of Law Enforcement officials about a Florida man who was soliciting sex with minors. FDLE said that man turned out to be Dale Chisena Sr.
http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2011-11-30/news/os-chisena-child-porn-sentencing-20111130_1_dale-chisena-ocoee-man-cybercrimes-investigator
Quote:South Florida man arrested in child-porn case
CBS4
A South Florida man is in the Miami-Dade County jail Friday after police say they discovered images of naked children engaging in sex acts on his computer hard drive.
Jerome Michael Hanks, 39, is charged with 10 counts of possession of child pornography.
According to the arrest form, police executed a search warrant on Hanks’ home on the 11000 block of SW 130 Avenue. Inside Hanks’ bedroom they seized an external hard drive with 10 images children performing sex acts on other children and adults.
Hanks was also charged with possession of marijuana and possession of a controlled substance after police allegedly found weed and Xanax, an anti-anxiety medication, in the bedroom.
http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/11/11/2498122/miami-man-arrested-for-child-porn.html
And those articles are just the most current news in Florida. And the perpetrators run the gamet.
The man who viewed his child porn on a plane, the story that sparked this thread, really is not very remarkable or all that different from the other pedophiles who collect and view child pornography. And the investigation of his case has already turned up evidence that he destributed child pornography to others, and who knows what else they might uncover as the investigation continues. He likely will face a substantial sentence, as he should. If the sexual exploitation and abuse of children through child pornography is deemed unacceptable in our society, we must significantly punish those involved in continuing to do it--to do otherwise would be to make these crimes seem more trivial than they are, and it would make them seem more permissible.
Your failure to grasp even the most basic issues involved with this topic is the reason you cannot understand the outrage of the community that stands behind the child pornography laws and the punishments for violating those laws--outrage at the abuse of the children used in those pornographic images, and it is abuse which is perpetuated by those who simply possess and view those images.
Being both ignorant, and morally challenged, you are doubly disabled as a human being, and to such an extent that it is meaningless to even attempt further serious discussion of this topic with you. Prattle on, but do not delude yourself that your garbled prose is worthy of any real respect or consideration.
