A Child-Porn Case That Threatens Us All

[Rick Munroe]

An excellent article by Richard Goldstein in villagevoice.com today about the arrest of Paul Reubens. As he says, "It raises major questions about censorship and criminal intent. Because the Reubens case dramatically expands the parameters of what is considered child pornography, it should trouble us all."

 

http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0303/goldstein.php

[Guest Bitchboy]

Thanks, Rick, a most interesting article. It encouraged me to think how quickly I can jump to conclusions when led in that direction by a popular press. I can only imagine it was that kind of thinking that led to the Salem witch trials. It's interesting how human nature, at least part of it, is so willing to think the worst of someone, especially a famous someone.

[Bilbo]

More details, please, for those of us too lazy to want to read a news report?

[Rick Munroe]

>More details, please, for those of us too lazy to want to

>read a news report?

 

It's not a news report; it's an editorial column, and worth the read.

 

Consider the photo of a beaming, bare-bottomed 12-year-old boy holding a pole that appeared in the July 1963 issue of Manorama. Back then, it would have seemed charming to many viewers and arousing to a few. Today this same image would make most people faintly nauseous. An image that once seemed tender, since its sexual meaning was repressed, is now terrifying because it reads as explicitly erotic. The process of sensitizing us to child porn also forces us to eroticize children. Whether we intend to or not, we begin to see the world from a pedophile's perspective.

 

In a climate where the definition of a child can be so ambiguous that prosecutors have to call in pediatricians to decide whether a model is underage, and where cops pore over thousands of images looking for evidence of a sex crime without ever considering intent, the concept of sexual abuse is transformed into something else. It becomes a tool for policing all sorts of desire.

[Rick Munroe]

>I can only imagine it was

>that kind of thinking that led to the Salem witch trials.

 

You're right, Bitchboy. I remember about 8 years ago, my little 2-year old niece was in the process of discovering her body, and she'd pulled down her pants & was bent over, examining her butt in a mirror. I thought it was funny & cute & Norman Rockwell-esque (are his Saturday Evening Post covers considered porn now?) so I snapped a few pics. My mother-in-law then took the camera from me & exposed the film; I thought she was being paranoid but I see now that, unfortunately, she had reason to be. Am I now supposed to destroy the home movie I have of myself as an infant, naked & smiling & bouncing up & down on all fours on a blanket? How sick would that be? Besides, it's an important piece of film historically, because it's a precursor of what was to come.

[Guest fukamarine]

Good show! They have finally found something that will keep John Asscroft busy for years!

 

fukamarine

[Guest DevonSFescort]

>The process of sensitizing us to child porn also forces us to >eroticize children. Whether we intend to or not, we begin to see the

>world from a pedophile's perspective.

 

This, to my mind, is the money quote which aptly sums up the perverse effects of Puritanical thinking. It reminds me of how the Meese Commission dutifully went through how many reams of porn in the 80s. You have to wonder how many of them were beating off.

 

The other outrageous thing about this case is that Ruebens is being prosecuted for owning images that a) were perfectly legal at the time they were produced and b) that there's no way they can prove he even knew he owned. He was ordering vintage physique magazines which were delivered in bulk, most of which, I'd bet, were mostly filled with models OVER eighteen. There's no evidence, apparently, that he was interested in getting images of underage youth. So not only is the government applying its new standards of child pornography to the past, it apparently is also presuming to know something it couldn't possibly know about Ruebens' intentions when he ordered the magazines.

[bluenix]

>This, to my mind, is the money quote which aptly sums up the

>perverse effects of Puritanical thinking.

 

Indeed. Just google for images of JonBenet Ramsey. From sad victim of a mother's obsession with children's pageants to the cusp of kiddie porn princessdom. Look at those sultry eyes, those pouty lips!

 

>The other outrageous thing about this case is that Ruebens is

>being prosecuted for owning images that a) were perfectly

>legal at the time they were produced and b) that there's no

>way they can prove he even knew he owned. He was ordering

>vintage physique magazines which were delivered in bulk, most

>of which, I'd bet, were mostly filled with models OVER

>eighteen. There's no evidence, apparently, that he was

>interested in getting images of underage youth. So not only

>is the government applying its new standards of child

>pornography to the past, it apparently is also presuming to

>know something it couldn't possibly know about Ruebens'

>intentions when he ordered the magazines.

 

I think the prosecution is going to want to argue that ignorance is no excuse for breaking the law. I heard a U.S. Postal Investigation Service officer (why the hell is this THEIR brief?) who is working the Townshend-related case say that in the United States nobody, but nobody, has a right to possess child porn (I suppose because in the Eighties the Supreme Court ruled it does not come under 1st Amendment protection). "Not a doctor, not a lawyer, not a researcher. Nobody."

[woodlawn]

>It reminds me of

>how the Meese Commission dutifully went through how many reams

>of porn in the 80s. You have to wonder how many of them were

>beating off.

 

What if none of them was? Is the concept of people who genuinely object to pornography beyond your comprehension? Or do you just feel that they have no right to their opinion?

 

>The other outrageous thing about this case is that Ruebens is

>being prosecuted for owning images that a) were perfectly

>legal at the time they were produced and b) that there's no

>way they can prove he even knew he owned.

 

 

In that case he should not be convicted. Courts generally reject on constitutional grounds a prosecution for possession of contraband when the state is unable to prove that the defendant knew the contraband nature of what he possessed. To use an analogy employed in one recent decision, if knowledge was not a requirement of such offenses then a mail carrier could be convicted of cocaine possession because one of the packages he carried contained the drug, though unknown to him.

[Guest ncm2169]

Welcome to the wonderful world of "W". x( He may be an amiable dunce, but his "base" is funded and driven in large part by the bedroom snoops and the morality police x( .

 

Get used to it. It's what's currently in vogue. Asscroft is only getting started.

 

(God, wouldn't it be great if Larry Flynt could turn up a pic of ole John in drag??...shades of "Mary" aka J. Edgar??) :+

 

Better yet: John slobbering all over the TV talk shows after a tryst with a prostitute turns up..."I have sinned, I have sinned."

 

Bakker, Swaggart, Fartwell, Asscroft: Pee in all their pods!! :7

[+ Lucky]

How big of you to grant that he should not be convicted. It's okay to harass the man and drive him bankrupt with court costs though?

[woodlawn]

>How big of you to grant that he should not be convicted. It's

>okay to harass the man and drive him bankrupt with court costs

>though?

 

Legally, he should not be convicted if it is true that he had no knowledge of the nature of the material in his possession. I don't know whether he did or not. Neither do you. And neither of us knows why he was targeted for prosecution in this matter. You prefer to assume there is no good reason for it because you resent living in a society in which most people think you're a pervert. I try to be a little more objective about it.

[Huey]

Rick, a brilliant article that made me quite angry and enlightened.

[ad rian]

>I heard a U.S.

>Postal Investigation Service officer (why the hell is this

>THEIR brief?) who is working the Townshend-related case say

>that in the United States nobody, but nobody, has a right to

>possess child porn (I suppose because in the Eighties the

>Supreme Court ruled it does not come under 1st Amendment

>protection). "Not a doctor, not a lawyer, not a researcher.

>Nobody."

 

I think the Pete Townshend case is going to turn on very complicated facts. If he was regularly lookning at on-line porn for recreation, and then slipped in to view some child porn for "research" then went back to his recreational viewing, I don't think a judge or jury will buy his research claims. They will have the images from the hard drive, the record of sites visited from the ISP, and the credit cad payment(s). It sounds a bit like Robert Blake's Baretta defense. I forgot my gun, went back to retrieve it, and woe is me I found my wife dead in the secluded parking place that I chose!

[ad rian]

>In that case he should not be convicted. Courts generally

>reject on constitutional grounds a prosecution for possession

>of contraband when the state is unable to prove that the

>defendant knew the contraband nature of what he possessed. To

>use an analogy employed in one recent decision, if knowledge

>was not a requirement of such offenses then a mail carrier

>could be convicted of cocaine possession because one of the

>packages he carried contained the drug, though unknown to

>him.

 

Yes, but in guaging his subjective intent or knowledge, his past acts, and other "collectibles" will be admissible evidence. I don't think proving scienter will be as difficult as you suggest here.

[woodlawn]

>Yes, but in guaging his subjective intent or knowledge, his

>past acts, and other "collectibles" will be admissible

>evidence. I don't think proving scienter will be as difficult

>as you suggest here.

>

 

Who are you talking to? I said nothing about the difficulty of proving that element of the offense. I merely said that if the prosecution is unable to prove it, he should not be convicted.

[ad rian]

>Who are you talking to? I said nothing about the difficulty

>of proving that element of the offense. I merely said that if

>the prosecution is unable to prove it, he should not be

>convicted.

 

 

You wrote that "[L]egally, he should not be convicted if it is true that he had no knowledge of the nature of the material in his possession." My response was to indicate that that's not really the legal standard. Whether it is "true" that he had such knowledge is a matter for judge or jury to decide in light of relevant evidence which will include his past, and it is that that makes ita reasonable bet that he will be found guilty if this goes to trial.

[Guest DevonSFescort]

>Is the concept of people who

>genuinely object to pornography beyond your comprehension? Or

>do you just feel that they have no right to their opinion?

 

LOL! Are you under the impression that the Meese Commission was merely a bunch of concerned private citizens adding their opinion to the marketplace of ideas? Meese was the US attorney general at the time and this commission was funded by the taxpayers. Its point wasn't to toss out opinions on a message board (which is what I was doing when I brought it up) but to advocate sweeping changes in the law that would absolutely have civil liberties ramifications. From this summary of the Meese Commission's humble "opinion:"

 

'They want Congress to enact a statute that the distribution of obscene material "affects" interstate commerce. This would eliminate the necessity to prove transportation in interstate commerce in obscenity cases. According to the Commission, hiring individuals to participate in commercial sexual performances should be made an unfair labor practice. Transmission of obscene matter over cable TV and telephone lines should be proscribed. Obscenity should be made a predicate act for a group to be investigated under the frighteningly powerful Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), and states should enact their own versions of RICO. All state legislatures should adopt the lower standard of proof of obscenity found in Miller v. California. Pandering laws should be used against porn producers...Peep show booths should not be allowed to have doors or holes in the walls between the booths. Use of performers under the age of twenty-one should be forbidden by act of Congress, and producers, retailers, and distributors of sexually explicit material should be required to maintain records containing consent forms and proof of performers' ages.

 

It was only by a very narrow margin that the Commission did not vote to recommend legislation that would have made vibrators and dildos obscene. Although the report admits that sexually explicit material which is text only (words) should usually be exempt from prosecution, Chairman Henry Hudson says in his individual statement that this exemption "is disturbing."

 

The Commission's staff was formulating these recommendations from the very first day of hearings, before they heard social-science data about whether or not porn caused harm, before they even defined pornography. In the Final Report, "pornography" is distinguished from the legal term "obscenity" and defined as material that "is predominantly sexually explicit and intended primarily for the purpose of sexual arousal." This is an extremely broad category which could include almost anything that deals with human sexuality. The report attempts to sidestep this problem by going on to say, "Whether some or all of what qualifies as pornographic under this definition should be prohibited, or even condemned, is not a question that should be answered under the guise of definition."

 

But the report does in fact assume that none of this material should be available. Since the First Amendment prevents the government from going after everything, the Final Report provides a detailed manual on how citizens' action groups can combat "non-obscene but offensive pornographic material." Furthermore, "If a decision is reached to establish such a group, its members should become involved in advocating, establishing and maintaining community standards related to pornography."'

 

(http://eserver.org/cultronix/califia/meese/ for the rest of the article)

 

To answer your first question, I have no doubt that the commission's opinion sprang from genuinely felt objections to pornography. I also wouldn't be the least bit surprised if a certain amount of sexual hypocrisy was going on with some of the members. It wouldn't be the first time highly powerful moral crusaders were so vehemently interested in object of their disapproval despite, or maybe because of, what was going on in their own lives (think Joseph McCarthy, Roy Cohn, J. Edgar Hoover). But I wouldn't object any less to the committee's recommendations if wasn't any sexual hypocrisy at play. They're entitled to their opinions about pornography (to answer your second question). And I'm entitled to my opinion that the Meese Commission, which sought to give its opinions about porn the weight of the law, was an extremely poor use of government resources with harmful consequences for civil liberties.

[woodlawn]

>LOL! Are you under the impression that the Meese Commission

>was merely a bunch of concerned private citizens adding their

>opinion to the marketplace of ideas?

 

Why would you think I had such an impression? Are you hearing voices?

 

>Meese was the US

>attorney general at the time and this commission was funded by

>the taxpayers. Its point wasn't to toss out opinions on a

>message board (which is what I was doing when I brought it up)

>but to advocate sweeping changes in the law that would

>absolutely have civil liberties ramifications.

 

So what? There are at any given time scores of presidential commissions funded by Congress and empowered to study and issue recommendations (otherwise known as opinions) on various subjects. The vast majority of those recommendations are never embodied in legislation and so far as I know this case was no different.

 

 

>To answer your first question, I have no doubt that the

>commission's opinion sprang from genuinely felt objections to

>pornography. I also wouldn't be the least bit surprised if a

>certain amount of sexual hypocrisy was going on with some of

>the members.

 

Well, which was it? Both of those statements can't be true.

 

>But I wouldn't object any less to the

>committee's recommendations if wasn't any sexual hypocrisy at

>play. They're entitled to their opinions about pornography

>(to answer your second question).

 

Good. Lots of people on both the left and the right think that the availability of pornographic materials should be far more restricted than is currently the case. They're entitled to think so, and they're entitled to lobby Congress and state legislatures on the issue if they wish.

[woodlawn]

>You wrote that "[L]egally, he should not be convicted if it

>is true that he had no knowledge of the nature of the material

>in his possession." My response was to indicate that that's

>not really the legal standard.

 

Yes, it is the standard. Under the applicable law, the jury in such a case should be instructed that they may not return a guilty verdict unless they find it is true, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the defendant knew the contraband was in his possession.

 

The concern expressed in the post I originally answered seemed to be that the defendant could be convicted even though the prosecution could not prove that he knew he possessed the materials in question. As I pointed out, that is not so.

[ad rian]

>Yes, it is the standard. Under the applicable law, the jury

>in such a case should be instructed that they may not return a

>guilty verdict unless they find it is true, beyond a

>reasonable doubt, that the defendant knew the contraband was

>in his possession.

 

Sorry, sir, in England it is trial by judge or jury at the election of the accused, and my point is that in determining knowledge, the trier of fact whether in the UK or the US will be permitted to examine evidence of his past similar acts. I think the point here is that there is a difference between a lay person's understanding of subjective knowledge, and a legal understanding of that term. I think your post is a bit misleading in that it suggests that he could just say "hey, I had no idea what was in the pics, or that they were illegal". That won't get him off (at least not at trial)!

 

>The concern expressed in the post I originally answered

>seemed to be that the defendant could be convicted even though

>the prosecution could not prove that he knew he possessed the

>materials in question. As I pointed out, that is not so.

[Guest DevonSFescort]

>>To answer your first question, I have no doubt that the

>>commission's opinion sprang from genuinely felt objections

>to

>>pornography. I also wouldn't be the least bit surprised if

>a

>>certain amount of sexual hypocrisy was going on with some

>of

>>the members.

>

>Well, which was it? Both of those statements can't be

>true.

 

Sure they can. Senator McCarthy was having homosexual liasons while denouncing and persecuting gays. I don't think for a minute that the hypocrisy involved his secretly believing there was nothing wrong with homosexuality. I'm sure he quite sincerely thought it was bad and evil and quite sincerely felt disgusted with himself every time he had sex with a man, etc. But he was still a hypocrite because he was saying one thing and doing another. And many people in Washington were complicit in this hypocrisy; one of McCarthy's same sex relationships (with an aide, I believe) was an open secret.

 

>Good. Lots of people on both the left and the right think

>that the availability of pornographic materials should be far

>more restricted than is currently the case. They're entitled

>to think so, and they're entitled to lobby Congress and state

>legislatures on the issue if they wish.

 

Yes, and they're entitled to lobby Congress and state legislatures to implement the death penalty for homosexuality if they wish, but that doesn't make it right. As a result of Puritans on the right and the left acting on their entitlement to lobby, people may soon be going to jail for owning vintage physique magazines. My commenting on it and saying that it's wrong does not infringe upon their right to lobby as they wish. I think the point of the thread is to show what happens when they get their way.

[Guest Merlin]

Actually, the Federal child porn legislation was promoted by the liberals, not the conservatives. It arose, not from the feeling that porn is immoral etc, but from the idea that child porn exploits and may harm the children involved. Being a government of limited powers, the Federal government has no grant of powers to control matters such as porn. But as usual, the power to "regulate commerce among the states" was exercized to regulate interstate commerce in child porn and then stretched to include illegalizing the possession of child porn as a necessary tool for the enforcement of the "commerce" in porn, much as possession of illegal drugs is prohibited as a tool to enforce the prohibition of interstate commerce in the drugs. It is of course, an extreme abuse of the Constitution, which not only grants no power to prohibit the possession, but expressly provides,"Congress shall make NO LAW ...abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press".

[Guest TomBuStone]

(It is of course, an extreme abuse of the Constitution, which not only grants no power to prohibit the possession, but expressly provides, "Congress shall make NO LAW

...abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press".)

 

 

"First, We shoot all the lawyers.."

[Rick Munroe]

This was the cover of the 3/15/58 issue of the Saturday Evening Post, by Norman Rockwell. It's entitled, "Before the Shot." Is Rockwell to be posthumously branded a sex offender? Are the publishers, editors, newsstands & subscribers (if they're alive) to be investigated now on charges of distributing, manufacturing & possessing child pornography? What about someone who now has a collection of vintage Saturday Evening Posts, or someone who purchases a print from the Norman Rockwell Museum's online store (where I found the link for this pic)? Again, we're made to look at something that was once almost universally seen as innocent & charming, and see it as something sinister & sexual. This is a good thing?

 

http://www.normanrockwellvt.com/Big.jpg/BeforetheShot.jpg