What's worse? Piracy or Child Porn!?

[Swiss Miss]

heheh... I just read this article that really puts into perspectives the government's priortiy of agendas to protect our society...

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=31256
The article reads:

THE NEW look Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) seems to be giving the world an unusual moral code.

Details of the upgraded act, which has the blessing of the music and film industry and the Bush administration, are now coming to light. It appears that the DMCA will have a maximum sentence of ten years inside for the crime of software and music piracy. It will also give the FBI the powers to wiretap suspected pirates.

Although sentencing varies in the US, the new law does send a very strange message as to what the government considers 'bad' in the 21st century.

For example assaulting a police officer will get you five years, downloading child porn will get you seven years, assaulting without a weapon will get you ten years and aggravated assault six years.

So in other words if you copy a Disney CD and sell it you will be in the same league as a paedophile who is distributing pictures of sexual attacks on children.

If you copy Craig David's CD you get ten years, but if you punch him in the face and pummel him into a seven day coma you will only get six. You are more likely to get the respect of the prison population with your six year sentence as well.

It's pretty amazing how caught up our government could be in serving the interests of big corporations as opposed to the simple common sense of human morality... Things like this are what really make me worry about our future...

I picture our kids of today someday weighing their options:
Burn a cd of Michael Jackson? OR Become Michael Jackson?
(okay, was that wrong?)
But you get my point...

[Martin]

For the child porn subject, I do believe in the strictest of laws since the kinds of sickos that are interested in that type of stuff are the hardest to cure. They should just put them out on the firing range and let the gunners have a field day with them. They contaminate our society.

ALTHOUGH, i do agree with you in a way that the laws are too wacked in a sense. Like for instance, you might have a weird cousin come over your house and download the stuff to your computer without you even knowing it.. and then you get caught and are trying to convince the officials that you didnt do anything. But they dont give a crap because its on YOUR computer and your guilty.

Or.... You click on a virus in your email and it downloads that crap to your harddrive without you even knowing it.

I guess its enough to make anybody paranoid. Our laws are soo screwed up.. Thus, the reason why nothing ever gets done in Congress anymore. They mine aswell resort to pill popping (like that Kennedy dude) and pot smoking. The Congressional approval rating is LOWER then Bush's approval rating. Now that is pretty bad.

[Mr-Pan]

Stealing music and videos is not nearly as bad as Child Porn. Kids lives are being wrecked because of child pornographers. Stealing music only makes an already muti millionare a little less rich.

[Swiss Miss]

Originally Posted by Martin

I guess its enough to make anybody paranoid. Our laws are soo screwed up.. Thus, the reason why nothing ever gets done in Congress anymore. They mine aswell resort to pill popping (like that Kennedy dude) and pot smoking. The Congressional approval rating is LOWER then Bush's approval rating. Now that is pretty bad.

You bring up a good point here... Really the problem is that technology has advanced so much over the years and "Congress" just isn't educated enough to make the decisions. Really, these 50+ year olds just hear the technological babble when confronted with related issues and become dumbfounded by it. They cower in their misunderstandings as to what the implications of new technology really are and that results in many misguided decisions being made. It's a sad state of affairs... but what should we do? Have a "technology congress"? Who knows... Hopefully as years go by we will get more educated people in Congress. Not to say the current people are stupid, but they're just not... "with it"...

[Go Pre]

Swiss, you make it sound like having something similar to a "technology congress" (obviously it would not be called this) would be a bad thing. In my humble opinion, if we have hundreds of organizations that govern various aspects of our lives, why not create an organization that is dedicated to governing something that the greater majority of our world's population has access to?

[RadioactiveMan]

Because governing everything is bad.

He who sacrifices freedom for security deserves neither

[Big Red 11]

See, the internet is a series of tubes...

[Swiss Miss]

Yeah, I'm going to have to agree with Radio here. He got to it before I could. Nice quote there as well, Radio.

My point was that they aren't savvy enough to make decisions that frankly don't need to be made. However, if the government absolutely finds it necessary (which doesn't come as a surprise to me), I guess having a more educated group of people to make those decisions would be the obvious preference.
This is not realistic as far as the government is set up though since technology is so prevalent in so many aspects, it's ultimately left up to U.S. Congress (as opposed to setting up a bunch of compute geeks in the Office of Regulatory Affairs, for example) to pass the rules that govern us.
Laws are being re-decided every day with consideration to the new twist technology puts on them. Even the core procedural aspect of law are changing. To have a group in charge of keeping up with the changes in society just wont work. We just have to wait it out with the ignorance and oversight of the old fogies until we get some new blood in there. This could take a while.
(I wrote this while totally not paying attention, pardon any mispellings.)

[waltky]

Good idea if it helps to stop child porn...

Public internet to be policed
Sunday 9th December, 2007 - Anyone operating a public wireless internet connection in the U.S will soon have to report illegal images sent or received over their service.

The SAFE Act, recently passed into legislation, is designed to catch users swapping or accessing images of child pornography.

Rather than simply affecting service providers, the legislation will include connections in public places like libraries, hotels and internet cafes.

The SAFE Act adds to existing legislation that requires providers to report anyone accessing child pornography.

Public internet to be policed

[waltky]

Legal Dilemma in Child Porn Case...

Encrypted Laptop Poses Legal Dilemma
Feb 7, 2008 - Encrypted Laptop Poses 5th Amendment Dilemma in Vermont Child-Pornography Case

When Sebastien Boucher stopped at the U.S.-Canadian border, agents who inspected his laptop said they found files containing child pornography. But when they tried to examine the images after his arrest, authorities were stymied by a password-protected encryption program. Now Boucher is caught in a cyber-age quandary: The government wants him to give up the password, but doing so could violate his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination by revealing the contents of the files.

Experts say the case could have broad computer privacy implications for people who cross borders with computers, PDAs and other devices that are subject to inspection. "It's a very, very interesting and novel question, and the courts have never really dealt with it," said Lee Tien, an attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a San Francisco-based group focused on civil liberties in the digital world.

For now, the law's on Boucher's side: A federal magistrate here has ruled that forcing Boucher to surrender the password would be unconstitutional. The case began Dec. 17, 2006, when Boucher and his father were stopped at a Derby Line, Vt., checkpoint as they entered the U.S. Boucher, a 30-year-old drywall installer in Derry, N.H., waived his Miranda rights and cooperated with agents, telling them he downloads pornography from news groups and sometimes unknowingly acquires images that contain child pornography.

Boucher said he deletes those images when he realizes it, according to an affidavit filed by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. At the border, he helped an agent access the computer for an initial inspection, which revealed files with names such as "Two year old being raped during diaper change" and "pre teen bondage," according to the affidavit. Boucher, a Canadian with U.S. residency, was accused of transporting child pornography in interstate or foreign commerce, which carries up to 20 years in prison. He is free on his own recognizance.

More ABC News: Legal Dilemma in Child Porn Case