[tor-talk] Child pornography, anonymity and free speech

[torop20 at hushmail.com]

Child pornography is illegal because the production itself involves
actual victims.
The laws date back to a time when it wasn't possible to produce CP
without actual children.

It therefore made sense that sale, distribution and possession of
actual child pornography was made illegal, but the slippery slope
started when the governments
around the world began to outlaw child pornography without actual
victims.

The first prohibition does not violate free speech, because the
material featuring actual children is integral to criminal conduct,
but the second prohibition
on computer generated images and cartoons is a regulation of thought.

And Julian and others are really missing the point if they assume that
the realistic nature of the depictions is the borderline between
permissible and
impermissible speech.

The Supreme Court of the United States ruled in one of its more speech
friendly cases that regulation of virtual child pornography on the
assumption that
such will incite viewers thoughts is impermissible regulation of
thought.

You can't be an anarchist and defend thought crime legislation. Child
pornography without actual participants is victimless speech and is no
more abuse
than crime comics, or ordinary adult pornography some want to ban.

And yes, true untraceable anonymous communication can't coexist in a
society with thought crime legislation.

Rick Falkvinge has succinctly argued why child pornography laws in
their current sweeping form pose a risk to privacy and free speech.

The question is very simple: If the price for enforcing anti-child
pornography laws is banning truly untraceable communication, enforcing
EU style data
retention on all data packets flowing over the network, is the price
too high?

It isn't a price I am willing to pay, not even for the children.

According to US free speech jurisprudence the South Korean law, to the
extend it bans child pornography without actual children, may well
violate free speech.

American First Amendment exceptionalism I think is the reason why Tor
exists. Most speech which would be outright censored in the rest of
the world is constitutionally protected under the First Amendment.