From: Mike Duvos <enoch@zipcon.net>
Date: Thu, 14 Aug 1997 03:15:56 +0800
To: cypherpunks@cyberpass.net
Subject: Re: "Leotards and the Law," morphed child porn lawsuit, from Netly
In-Reply-To: <Pine.GSO.3.95.970813080755.18129D-100000@well.com>
Message-ID: <19970813190543.25186.qmail@zipcon.net>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



Declan writes:

>         Take an erotic photo of an adult and alter it in Photoshop to
>    look as though he was a minor. Would you be breaking the law? A
>    federal judge in San Francisco ruled yesterday you would be, rejecting
>    a court challenge to a 1996 law banning computer-generated erotic
>    images that "appear" to be of children.

1930's:  "Actung Juden!"
1950's:  "Actung Communists!"
1990's:  "Actung Photoshop Users!"

Of course this is just another example of how quickly the Constitution can
be made to evaporate when the Mantra "Society's Overwhelming Interests" is
recited in the courtroom.  Often over silly thought-control type issues
like this one. 

It won't be long before "Society's Overwhelming Interest" to Protect the
Little Children(tm) bans not only simulated visual material, but any
juxtiposition of English words which might suggest that anyone under the
age of 18 in the past, present, or future, has had even the slightest
inkling of a sexual thought or feeling.  Said laws of course being
absolutely necessary to prevent bad ideas from being used by clever
predators to break down innocence and purity and reduce all children to
sexually aroused putty in the hands of professional sex criminals.

I wonder exactly how far child sex hysteria will be permitted to continue,
before rational people begin giggling loudly in the auditorium. 

--
     Mike Duvos         $    PGP 2.6 Public Key available     $
     enoch@zipcon.com   $    via Finger                       $
         {Free Cypherpunk Political Prisoner Jim Bell}