> 'Extreme porn' law could criminalise millions

[kmanrox]

If you use the internet for any purpose that might be construed as other than respectable ? be afraid. Be very afraid.

Almost unreported, the UK Criminal Justice Bill is slowly wending its way toward becoming law. It includes a section (Clause 63) on "extreme pornographic images" that may, or may not, affect a very large proportion of the adult population in the UK. But that ? the Bill's uncertain scope ? is part of the problem.

On Monday 21 April, the Bill returned to the House of Lords for further debate. Lib Dem peer Baroness Miller brought forward a set of amendments that would effectively have removed the extreme porn clause from the Bill.

She pointed out that the evidence linking pornography with violence was weak and that the new rules would be out of kilter with the Obscene Publications Act. In her speech, the Baroness commented that "the Minister is in danger of leading his Government into becoming the thought police... we do not have any evidence to justify an intrusion in people's lives".

Further, "the Government's contention is that by viewing it [extreme porn] people are more likely to commit violent offences. Therefore, they justify walking into people's bedrooms and turning them into criminals simply for viewing something."

Labour peer, Lord McIntosh of Haringey added: "What does it matter to the Government whether what we have in our homes for our own purposes is for sexual arousal or not? What is wrong with sexual arousal anyway? That is not a matter for Parliament or government to be concerned about."

Despite considerable support from all sides for the amendment, the House voted to keep the clause in the Bill (66 votes to 30). According to the conventions of the House, Baroness Miller will not be able to resubmit the same amendments at 3rd Reading.

She will, however, introduce a new amendment. As the Bill stands, someone could be charged for owning images of acts that are lawful, but which could be construed as extreme pornography. The Minister made very weak commitments to address this problem. Baroness Miller will introduce an amendment that provides a proper defence for those who possess pornographic images of lawful acts.

As matters stand, there are two serious issues with the proposal. The first is the wholly uncertain scope of the offence. A Ministry of Justice impact assessment suggested that in the first year, there might be 30 prosecutions under the extreme porn provisions (Criminal Justice And Immigration Bill Regulatory Impact Assessments, Ministry of Justice, June 2007).

If true, this is unlikely to make the slightest dent on an industry worth billions of pounds in the UK alone.

On the other hand, experts reckon that up to two million people could have such images on their computers ? often unaware that they breach the law. In many instances, pictures could be downloaded to cache the moment an individual opens a blog. They might not even be aware of what they had downloaded: but they would have a very hard time proving that. This raises the spectre of police unable to prosecute someone on another unrelated matter taking a peek at their hard drive to see if they can get them for possession of porn.

The second issue is the role of the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) ? and an almost inevitable increase in "prior restraint" on websites. At present, a degree of low-level internet censorship is carried out by the IWF. This is a shadowy and unelected industry body. The IWF has taken it upon itself to lead the fight against child porn, by maintaining watch lists of websites that are potential sources of such material.

Sites on these lists are incorporated into blocking software, such as Cleanfeed: and they are then blocked by most ISPs. The ordinary user will be told simply that the site is now "unavailable". Meanwhile, the site owner will only be aware that something is up when traffic to their site drops off. Fair enough if they are indeed disseminating child porn. Not so fair, if their business is perfectly legitimate: for they are effectively guilty until they can prove themselves innocent ? and this may take weeks.

If child porn leads the IWF to recommend blocking a few thousand sites, stand by for that list to grow by many tens of thousands. At least the subject mattter of child porn is reasonably objectively defined. But "extreme"? Particularly when the IWF guiding principle seems to be: when in doubt, recommend a ban. Many small site owners will find themselves closed down and if they are not aware of the role of the IWF ? and many are not ? they will never know why.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/04..._extreme_pron/

[GrouchyAdmin]

If they outlawed whinging in the UK, it'd look like Australia, circa 1780. Oddly enough, this form of censorship has been used by communist countries for years who eventually used proxies or developed software to transparently proxy.
. I don't believe in censorship of many things (such as I believe you should be able to make a decent backup of any DVD you rightfully purchased), but I agree with the moral statement of the sexualizion of children is reprehensible. People will continue to do stuff, even if it is illegal. That seems to be the twisted nature of the human race.

[halfpint]

Yep they really seem to be trying to clamp down on porn or adult related sites and they are also trying to clamp down on strip clubs saying that they exploit woman. Spearmint Rhino said they would be prepared to fight this in court on bbc news night

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programme...ht/7362673.stm

[Jens Van Assterdam]

i are criminalZ

[Zester]

this is really getting ridicules.
why are people that know nothing about technology and Internet dynamics making laws ?

[testpie]

I was waiting for someone here to pick that story up.

[Zester]

just wait until Hillary is president, it's like letting your mother rule the world

[stev0]

Originally Posted by halfpint

they are also trying to clamp down on strip clubs saying that they exploit woman. [/url]

If anything I think strip clubs exploit men... we're the ones getting robbed blind due to natural instincts we have no control over

[Blazed]

Originally Posted by halfpint

Yep they really seem to be trying to clamp down on porn or adult related sites and they are also trying to clamp down on strip clubs saying that they exploit woman. Spearmint Rhino said they would be prepared to fight this in court on bbc news night

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programme...ht/7362673.stm

Who is they? There are different people calling for different laws all the time, most of the time they dont go through.

[DaddyHalbucks]

Where is the proof of harm to society?

[d-null]

the browser caching thing being used to prosecute is notable

theoretically anyone could browse some unrelated google searches for anything and unknowingly end up with an offensive cache that could be used against them

[TheSenator]

Is this extreme or just normal nowadays?
Extreme or Not

[munki]

That's some scary legislation...

[d-null]

how can anything be classified as extreme anymore when nearly every highschooler has seen 2girls1cup and/or bme pain olympics at least once already

[seeric]

The first amendment would not allow a similar law in the U.S.A.

[stickyfingerz]

Only in America....

[seeric]

Originally Posted by stickyfingerz

Only in America....

its not in america.

[Rochard]

A) I don't live in the UK.
B) I am a former US Marine, trained to kill.
C) I've been looking at porn for the past eight years straight and to date I have no burning desire to out and rape someone or physically hurt anyone.

Our governments are so fucking lame already. Instead of attacking the problem itself, they hand out silly solutions that won't change a thing. In the mean time they take us on one at a time and get beat everytime, taking loss after loss.

[MediaGuy]

Originally Posted by Rochard

A) I don't live in the UK.
B) I am a former US Marine, trained to kill.

I know it may sound infantile and sanguinary... but did you ever kill anyone?

Originally Posted by Rochard

C) I've been looking at porn for the past eight years straight and to date I have no burning desire to out and rape someone or physically hurt anyone.

Just eight years? You didn't have any before then? Are you Amish?

Originally Posted by Rochard

Our governments are so fucking lame already. Instead of attacking the problem itself, they hand out silly solutions that won't change a thing. In the mean time they take us on one at a time and get beat everytime, taking loss after loss.

Yeah, well they cost us plenty while they're at it. I'm sure it feels great to win, I'm glad I'm not US based because I would have an almost perverse (heheh) urge to GET challenged by the government knowing they'd lose... I could prove that you and ours is my community and hey our standards are that this is NOT obscene...

Ask SoulCash how it feels to win... Max Hardcore or whoever beat the bullshit raps...

Sigh this is tapping a real righteous vein in me I'd rather not get into in a post I started off in a funnin' way...

[GregE]

And to think the UK was once governed by people who ruled the oceans and built an empire upon which the sun never set.

And now...... the British government is reduced to authoring bullshit laws such as this.

Where did it all go wrong?

[Juilan]

[Madame0120]

I was blown over today to find out that it is illegal in Australia to talk about sex on per minute phone lines.

TISSC Agents (not sure what gov't agency they are under) try to trap the OPs saying cock. And I thought our DOJ FBI Agents had the most embrassing job.

[GatorB]

Originally Posted by Zester

just wait until Hillary is president, it's like letting your mother rule the world

A) She's not going to be Prez.
B) Even if she was, lets look at what happened when her hubby was prez. ZERO porn procescutions.

[GatorB]

Originally Posted by DaddyHalbucks

Where is the proof of harm to society?

Even if it did gambling, cigarettes and alcohol harm society. I'm not seeing a huge push to ban those in the UK. Hell you can gamble online in the UK you can't even do that in the US.

[Dennis Rodman]

Originally Posted by stickyfingerz

Only in America....

You're a dipshit. Did you even read the story you moron fuck?