🚀 go-pugleaf

scott@galileo.cuug.ab.ca (Scott Barker) wrote:

>On Thu, 18 Jul 1996 01:02:00 GMT, Jim Manson (jmanso19@skypoint.com) wrote:
>> The basis for being able to prosecute them would be *intent* to be a
>> party to distributing illegal material. Carrying a news group called
>> alt.binary.erotic.picture.children  shows intent to allow the
>> distribution of pictures of child pornography. The name 
>> kinda gives it away. The same picture being passed through
>> alt.binary.misc (or some such) may be just as illegal of a photo
>> but the ISP cannot be shown to have known about it. 
>
>Bullshit. The name means nothing. What if the group is all about why such
>pictures should *not* exist? What about the various alt.sex groups which by
>their name should be banned, but actually carry useful medical and/or recovery
>information?
>
>If I write a book called 'How to Screw Your Dog', does that mean it contains
>beastiality and must be banned? How can you know unless you read it first?

Let's use your analogy and see what happens:

I buy a book called " Fluffy Finds a Friend " at my local bookstore. I

then purchase it and walk out of the bookstore into the arms of the
waiting police. They grab my book and open it....voila'  a picture of
Fluffy and his friend pops out suitable for prosecution. You then
claim that you thought it was a children's book and no way of knowing
what kind of friend Fluffy was looking for. Odds are you would get
off. 

Let's say you try it with Fluffy F***S a Blonde. Odds are you would be

doing time for possession of illegal material. Hard to argue that you
didn't know what Fluffy was doing in the second book.

Let's try this with iStar:

A local wandering police type is perusing the various newsgroups
on iStar. He sees a group called alt.sex.stories. He enters and sees
a posting of Fluffy and his friend (very popular series) and downloads
it. He runs to his boss and shows him/her the picture. They prosecute
iStar. iStar claims that " hey it's a group for posting text stories
about sex ", they didn't know the posting was there because they can't
check every post. Odds are they would get off.

Let's try it with alt.binary.picture.erotic.bestiality.  " Hey, it's a
group for posting pictures of Fluffy doing what ever Fluffy does
which is illegal " Odds are they would be convicted. 

Do you see the difference here yet?



>Is iSTAR responsible for reading the contents of all the groups? I hardly
>think so. And if they were, they'd have no choice but to shut down their news
>feed completely.
NOBODY said they were.