Just three business days after my last column explained the futility of subjecting adult social-networking websites to the same record-keeping requirements as porn productions, the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals issued a slip opinion agreeing with me.
No, I don't feel smug, why do you ask?
The record-keeping requirements outlined in 18 U.S.C. 2257 violate the First Amendment, the court decided. The Connection Distributing Co., et al. v. Keisler reversed the lower court's judgment (.pdf) and determined that individuals posting sexually explicit photos of themselves to swinger websites are not subject to the same record-keeping requirements as commercial porn producers.
I feel a breath of hope that we can sensibly regulate age verification and record keeping in adult media. And the decision has me thinking about how new technology confuses us and makes us scramble for control before we're even sure how the new tech will be used.
As soon as we start adapting new technology for sexual or romantic purposes, someone realizes the tech's more nefarious potential. Then the rallying cry goes up: "protect the children!"
Sexually exploiting children is already illegal, but that doesn't stop us from proposing new regulations tied to each new channel of expression.
Ever since the porn record-keeping laws hit the books in 1988, we've been amending them to apply to new media. Proposals to extend the regulations to social-networking sites are on the table. The rules would broaden the government's reach into individual and non-commercial sexual expression.
It's important to be explicit in our laws, and I get why we parse out the types of media that must comply with record-keeping requirements rather than issue a blanket statement like "any and all media now existing and to be invented in the future."
Yet the crime these particular regulations were intended to prevent, child pornography, doesn't change dramatically with each new technology. Last I checked, we don't update the criminal code every time we invent a new way to kill each other.
It's not just about sex, though. Technology confuses us in plenty of other ways, and we sometimes react by declaring certain uses impolite or socially unacceptable, albeit legal.
The Luddite wants us to return to pen and paper (or quill and parchment?) if we're going to write books in coffeehouses, so we don't harsh his mellow with our laptops and portable media devices. Etiquette experts still claim it's rude to send sympathy notes by electronic media because it implies you didn't put any thought or time into it -- as if the value is in the scribing of the words rather than the thoughtfulness of the message.
And two of my closest friends are still arguing, heatedly, about whether using a laptop to access the Dungeons and Dragons manuals during a game provides the same immersive experience as using the printed books.
When the form of the tools -- digital or analog -- distracts us so much that we forget why we're using them, we end up with laws that make no sense when we try to apply them to how people actually connect. Then we have to wait for legal challenges to climb through the court system. By the time that happens, the technology and our use of it has moved on.
The cliché is that we like porn because it's sex without the work of a relationship. But now we've developed technology that lets us experience one part porn, one part prostitution and one part long-term relationship. Our only commitment is an hour or two a week and a credit card.
It's a compelling combination. According to a members-only poll at webcam site Flirt4Free (NSFW), 47 percent of subscribers participate in webcam chats because of the opportunity to form relationships with the performers.
And why else would so many people put up with the lag and instability of certain popular virtual worlds if not for the sexy relationships they form inside?
We can do a better job of accepting how adults adapt new technologies to sex. And we need to stop underestimating our own ingenuity. I'm pretty sure that in 1988, lawmakers did not foresee millions of us cheerfully sending naughty pictures of ourselves or sharing our marital relations with people all around the world over all kinds of networks. Certainly laws designed for VHS don't fit very well into a web 2.0 world.
The root of this particular case is that modern tech bridges the gap between sex (interaction) and porn (entertainment). Some forms of sex look a lot like porn: documenting and publishing our lovemaking to an adult community site, for example, or playing with dominance and submission in a highly erotic 3-D virtual world along with 15 other residents.
If you do things like that, you know it's not the same thing as cueing up your favorite porn scene and doing whatever you do with it. But to an outsider, this creative sexual engagement resembles porn closely enough that it's tempting to apply laws designed for porn to control what people are doing with sex. But when we do that, as the 6th Circuit noted, it makes millions of us felons for noncompliance with section 2257, even though no minors were involved. Oops.
It's too early to tell how the decision will affect the evolution of record keeping, pornography or social networking. Adult industry attorney Christopher Corwin notes on his blog that if the government appeals this decision, the case could make it to the Supreme Court.
Label: Wired.com
zaterdag 10 november 2007
‘I have sex to pay for my studies’
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Appeal over teen webcam sex case
A CCTV salesman who performed a sex act in front of a 12-year-old girl on a webcam is to mount an appeal court bid for freedom.
Father-of-one Giovanni Abbondandolo, aged 34, from Heywood, who worked for a firm providing CCTV and security systems for schools in Warrington, posed as a 14-year-old in a chatroom and struck up an e-mail conversation with two children.
He was caught after the mother of one of the children discovered what he was doing and used her mobile phone to take his picture on the computer screen.
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Police later raided his home and found a stash of child porn images on his computer.
Abbondandolo was jailed for 15 months at Woolwich Crown Court after he admitted two charges of engaging in sexual activity in the presence of a child, eight of making an indecent photograph of a child and seven of possessing an indecent photograph of a child.
However, Mr Justice Foskett on Tuesday granted him permission to appeal against the sentence after his barrister, Helen Curtis, argued he should never have been jailed in the first place.
Miss Curtis pointed to his previous exemplary character and a recommendation in a pre-sentence report that he be given a community punishment.
The offences, she added, dated back to 2005 and Abbondandolo was still being held at high security Belmarsh Prison where he has been unable to speak to his wife of take visits from his mother.
Label: This is Cheshire.co.uk
Father-of-one Giovanni Abbondandolo, aged 34, from Heywood, who worked for a firm providing CCTV and security systems for schools in Warrington, posed as a 14-year-old in a chatroom and struck up an e-mail conversation with two children.
He was caught after the mother of one of the children discovered what he was doing and used her mobile phone to take his picture on the computer screen.
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Police later raided his home and found a stash of child porn images on his computer.
Abbondandolo was jailed for 15 months at Woolwich Crown Court after he admitted two charges of engaging in sexual activity in the presence of a child, eight of making an indecent photograph of a child and seven of possessing an indecent photograph of a child.
However, Mr Justice Foskett on Tuesday granted him permission to appeal against the sentence after his barrister, Helen Curtis, argued he should never have been jailed in the first place.
Miss Curtis pointed to his previous exemplary character and a recommendation in a pre-sentence report that he be given a community punishment.
The offences, she added, dated back to 2005 and Abbondandolo was still being held at high security Belmarsh Prison where he has been unable to speak to his wife of take visits from his mother.
Label: This is Cheshire.co.uk
Online sting leads to arrest of man who allegedly sought sex
A part-time school bus driver was arrested Friday and charged with several counts of unlawful contact with a minor for allegedly soliciting sex over the Internet from an undercover officer who he believed to be a 14-year-old girl.
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The state attorney general’s office said Mr. Drob made repeated online contact with an agent of the Child Predator Unit who was posing as a young girl.
“The Internet is a wonderful tool for information and communication,” state Attorney General Tom Corbett said in a statement announcing the Child Predator Unit’s 105th arrest. “But it has also become a popular stalking ground for predators searching for young victims.”
Starting in late September, Mr. Drob allegedly sent a live video of himself nude and also discussed various sexual topics while performing sexual acts via a chat room.
As the online conversations progressed, Mr. Drob eventually suggested he and the young girl meet for sex, police said. He also allegedly asked the girl to send him nude photos of herself.
State agents, assisted by Carbondale police, arrested Mr. Drob at his full-time job at Adams Cable, Carbondale, where he works as a lineman. Authorities also searched Mr. Drob’s home and seized three computers and several data disks.
Mr. Drob also was charged with criminal use of a communication facility.
Because of Mr. Drob’s part-time job as a bus driver for Gene Tranovich Bus Co., officials alerted the Carbondale Area School District of the arrest, in case parents or students have additional information about the suspect.
He was arraigned and remanded to Lackawanna County Prison in lieu of $75,000 bail.
Label: The Times Tribul
Autopsy Conducted in Beheading Death of Sex Offender
NORTHVILLE TOWNSHIP, Mich. — An autopsy was being conducted Friday morning on a beheaded, burned corpse found on a cul-de-sac about 20 miles northwest of Detroit and identified as a 26-year-old convicted sex offender.
Police are searching for a burgundy Chevy S-10 pickup truck belonging to the victim, Daniel Gene-Vincent Sorensen, 26, of River Rouge, Mich., after state police used fingerprints to identify the body.
"We believe it's an isolated incident," said Det. Lt. Michael Wildt of Northville Township Police. "We have to find out who did it, why and where did it happen. This is where we found the body, but we don't believe the person was murdered there."
Sorensen had been convicted of the criminal sexual abuse of a teen between the age of 13 and 17 in Tazewell County, Ill., according to that state's sex offender registry. But investigators weren't sure if that had anything to do with his brutal death.
"As of right now we don't have anything that says it is; we don't have anything that says it isn't," Wildt said. "We don't know."
The body was found Thursday morning by Northville Township public works employees along a road in Hidden Ridge, a subdivision under development. The body was set on fire Wednesday night between 7:30 p.m. and 10:30 p.m., police said.
"It burned for a long time," Wildt said.
Sorensen's head has not been found and a cause of death has not been released.
"Who would do something like this to my son?" his father, Jim Sorensen, told MyFOXDetroit.
Click here to watch the MyFOXDetroit report.
Sorensen worked odd jobs doing construction and landscape work, police said. He was last seen alive on Wednesday.
His pickup truck has the Michigan license plate BBV 9503.
Sex Pistols still on target, 30 years on: reviews
LONDON (AFP) — The Sex Pistols remain "sharp and vital" 30 years after they pioneered Britain's punk revolution, reviewers said Friday, after the start of a comeback mini-tour in London.
While some of their less-known material was lacklustre, their "splenetic, spitting" frontman John Lydon -- aka Johnny Rotten -- brought their classic songs to life again in an impressive show Thursday night, they said.
"Of their two previous London comebacks, 1996 was sharp and vital and 2002 was drunk and sloppy, so it's a relief that (Thursday's show) falls firmly into the former camp," said the Guardian's reviewer.
"He carries off his trademark trick of celebrating and mocking the Pistols' material, while his semi-sneer, semi-yodel of a vocal remains thrillingly intact."
The band, who spearheaded the 1970s punk movement with singles like "Anarchy in the UK" and "Pretty Vacant", are playing the gigs 30 years after the release of their album "Never Mind the Bollocks", seen as a landmark in the British music industry.
At Thursday's show Lydon, "dressed as some sort of deranged gamekeeper" according to the Times, started the show with a rip-roaring version of "Pretty Vacant".
After the cracking start, the show lost pace for a while, but was rescued with tracks like "God Save the Queen" when "a surge of energy from the stage was more than matched by a surge of balding, beery humanity from the back.
"Lydon performed it the only way he knew how. In a splenetic, spitting drizzle of gurning invective. It made you wonder how they had had the temerity to replace him," said the Times.
Rotten, like his audience, could not completely defy the ageing process, especially during the less singalong numbers.
"Certainly, Rotten sang...with none of the desperate, shark-eyed psychosis of the old days," said the Independent.
"Once, he seemed dangerous like a cornered, rancid yet righteous rat. Now, he sang paunchy guitarist Steve Jones' inane 'Seventeen' with the same conviction as his own nation-baiting work."
But their show-stopping encore had the band back at their best.
"As 'Anarchy in the UK' played out, Rotten crept along the stage with a clawed hand, just like a pantomime villain," said the Independent.
"He looked like a man finally feeling accepted and at peace. But his songs' unquiet, accusatory lyrics still made themselves heard; and their old fury still burned."
The London Evening Standard noted that Lydon had promised to take London by storm, but fell a little short of that.
"John Lydon promised to 'kick some bottom' before the Sex Pistols' latest comeback gig, but the first of five sell-out nights at Brixton was more of a light spanking," it said.
"Not an utterly essential comeback, then, but another last chance to hear those brilliant songs and Lydon's unmistakeable snarl," it added.
Lydon, who flew in from his home in California for the gigs, is joined in the reunion by the other three surviving members of the band -- guitarist Steve Jones, drummer Paul Cook and bassist Glen Matlock.
The Sex Pistols were formed in 1975 but split in 1978. They reformed in 1996, and their last concert together was in 2003. Sid Vicious, who replaced Matlock as bassist in 1977, died after a drug overdose in 1979.
The band will play five shows at the Brixton Academy, followed by two arena shows in Manchester and Glasgow on November 17 and 18.
Source: AFP
Physician convicted in Mid sex tape case
WASHINGTON - A Navy physician was sentenced yesterday to nearly four years in the brig after a military jury found that he had secretly recorded Naval Academy midshipmen having sex in his Annapolis home.
The jury also dismissed Cmdr. Kevin J. Ronan from the Navy and took away his government pension.
The 10-day general court-martial at the Washington Navy Yard concluded with Ronan, who turns 42 today, being escorted in handcuffs through a cold rain into a van. He declined to talk to reporters.
Before sentencing, Ronan told jurors it was a "privilege" to wear the Navy uniform and that he never dishonored it during his 16 years in the military. But he expressed regret at buying the surveillance equipment that was used to tape the midshipmen.
"A crime occurred in my house with equipment I knowingly provided," Ronan said. "I take responsibility for that and the people that were hurt by that."
In the morning, the jury convicted Ronan of all charges against him - seven counts of conduct unbecoming an officer, three counts of illegal wiretapping and one count of obstruction of justice.
Ronan's father, Francis Ronan, said after the verdict that the family was "devastated."
"I did not expect this," said Francis Ronan, who had traveled from New Hampshire with his wife. "It's been a miserable nine months."
Ronan, currently assigned to the Navy Bureau of Medicine and Surgery in Washington, could have been sentenced to up to 27 years in a Navy prison. Prosecutors asked for at least 46 months, representing the time it takes for midshipmen to graduate from the academy.
"It's that experience that Dr. Ronan tarnished" for nine current or former midshipmen who stayed at his home, said Lt. Justin Henderson, an assistant prosecutor.
Henderson compared Ronan to a "stranger in a van offering a little kid candy. Except he was not a stranger. This is a senior officer, a doctor, a parent figure."
The jury of five men and one woman - all Navy captains - took about 30 minutes to come up with the sentence of 46 months, after spending a combined seven hours Thursday and yesterday weighing the evidence before convicting Ronan. The sentence and conviction must be approved by the convening authority - in this case, the Navy's surgeon general.
Ronan's civilian attorney, William Ferris, called the sentence "ridiculous." He said he planned to appeal the conviction on the grounds that the judge inappropriately allowed prosecutors to use some of the 2,000-plus images of gay pornography found on Ronan's computer as part of their case.
Ronan, a pediatrician who was assigned to the Naval Academy in 2002 as a brigade medical officer and doctor to several sports teams, hosted about a dozen midshipmen at his home on weekends and during other free time as part of the academy's sponsor program.
He testified this week that he considered himself a mentor to the Mids he called "my guys" but bought the hidden camera in April 2006 because he was worried about them having parties at his house while he was away.
Prosecutors say the camera carried a live feed to recording equipment and a television in Ronan's bedroom, and videos were burned on digital videodiscs. At least nine current or former midshipmen and one civilian woman appeared on the recordings, some of which were played during the trial.
A former midshipman testified that he found some of the sexually explicit digital videodiscs and tapes in January, when Ronan was traveling with the Naval Academy's gymnastics team. He told a fellow midshipman about the discovery, and the pair said they searched Ronan's house and found more recordings, some of which they turned over to authorities days later.
Ronan's defense had suggested that the two hadn't found the tapes but instead had made them in a plot to extort money from Ronan. One of the former midshipmen had been expelled earlier that month and owed the academy more than $120,000. But on the stand, Ronan declined to offer an explanation for how the DVDs had been created and would not blame the young men.
Before sentencing, the young man who found the first set of tapes told the jury that Ronan was like a parent to him. "To be betrayed and to have him try to put this on me and not try to take responsibility, that was probably one of the most difficult parts," the former midshipman said.
The Sun does not name the alleged victims of sex crimes.
A female midshipman who appears in the videos said the crime has caused her to lose trust in people, including family and friends.
"Everywhere I go, I check vents, drains," said the Mid, who was 19 at the time the tapes were discovered. "I've had to remove the ceiling tiles in my rooms just to make myself more comfortable."
Another woman, a civilian, tearfully stated that she could no longer try clothes on in a fitting room without suspecting that she was being watched.
Brandon Cook, a midshipman who appeared in one of the videos and agreed to be identified, declined to say whether he thought Ronan committed the crimes, but said he considered him a friend.
If he is guilty, Cook said, "It doesn't erase the fact he was a completely hospitable, nice man. It's unfortunate. ... I don't wish I had taken back any time I spent with him."
Source: Baltimoresun.com
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