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Newgon.com: UK: Criminalizing Child Erotica in Cartoons and Sketches. A Step Too Far?

http://newgon.com/blog/

http://newgon.com/

May 29th, 2008 by Strato

Yesterday, the UK’s ‘Ministry of Justice’ (do they also have
Ministries of Truth, Peace, Love and Plenty?) announced plans to
implement new legislation, criminalizing possession of cartoons,
drawings and sketches of child erotica.

This announcement follows a ‘public consultation’ last June. The full
Report, published yesterday, is available in .pdf format from:
http://www.justice.gov.uk/publications/non-photographic-depictions.htm).

In summary:

A majority of respondents to the consultation “saw the lack of
research and evidence, as acknowledged in the original consultation
paper, of a causative correlation between viewing non-photographic
visual depictions of child sex abuse and the commission of offences as
a reason not to legislate in this area. It was argued that ‘while
there may be behaviours of which most of us disapprove, these should
not be criminalised unless they directly cause harm to others in
society’ and that ‘an unsupported ‘concern’ cannot be sufficient to
justify restricting the liberty of citizens.”

In addition:

“Many of the respondents thought that the proposals were tantamount to
‘thought crime,’ victimless activities or ‘Orwellian behaviour’ on
behalf of the Government and were concerned about the possibility of
viewers of these images being criminalised without harming children or
ever intending to do so. Many individual respondents reiterated the
principle that freedom of expression should not be limited to
information or ideas favoured by the Government, or the majority, but
rather the test of free expression was whether the Government
criminalised a form of free expression that does no harm, on the
grounds that the expression is abhorrent.”

Nevertheless, ultimately, the UK Government felt that:

“there exists a class of material that should not be tolerated, even
in the absence of conclusive evidence that it caused offending
behaviour.”

Is there any more evidence of an authoritarian regime?

It is notable that the most powerful brokers in this discussion were –
yes, you guessed it – those who had the greatest vested interests
(financial and otherwise) in pushing new legislation through: “the
Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), Public Prosecution Service NI
(PPSNI), Internet Watch Foundation (IWF), Police Federation of England
& Wales, the Internet Service Providers Association, numerous child
welfare organisations, local police forces, religious groups and the
British Association of Social Workers.”

There is nothing more to be said in this matter. I suspect that the UK
Government will not get these proposals enacted into legislation until
at least 2009 – which gives us a year to prepare our friends in the
UK. At the very least, we need to step up our computer security
campaign. We must get one simple message across as broadly as
possible: Encrypt, Encrypt, Encrypt.

Whatever (remaining) ‘obligation’ UK citizens felt towards their
government has been well and truly forfeited.

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