Oregon Court rules that simply viewing child pornography on the Internet isn't illegal

[IStanI]

[quote]The Oregon Supreme Court ruled today that it’s not a crime to look at child pornography while surfing the Internet if none of the images are purposefully downloaded, printed out or paid for.

The high court said that while some states have specifically outlawed “viewing” child pornography, Oregon lawmakers only did so if someone pays for it. What’s more, the court ruled that simply looking at photos on a website does not mean a person “possessed” the photos.

“Looking for something on the Internet is like walking into a museum to look at pictures — the pictures are where the person expected them to be, and he can look at them, but that does not in any sense give him possession of them,” wrote Justice Michael Gillette, after reviewing a case of a Eugene man.

Justices Rives Kistler and Virginia Linder dissented.

The case could have wide-reaching repercussions — making it more difficult for prosecutors to pursue child-pornography charges in some cases. Alternately, state lawmakers could decide to change the law to more specifically address Internet viewing.

Prosecutors also worry that the ruling will embolden those who have been thinking about viewing child pornography on the web, but have been discouraged by the legal consequences.

“(The ruling) does absolutely nothing to discourage that activity, and we have to discourage that activity,” said Mike Pugh, the Lane County assistant district attorney who prosecuted the Eugene man. “...The ruling does nothing to enhance the protections that we try to give to the thousands and tens of thousands of kids who are abused.”

The court’s ruling stems from a 2008 case, in which Barry Lowell Barger’s wife told police that there was some “weird” material on the couple’s home computer. Police were already investigating a report that Barger, had sexually abused a child.

The officer looked at the computer’s web-address history. Three addresses appeared to contain pornographic images of prepubescent girls and girls in their early teens. Investigators believed that Barger’s computer automatically stored eight images off of those websites.

Oregon law makes it illegal to possess or control such images. And the prosecution argued that Barger had possession and control over the pornography because he could have printed, saved or e-mailed it if he chose to do so.

Barger, now 39, was convicted of eight counts of second-degree encouraging child sexual abuse. He was sentenced in Lane County Circuit Court to 16 months in prison, which was to run at the same time as a 25-year prison sentence he received for sexually abusing two children who were younger than 12.

The Oregon Court of Appeals affirmed the lower court’s ruling. Today, the supreme court reversed those decisions, and instructed the circuit court to acquit Barger of the pornography charges.

Barger still remains in prison, however, for sexually abusing the two children.

The supreme court today also issued a similar opinion in the case of a former Oak Grove elementary school music teacher, Gregg Bryant Ritchie. Now 36, he was convicted in 2005 of multiple counts of second-degree encouraging child sexual abuse after Clackamas County Sheriff's investigators uncovered child pornography, which was the product of surfing the web, on his computer. He was sentenced to 20 days in jail. The high court ruled that a Clackamas County Circuit Court judge shall acquit him of those convictions.

David Degner, a public defender who represented Barger, said although the ruling doesn’t affect his client’s prison sentence, the ruling is good news for those who've been accused of accessing child pornography on the Internet.

Often, Degner said, "there’s just no evidence that the people knew it was on their computer. ...You don’t even have to look at it.”

Degner said once a person has visited the site, their computer has already stored away an image from it. [/quote]

[url=http://www.oregonlive.com/pacific-northwest-news/index.ssf/2011/01/oregon_supreme_court_rules_that_simply_viewing_child_pornography_on_the_internet_isnt_illegal.html]SOURCE[/url]

[Starpluck]

[quote]The Oregon Supreme Court ruled today that it’s not a crime to look at child pornography while surfing the Internet if none of the images are purposefully downloaded, printed out or paid for.[/quote]
I don't know why this law hasn't been adapted nationally, especially after this: [url]http://www.facepunch.com/threads/856234-Accidental-Download-Sending-Man-To-Prison[/url]

[Mr. Someguy]

Degner makes a good point though.

[ThisGuy0]

This makes perfect sense. Someone downloading child porn is only going to indirectly harm children if they pay for it, and finance the people making the porn. Since paying for it is still illegal, I don't know why the law hasn't updated like this before.

[Starpluck]

[QUOTE=ThisGuy0;27277767]This makes perfect sense. Someone downloading child porn is only going to indirectly harm children if they pay for it, and finance the people making the porn. Since paying for it is still illegal, I don't know why the law hasn't updated like this before.[/QUOTE]
They make a lot of revenue from just viewers alone, advertisements.

[Ray-The-Sun]

I applaud this ruling :golfclap:

[CharadesV2]

[QUOTE=Starpluck;27277786]They make a lot of revenue from just viewers alone, advertisements.[/QUOTE]

It's too easy to fool people on the internet to make them go to some potentially dangerous site, especially on forums.

[url=http://yahoo.com]www.google.com[/url]

[Clavus]

They have a good point. People are (understandably) very defensive when it comes to children, but we really should add some logic to the discussion.

[CoolCorky]

[QUOTE=CharadesV2;27277876][url=http://yahoo.com]www.google.com[/url][/QUOTE]

Oh god fuck you that site gave me 50 spywares and formatted my solid-rom ram drive

[ironman17]

Well, that's just Oregon. The ruling kinda makes sense, though. It can be easy for accidents to happen on the net, especially with searching.

[Instant Mix]

[QUOTE=ironman17;27278031]Well, that's just Oregon. The ruling kinda makes sense, though. It can be easy for accidents to happen on the net, especially with searching.[/QUOTE]

Well at least /b/tards are safe in oregon , knowing that place pretty much everyone must accidentally download it through thumbnails if they were "lucky" enough to come across it.

[Darth_GW7]

Misleading title had me slightly worried, should be "Seeing child pornography" or something to the like.

[deathgod]

[QUOTE=Darth_GW7;27278203]Misleading title had me slightly worried, should be "Seeing child pornography" or something to the like.[/QUOTE]
...same thing?

[Kolmala]

I remember I story about a guy in England who bought a "new" computer (which was actually used) that had child pornography on it. When he took it to the police, he was arrested because he had seen it for a second or two.

[The Great Ghast]

brb moving to oregon

Just kidding :v:

[LordApocca]

Finally. It's complete bullcrap that you can go to prison for simply visiting a site that happens to have a picture of it somewhere. That shit gets stored in the cache without your consent.

[Starpluck]

[QUOTE=LordApocca;27278354]Finally. It's complete bullcrap that you can go to prison for simply visiting a site that happens to have a picture of it somewhere. That shit gets stored in the cache without your consent.[/QUOTE]
It also happens if some dick decides to spray child porn in Source games.

[The mouse]

[QUOTE=Starpluck;27278417]It also happens if some dick decides to spray child porn in most Source games[/QUOTE]

:ohdear:

[Unkle Dada]

This rule should be adapted internationally. CP is common to accidently come across on certain websites, for example 4chan.

[SuperDAIU]

I remember when I was surfing 4chan for the first time and there it was... a picture of a little girl sucking a penis.

:geno:

[MrEndangered]

[QUOTE=SuperDAIU;27278844]I remember when I was surfing 4chan for the first time and there it was... a picture of a little girl sucking a penis.

:geno:[/QUOTE]

This is why you shouldn't go to 4chan.

One of the many reasons.

[ZomboJoe]

Looks like all the Hottest Illustrated Girls thread people are safe.

[HubmaN]

[QUOTE=MrEndangered;27278913]This is why you shouldn't go to 4chan.

One of the many reasons.[/QUOTE]
It's just /b/, really.
...I saw a guide on how to get to paedo sites via Tor there. Poor people running exit nodes.

[Van-man]

[QUOTE=HubmaN;27278939]It's just /b/, really.
...I saw a guide on how to get to paedo sites via Tor there. Poor people running exit nodes.[/QUOTE]

Reminds me of a case of a German guy almost got busted for hosting a exit node, that someone used to post a bomb threat on a forum of some sort.

also: [url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tor-ramdisk[/url]
Cut the power, and all traces of TOR traffic is gone.
Since it uses a RAM drive for everything except the OS itself and config file.

[MIPS]

Hurrah. Now I don't need to feel so guilty and purge my cache every time I go someplace and someone has linked a CP image in a thread or imageboard.

Edit: Wait, this is Oregon.

*purges cache anyways*

[Heidenreich]

[QUOTE=HubmaN;27278939]It's just /b/, really.
...I saw a guide on how to get to paedo sites via Tor there. Poor people running exit nodes.[/QUOTE]

Most other 4chan boards are alright, people gotta stop judging the whole site as /b/

[Zethiwag]

And suddenly, thousands of Facepunch members move to Oregon...

[Swemon]

[QUOTE=Starpluck;27278417]It also happens if some dick decides to spray child porn in Source games.[/QUOTE]
That's why I don't play any games that have the half life 2 engine :v:

[Biotoxsin]

[QUOTE=Swemon;27280921]That's why I don't play any games that have the half life 2 engine :v:[/QUOTE]

You can disable sprays :downs:

[sloppy_joes]

[QUOTE=Starpluck;27278417]It also happens if some dick decides to spray child porn in Source games.[/QUOTE]

There's actually no real way to track that if you think about it.