Today it's child pornography. What about tomorrow? Let me make a case. First, let me make something clear at the outset. I am 100 percent against child pornography. For all I care, castrate all the adults involved, when you catch them.
Now, with that made clear, let's take a look at how bad, comparatively, pornographic photos of underage individuals on a person's phone is—and my apologies to those who cannot stomach the following discussion.
The photos have already been taken. The harm here is indirect. The harm is that possession of photos means that you have become part of the market for child pornography, and provide incentive for the production of future materials. The direct harm occurs when the materials are being produced, and the direct harm is categorically worse than dissemination and possession of the photos.
Compare that to something like terrorism. Recruiting terrorists and planning terrorist activities is, I would argue, a greater and more direct harm than mere possession of child pornography. (Leave aside the production.) So, how can someone accept that this is okay for child pornography and not terrorism? And once we've accepted it's okay for terrorism, who is the "potential" terrorist? What is terrorist contraband?
And now that we've accepted sniffing for terrorists, what's next? Election "manipulation" that "threatens" our democracy? Public health "misinformation"?
This is the Panopticon.