Hacker News Reader

Comment by fortran77 | Hacker News Reader

> I still don’t want to throw kids in prison or remove all traces of a right to privacy in our haste to sun-yeet them.

The one messy corner of this is the "strict liability" for this type of material. An underage kid can take a nude photo, send it to an adult, and then the adult can criminally liable for just having it, even if he deleted it as soon as he saw it. Either both parties involved in handing something for which there is "strict liability' need to be held accountable, or "strict liability" has to be changed so a person isn't liable if he deletes or reports the material as soon as he first becomes aware of it. And this isn't likely to happen because it would provide a plausible defense for every one criminally charged.

View on HN

> has to be changed so a person isn't liable if he deletes or reports the material as soon as he first becomes aware of it

AFAIK that's more or less how it works today as a practical matter. The law recognizes this situation as an affirmative defense, but does not make it impossible to be charged.

To be an affirmative defense it has to be reported immediately or destroyed, constitute three images or less, and not be sent to anyone [other than law enforcement]. Interestingly, NCMEC doesn't necessarily count for that -- if you find yourself in this situation and you want to report something, call your local police.

We shouldn't rely on selective, "practical" enforcement of the law though.

Yep, especially when even an accusation of CSAM can be life ruining.

IANAL, but the notion of "strict liability" horrified me when I first head of it, and I thought it had to be some kind of a misunderstanding. So we're tossing that "innocent until proven guilty" idea out the window, huh?

I'm sure smarter people than me have sussed this out and can explain why it's a good thing, but it sits wrong with me. We can put the subject matter aside for a second: I don't think I could convict someone for having something happen to them, regardless of what the law says. Let's say drug possession was a strict liability law (and maybe it is for all I know). Finding a baggy of meth on the corner of a farmer's lot would mean that, technically, he was guilty of possession and had to prove that it wasn't really is. That's nuts. And looping back to the subject at hand, if the only evidence that someone possessed CSAM was their email inbox, without proof that it was solicited? They want me on their jury.

There should never be a circumstance where someone can't report something that happened to them to the police without a legitimate fear of being arrested. That's bad for the person, and it's bad for society.

But if their hard drive has folders grouped by age or something, prepare the solar catapult.

> So we're tossing that "innocent until proven guilty" idea out the window, huh?

We sure do. Legislators who pushed this "strict liability" thing forward were playing "tough on crime" for the audience of naive voters. Now anyone who tries to change this will commit political suicide and achieve the "pedo supporter" title.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com