We were just talking about how current child porn laws that make you a criminal based on incidental possession alone can be quite problematic. Reader Jesse highlights an example of this. If you happen to have been in Toronto on Monday, and received a copy of Metro Toronto, a popular commuter paper, buried a few pages in was a “featured picture” of some kids celebrating at an annual parade by jumping around in a hot tub. The only problem? The male in the photo appears to be, well… having a wardrobe malfunction. Not unexpectedly, a bunch of sites were having some fun with this… until some realized that these were high school students. At that point, even Gawker — who will post almost anything — removed the photo realizing that under current laws, it was likely child pornography. Jesse points out that this would appear to make a bunch of people at the Metro, all the recipients of the paper on Monday, many people who visited blogs like Torontoist and Gawker while they had those photos displayed… potentially at risk for possessing child porn (and in the case of Metro employees and these blogs, for distributing it as well) — making them all potential felons who could be required to sign up to be on sex offender lists for the rest of their lives. Isn’t something wrong with the law when that happens?
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