Something is wrong with this picture!
"Just a Thought" by Carl Bergmann - April '99
Man
nabbed with porn on his computer
A repairman discovers the material; the owner says
it was downloaded and he didn't know how to purge it.
The "Northwest Florida Daily News" posted an
article on their website about a man caught with child pornography on his computer (Click here to see article).
I was furious after I read it. Not because of the child porn, that's a separate
issue altogether, but because a computer repairman was snooping around his clients
computer, found some child porn, then he reported the pornography to the police.
Child pornography is wrong, period, but this is not the issue I am
pursuing. The issue is that the repairman had no right poking around someone else's
hard drive, peering into the data files (customer or not).
I have been working on computers for over ten years, and I can sincerly tell you
that the only way this repairman could have known the contents of the pictures was to view
the files with a viewer. That means he had to take the time search the hard-drive
for picture files. The repairman had no right doing this. Viewing that picture
had nothing to do with maintenance of that computer under ANY circumstance. It was
an invasion of privacy, and that is a greater issue then the suspect's alleged kinky
taste in porn.
It is beyond me that the computer owner's life can, and probably will be
changed for the worst because of this repairman's lack of respect for private property,
and his knee-jerk response to alert the authorities afterwards. The point isn't
whether or not child porn is wrong or illegal, but that it was an outright invasion of
privacy to poke around someone else's hard drive, peeking into personal data files.
As a computer repairman you are given the privilege of access to the hard drive only to do
the job you were hired to do, just as a "appliance repairman" is given
permission to enter your home the fix an appliance. The computer repairman was using
the clients computer to fix a problem, he was not hired to view data files or dig up dirt
on the computer owner. Now the suspect is facing felony charges and jail.
Again, for fear of a misunderstanding I want to make clear that I am not
defending the suspects taste in sexual turn-on's, I am defending the basic right to
privacy. God knows I don't want righteous morality zealots banging my door down,
accusing me of advocating porn simply because I'm taking a stand on this issue in favor of
rights to personal privacy.
A Possible Scenario
For all we know the computer owner was just being curious over the
internet. It would be a typical for a new, inexperienced user to try and download a
picture, and instead, save it on his desktop as wallpaper. Not knowing how to undo
this embarrassing mess he hires a computer technician to undo the mess for him. The
computer repairman sees the child-porn on the screen at boot-up and searches the hard disk
for more pictures, finds them and calls the law. The local law over-reacts with
criminal charges for possessing some pictures, and the client is in deep legal troubles
because he was curious.
Finding porn on the internet is as easy as getting sand in your shoes on the
beach. Let me ask some simple questions:
1. "Was he a participant in the sex act on a minor or was he just a curious
internet surfer?"
2. "Did he hurt anyone or did he just foolishly get into an embarrassing
situation?"
The law (Communications
Decency Act (CDA) that makes this a legal issue in this situation is a good example of
how the government is increasing its role in dictating our everyday lives.
This
law is very dangerous
The
Communications Decency Act (CDA) is being ratified in many states of this
country and personally, I find this law vague, politically motivated, a violation of our
constitutional rights and dangerous. Years ago when I first started using the
internet it was very easy to stumble across pornographic websites. They lured me in,
posing as something else.
Till I saw the first page of the site, all I knew was that this link said they
had something else I needed. After the webpage is loaded I realized that it wasn't
what I was looking for and continued my search but, that page and its contents are still
stored in the browser's cache which is on my hard-drive. If someone was to view the
browser's cache, and see these webpages that were accidentally acquired, and view the
elements that went with it (graphics, text, etc...), I could go to jail for possession of
pornographic material. And if the pictures were of minors, I could be charged with
possession of child pornography.
This is a sad time for individual rights and I shouldn't be the only one asking
myself, "There's something wrong with this picture?" Shame on the
repairman for being disrespectful of others privacy, shame on the computer owner for
pandering to child pornography, shame on the system for making a law so vague, destructive
and politically transparent, and shame on our society that freedom and individual liberty
is becoming the antithesis of political correctness.
by Carl
Bergmann
Related subjects:
The
Threat of State Censorship Bills
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