There were families in Canada that were prosecuted ... - Memewar

overzealous use of laws like this one that limits freedoms, according
to Micheal Vonn, policy director of the BC Civil Liberties Association.
“There were families in Canada that were prosecuted under
the child pornography provisions of the criminal code for taking
pictures of their babies in bathtubs,” she said. “They lost their houses
defending themselves in court and will never get their reputations
back again and have gone through an absolute unmitigated horror
show.” The cases Vonn refers to made it
all the way to the Supreme Court before
Chief Justice Beverly MacLaughlin “clarified
for the country that taking a picture of
your baby in the bathtub was okay.”
If a picture two teenagers take of themselves
having perfectly legal sex and a photo
of a bathing baby taken by loving parents
can both be considered child pornography,
it seems possible that even the media coverage
of JonBenet’s murder could be considered
depicting or encouraging sex with
minors. This means that, technically speaking,
the media’s extensive coverage of this
horrible crime and judgment of Karr for
his alleged sex crime could be considered
to be a sex crime itself. Is a law that is vague
enough to create such absurd scenarios a
good one?
What Is “Harm” Anyway?
The intent behind child pornography laws is, of course, simply
to protect children. As Persky put it: “Ninety-nine percent of Canadians
agree that child pornography is a terrible thing and that we
ought to do everything we can to prevent it.”
Hon. Paul Harold Macklin described that the intent was “mainly
the protection of children against abuse, neglect, and exploitation”
in his introduction to a 2005 amendment to the law that added the
“public good” defense to prevent child pornographers from defending
their work as having literary merit.
Although both men agree that harming children is something to
“There were
families in Canada
that were
prosecuted
under the child
pornography
provisions of the
criminal code for
taking pictures
of their babies
in bathtubs”
be prevented, this is where the similarity in their perspectives ends.
Civil libertarians, including Persky, believe that creating laws to prevent
“encouraging” someone to potentially do something undesirable,
is dangerously close to thought-control. If we are concerned
with material that encourages bad actions, we also need to look at violent
cartoons, comic books, and video games. However, according
to civil libertarians, this is a step that unreasonably infringes on our
rights to freedom of expression and thought.
We need to ask ourselves what we really
consider “harm,” said Vonn. She asked us to
“imagine the artists and families and people
along the way […] who have been harmed by
the overzealousness of crown prosecutors and
police looking to, obviously with good motives,
prevent harm for children.” She questioned
whether the potential harm that we are preventing
against children is worth the harm caused by
limiting freedom of expression.
Was the recent media frenzy that labeled
Karr a pedophile guilty of murder in the interests
of the public good? Or did it actually cause
unwarranted harm? Upon Karr’s arrest, many
media sources discussed apologizing to the
Ramsey family for initially pointing the finger at
them. However, by conclusively saying that the
Ramseys are innocent of the murder, the media
is effectively conclusively judging Karr as guilty.
This is the very thing that they feel compelled to
apologize to the Ramseys for. The trial by media
is surely causing harm, both to the Ramsey and Karr families as well
as to the investigation. And, of course, the question remains: are we,
the audience, suffering any harm from extensively subjecting ourselves
to this story of sexual violence?
Soon after the story broke, DNA evidence showed that Karr
didn’t commit the crimes he confessed to. He was simply relating
his sick fantasies. Talking about fictional fantasies of sex with minors
isn’t illegal, but writing them down is. The closest thing to a sex
crime here was committed by the media, who repeated Karr’s words
in print. A law that defines kiddie porn in such a way is a law that
Canadians should consider rethinking.
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