QUOTE(thekohser @ Sun 2nd May 2010, 3:05pm)
The law may not have been broken.
Quite true. Proving the elements of "knowingly" and "obscene" would be quite an uphill battle, especially if the element of "knowingly" adheres to the element of "obscene".
QUOTE(thekohser @ Sun 2nd May 2010, 3:05pm)
It would be prudent to await the FBI's public comment on this incident before we start picking and choosing who is most guilty and how long they should serve time.
If we're going to say that someone "may be" violating a law, and we're further going to say that this is a law that ought to be enforced, shouldn't we admit that we're saying that someone "may" deserve to spend the minimum possible jail sentence offered by such a violation?
To quote Sanger:
QUOTE
But saying that violations of the statute by Commons (if the FBI agrees that they are violations) are low priority in this case surely implies that 18 USC §1466A should not be enforced. Besides, Wikimedia projects are now very high-profile. Long gone are the days when Wikipedia and sister projects were sites known only to geeks. If the FBI ignores violations of a statute on Wikimedia servers, that sends a message to the many others who collectively would be much harder to regulate.
Now, he continually accuses "Commons" (or "Wikimedia") of the violation of the law. But if "Commons" is in violation of the law, there must be some actual human co-conspirators. Again, you can't have "knowledge" that the distribution is taking place without a human being present to have that knowledge.
QUOTE(thekohser @ Sun 2nd May 2010, 3:05pm)
I'll trade some of my freedoms to get those four off the streets for a few years.
Definitely a place where you and I disagree. I guess it's good that you're at least being honest about it.
I think there are a lot of people taking that position. They don't care about the law, they just want to see Wikipedia get bad publicity. But I don't think Sanger is one of them. He seems to honestly support the law in question - a minimum of five years in prison for distributing (or, indeed, merely receiving) obscene fictional cartoons.
This post has been edited by anthony: