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The Internet Politics

NY Ruling Distinguishes Downloading, Viewing Child Pornography 370

bs0d3 writes "According to a recent ruling in New York state, from Senior Judge Carmen Beauchamp Ciparick, 'Merely viewing Web images of child pornography does not, absent other proof, constitute either possession or procurement within the meaning of our Penal Law. Rather, some affirmative act is required (printing, saving, downloading, etc.) to show that defendant in fact exercised dominion and control over the images that were on his screen.' Which means under New York state law, creating, and possessing child pornography is illegal; the lawmakers never specifically said that merely viewing it is a crime. The prosecution mentioned that the images were saved on his hard drive via the browser cache. However the court ruled that this was not the same as having a saved image. This means that people from New York state who click the wrong link by accident will no longer face serious jail time and a lifetime of registering as a sex offender. People will be able to report what they've found to the police who can then go after the source of the child porn, instead of someone who was merely browsing the internet."
An MSNBC article summarizes the case, and offers this pithy summary: "The decision rests on whether accessing and viewing something on the Internet is the same as possessing it, and whether possessing it means you had to procure it. In essence, the court said no to the first question and yes to the second."

Of the defendant in the case which sparked the ruling, though, reader concertina226 asks "Errr... just because he didn't download the pictures, how does this make it okay? He's still accessing child porn! "
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NY Ruling Distinguishes Downloading, Viewing Child Pornography

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  • by ccguy ( 1116865 ) on Thursday May 10, 2012 @08:32AM (#39953239) Homepage
    I'm glad. I've never have that in my screen but it's pure luck.

    I've seen other people personal information just because it "appeared" on my screen (looking for a file but downloaded something else, etc) and getting in trouble just because I saw it on my monitor seems rather unfair...
    • On the other hand, now it is possible for a "virus" to serve cached images on a p2p network... quite convenient for the pervs.

      • by tnk1 ( 899206 ) on Thursday May 10, 2012 @09:49AM (#39954303)

        Thing with all this is, I doubt that you're ever going to stop pervs completely. In fact, if someone is a perv, that's their own problem. It's only when they can actually hurt children where there is a problem.

        If this data is being passed freely over p2p networks, no one is turning it into a business and making money off it. The fact is, stopping *free* dispersion of this material over the Internet isn't going to stop the source of it, and the source is where the children are being hurt. I suppose you could say that seeing that sort of thing encourages certain behavior, but I don't know that is true. And if some perv stays at home and looks at that instead of using their free time stalking some child at a school or something, it could have an unintended benefit.

        Point being, simply allowing pervs to maybe see some free porn that has already been made is definitely not worth turning an innocent person into a felon sex offender because they clicked on the wrong page because it doesn't help a single child.

        • by Digital Vomit ( 891734 ) on Thursday May 10, 2012 @10:10AM (#39954587) Homepage Journal

          It's possible that the free distribution of existing child porn over the internet is probably the best thing that could happen (short of a cure) re: the problem of pedophilia. With its ease of accessibility, supply becomes high, resulting in, one would guess, a reduced chance for someone afflicted with pedophilia to use actual children to satisfy his desires, much in the same way that "normal" internet porn may reduce the occurrence of rape [stanford.edu].

          What pedophiles need is help, especially when evidence proves that some pedophilic urges are caused by physical problems and can be cured by surgery [ama-assn.org]. (I'm not saying all pedophilia has physical causes; it seems obvious that much of it is caused by psychological problems during adolescent development)

          • by J'raxis ( 248192 )

            What pedophiles need is help, especially when evidence proves that some pedophilic urges are caused by physical problems and can be cured by surgery [ama-assn.org].

            So we're lobotomizing people again, eh? Just like they tried to "cure" homosexuals and other perceived "deviants" back in the 1950s.

            • Don't confuse the people who are pro sexual freedom but not sexual freedom. Christians had a line in the sand and got in trouble for it, now the liberals have their own line in the sand ... what makes prefering same sex pairings more 'normal' than someone who prefers children? Nothing. The 'normalcy' defense has been used over and over to defend gay rights but its irrelevant to discussing pedos for some reason.

              For the record, I defend neither group; I'm a straight married white dude who doesn't deserve an opinion, but I do find the whole situation ironic.

              • by s73v3r ( 963317 ) <s73v3r@nosPaM.gmail.com> on Thursday May 10, 2012 @12:20PM (#39956757)

                what makes prefering same sex pairings more 'normal' than someone who prefers children?

                I guess it's that most same sex pairings are between consenting adults, whereas children often are not able to give consent for such things.

                • by guises ( 2423402 ) on Thursday May 10, 2012 @12:55PM (#39957247)

                  what makes prefering same sex pairings more 'normal' than someone who prefers children?

                  I guess it's that most same sex pairings are between consenting adults, whereas children often are not able to give consent for such things.

                  He said preferring, not executing. There certainly is a societal problem with non-consensual sex. Wanting non-consensual sex however, is purely a personal problem. As is wanting anything that you can't have.

                  I don't know what this "line in sand" is that he's talking about though. I'm pretty liberal and would happily defend homosexuals, pedophiles, necrophiles, zoophiles, polygamists... almost any others that you could name. But not rapists. Is that my line? Rape? I don't anticipate getting in trouble for that.

                  (Don't think this is a free pass for you zoophiles - I'm not okay with animal rape either.)

                  • by J'raxis ( 248192 ) on Thursday May 10, 2012 @01:19PM (#39957593) Homepage

                    I don't know what this "line in sand" is that he's talking about though. I'm pretty liberal and would happily defend homosexuals, pedophiles, necrophiles, zoophiles, polygamists... almost any others that you could name. But not rapists. Is that my line? Rape? I don't anticipate getting in trouble for that.

                    As a voluntaryist, I take the same position. Rape is a nonconsensual act and thus has an actual victim. All of these other things are just paraphilias and, however strange, are just people's desires. Desires are inherently victimless; they're just thoughts. And thoughts only become "wrong" when they're translated into action that involves unwilling participants (victims).

      • Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)

        by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Thursday May 10, 2012 @11:55AM (#39956337)
        Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • by TheMeuge ( 645043 ) on Thursday May 10, 2012 @08:56AM (#39953569)

      Despite what the "tough on crime" short-sighted idiots would say, this is not only a necessary decision, but a really long-time-coming one. Considering how many links people click on over the course of the day, with hardly any idea (implicitly or explicitly) of what's going to be found on the other side, there have been many unintentional violations of the current law. Furthermore, I wonder how many people who surfed the internet for legal (consentual, adult) pornography, have seen what looked like child porn at one time or another. But under current law, no matter how disgusted you may have been, or how quickly you closed the page, you were guilty by definition. Furthermore, if you reported what you saw, you not only were guilty, but you had confessed as well. This was akin to the UK case where a man found a shotgun that was thrown into his garden from a passing vehicle, and turned it into the police, only to be jailed for weapons possession, since he was "in possession" of it during the course of bringing it to the police station.

      This is an important decision for internet safety, and should be applauded, and will hopefully serve as precedent for cases outside of New York as well, since the practice of trawling the browser cache for suspect images is fairly prevalent. And I have to say - I doubt that anyone who intentionally views child pornography would be that obvious, unless they were stupid. And if they were that stupid, there'd be plenty of other "downloaded" evidence all over the place. In short, the draconian law as it stands right now is simply not necessary for prosecution of real purveyors of child porn, and likely served only to trawl for victims.

      • by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 10, 2012 @09:12AM (#39953755)

        I was once browsing a Tumblr porn blog, and came across something that looked very much like child porn. After leaving the page and scrubbing my eyes out, I cleared the browser cache and history and did everything I could to scrub every trace of those bytes from my machine.

        I loathe child porn, and people who make it and enjoy it should definitely be punished. But that intense fear I felt that the authorities might come after me because my browser accidentally downloaded some? I shouldn't have to feel that. This ruling is a very good thing.

        • Years ago (my first full time job) I got a panicked call from the company head of sales. One of our clients thought it would be funny to send our sales guy a link that opened 10 child porn sits and each side opened another 10 and before he knew it his computer was overloading and deep into swap with hundreds of child porn windows. I walked in, figured I would rather deal with a broken windows 2000 install than any amount of viewing child porn and pulled the power cord from the machine.

          I would have no problem with arresting everyone who views child porn if we could somehow guarantee that each person arrested willingly went with the intent to view it but is far too easy for some other jerk to be the reason for viewing child porn for simple viewing to be a crime.

      • Considering how many links people click on over the course of the day, with hardly any idea (implicitly or explicitly) of what's going to be found on the other side...

        Leaving intentional clicks to unknown locations aside, it hasn't been that long since it's been reasonably easy to be free of those endless rapidly spawning popups or the pop-up viruses installed by a drive-by. Without a law like this, how many little-old ladies would we have had to throw in prison under a strict per-decision interpretation for calling in the horrible things on their computer.

      • by CowTipperGore ( 1081903 ) on Thursday May 10, 2012 @09:27AM (#39953969)

        This decision is in the state of NY and based upon their state law, which apparently requires possession. The federal law is a bit different however. 18 USC 2252A (a)(5)(B) criminalizes someone who "knowingly possesses, or knowingly accesses with intent to view, any book, magazine, periodical, film, videotape, computer disk, or any other material that contains an image of child pornography...". So, under federal law, access with intent to view doesn't require possession, but it does require knowledge and intent. The federal law also provides for an affirmative defense for this section if you possessed less than three images and immediately destroyed them.

        • by jamstar7 ( 694492 ) on Thursday May 10, 2012 @09:45AM (#39954227)
          Great in theory, but how many 'mundanes' know to clear their browser cache? How many of them know how to clear their cache? You could slide over 3 or more kiddie porn images in 4 or 5 years no problem, and by the Fed statute, still be prosecutable.

          I for one applaud the New York ruling, it stops the police from going for a quick slamdunk 'conviction' (hey, how much easier can it get when the 'criminal' calls you up and reports finding this shit?) and forces them to go after the source.
          • by CowTipperGore ( 1081903 ) on Thursday May 10, 2012 @10:05AM (#39954541)

            I for one applaud the New York ruling, it stops the police from going for a quick slamdunk 'conviction' (hey, how much easier can it get when the 'criminal' calls you up and reports finding this shit?) and forces them to go after the source.

            I agree with your sentiment, but I think you're missing some important details here. First, if you call the cops and report that you have it, then you obviously are aware of your possession and would not be helped in the least by this ruling. Secondly, the NY law is crafted such that possession = guilty. The only affirmative defense provided is that you thought the person was not a minor; good luck with that one. The law is pretty simple:

            A person is guilty of possessing a sexual performance by a child when, knowing the character and content thereof, he knowingly has in his possession or control any performance which includes sexual conduct by a child less than sixteen years of age.

            There is no element of intent involved. If you are aware that you posses CP, you have broken the law. Kent was able to get a handful of the approximately 150 counts dismissed because they didn't prove that he was aware that he possessed the images found in his browser cache.

            • There is no element of intent involved. If you are aware that you posses CP, you have broken the law. Kent was able to get a handful of the approximately 150 counts dismissed because they didn't prove that he was aware that he possessed the images found in his browser cache.

              I don't think that's quite right. It was not that he did not know he possessed them, it was that he did not posses them even though they were in his browser cache

              The key to this decision is the difference between having something on one's property and possessing it. For example, lets say you own a house on a big wooded lot. If I were to park my car on some out-of-the-way part of that lot, it would not instantly become your posession. This is true even if you are aware that it is on your property. It is an a

    • by Penguinisto ( 415985 ) on Thursday May 10, 2012 @09:20AM (#39953877) Journal

      I was thinking the same thing, though usually most folks know up-front that if you didn't actively seek and intentionally download it, you're not to blame.

      I remember having to explain similar arguments a long time ago - not about CP, but about porn in general. A student had mis-typed a link in class, and suddenly got bombarded with pr0n - back in the days when pop-ups were all the rage. I merely turned off the monitor and killed power to the machine, then explained what can happen in such cases, but a young lady complained about the student to the school superintendent nonetheless.

      They were ready to lynch the kid over it, and it took three hours to explain to these bureaucrats how such things can be accidental. I finally heaved a sigh, and told them to turn on a machine and "go to the White House's website at whitehouse dot com". They expected to find the President, but as you may have guessed, found the expected pr0n - this was before the meme became popular knowledge. Enough of the administrators got clued in by then to keep the kid from getting slammed.

      So yeah... sometimes shit happens, and I can see it happening in a bad way for some slob who stumbles over the keyboard the wrong way. That's why I'm glad someone in the legal system is finally showing some sense.

      Someone who systematically stores a shitload of CP on his hard drive and has a demonstrable history of actively seeking the shit out both on and offline? Nail 'em to the wall. Someone that accidentally stumbles into the wrong website on the other hand should never see the inside of a courtroom.

      • by ZorinLynx ( 31751 ) on Thursday May 10, 2012 @09:25AM (#39953941) Homepage

        I've always found it disgusting how quick school administrators are to ruin a kid's life over innocent mistakes.

        Bring a multitool that happens to have a blade to school? Call the police. Arrest them, rather than just confiscate the device and send it home to parents.

        Draw a movie action scene where some guy is blowing people away with a machine gun? OH NOS HE MIGHT DO IT FOR REAL. Call the cops. Suspend him. Ruin him psychologically for being creative!

        It's gotten way beyond control. Stuff that would have gotten a kid suspended or detention when I was in school 20 years ago is getting them thrown in jail, expelled or placed into psychiatric care these days. It's no wonder our kids are growing up not-quite-centered. Sigh.

        • by Arker ( 91948 )

          The insanity of the school systems is quite intentional, and the damage it does to any children whose parents cant or wont protect them from it can be horrific.

          When I was in school, I carried a knife every day, and so did every other kid. If you showed up with one that was considerably out of the 'pocket knife' classification they might get concerned enough to ask to hold onto it till the end of the day.

          When my father was in school, it was typical for kids in this area (rural, obviously) to come to school w

      • Re: (Score:2, Troll)

        by cpu6502 ( 1960974 )

        >>>it took three hours to explain to these bureaucrats how such things can be accidental

        Wow.
        The leaders of the school are dumber than the kids they are not teaching.

        But I disagree with you that people should be arrested for possessing images of kiddie porn, just as they should not be arrested for images of murder victims, or car accidents, or a pile of cocaine. The holder of the image is Not the guilty person who committed the crime.

        And I especially do not think people should be arrested for comic

      • I agree but you're off-base assuming this ruling relates at all to your point. The court simply ruled that the NY law under which Kent was convicted requires possession and that something he didn't know he had could hardly be considered. This eliminated a handful of counts from the approximately 150 initially brought forth. The NY law is shit - it doesn't have any provisions for intent and it doesn't address viewing. If you have CP, then you are guilty. FWIY, the federal law attempts to do a better job

    • >>>I've never have that in my screen but it's pure luck.

      Are you sure?
      Some of these stupid laws would arrest you for looking at a merely nude image of a teenager, so if you've ever visited a nudist website, or seen images of Brroke Shields & other starlets nude, then you could be prosecuted under these laws.

  • Tonight... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 10, 2012 @08:35AM (#39953265)

    4chan celebrates this legal victory!

    In all seriousness, I do support this. Over the years, so many images have been displayed on my monitors (#chan etc) and I would never have known for certain if one had involved a 16/17 year old instead of an 18+ year old if it did not explicitly say so.
    I don't live in NY though...

    • Even outside NY, I believe (though IANAL) the ruling can be used as precedent, and can be referred to in other cases to persuade the judge to come to the same conclusion.

      • Even outside NY, I believe (though IANAL) the ruling can be used as precedent, and can be referred to in other cases to persuade the judge to come to the same conclusion.

        Only if their local laws are written similarly to NY's. Keep in mind that the federal statute does make viewing (regardless of possession) illegal, but it does require intent.

  • rare common sense (Score:5, Insightful)

    by arikol ( 728226 ) on Thursday May 10, 2012 @08:39AM (#39953317) Journal

    The comment "Errr... just because he didn't download the pictures, how does this make it okay? He's still accessing child porn! " is absolutely true and correct.
    HOWEVER the current laws in most of the western world make it too dangerous to report any questionable (or clearly illegal) content to the police as you then risk being charged yourself. This means that when you click on a thumbnail and find out that what pops up is NOT what you wanted (I hope) then your actions are: close tab, clear history, never speak of this again.

    That doesn't help, because the illegal content will just stay accessible. We want this kind of crap closed down, and if we want to close it down then reporting the crime has to be safe.

    This is, IMO, a rare common sense ruling that seems to take into account the societal value of the ruling (no matter whether the defendant was guilty or not)

    • by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 10, 2012 @08:49AM (#39953455)
      Deleting all traces and pretending it never happened is still the safest and sanest route. Even the smallest chance of being labeled (officially or not) a pedo is too large.
      • by blackicye ( 760472 ) on Thursday May 10, 2012 @10:28AM (#39954869)

        Deleting all traces and pretending it never happened is still the safest and sanest route. Even the smallest chance of being labeled (officially or not) a pedo is too large.

        This is so totally true, making a report or having any personal connection whatsoever to pedo pornography is beyond stupid.

        What they need to do is so simple it's amazing they haven't implemented it yet.
        They need a totally anonymous reporting system for such websites, because they have no reason to want to know who the sender is, or what their
        intentions are except that they object to the exploitation of children, and want to prevent such sites from surviving and propagating this exploitation and abuse.

        • In the UK you can report "illegal" sites confidentially and even anonymously if you wish, through the Internet Watch Foundation.

          http://www.iwf.org.uk/ [iwf.org.uk]

          I think they may keep the IP address for three months, but that is it.
  • by loufoque ( 1400831 ) on Thursday May 10, 2012 @08:40AM (#39953319)

    This is backwards. You can't know what you've downloaded until you've seen it.
    You could very well have downloaded child porn without noticing it.

    This is essentially like taking to prison people who have child porn in their mail box.

    • Apparently the NY state law requires possession and the court ruled you can't be charged with possession if you didn't even know you had it. The federal law does not require possession but says there must be an intent to view the child porn.

  • First a New York judge rules that IP addresses are insufficient for copyright cases, now this? I'm proud of you, New York!
  • now will someone please go after the child porn spammers on the newsgroups?

    yes, i know, difficult, but it's ridiculous

    • There are still child porn spammers in newsgroups? It could be that I only really read a handful of technical groups, but I have not seen such things in pretty long time...
      • you have to go to alt.binaries.pictures.erotica...

        they spam everything there

        you're innocently looking for your pictures of lactating heavily pierced transvestite dwarves and... GAH

        actually, i shouldn't joke, it's not funny

        so thank god for this ruling, because living in the state of new york, and the ruling directly applies to me: i've gotten child porn images on my computer without any intention of doing so, and this is how: newsgroups

        • Oh those groups. My Usenet provider does not even carry binaries groups (thus allowing them to run a free service), so I guess I have been shielded from such things. A few years ago I saw cleartext advertisements for child porn on some newsgroup, I thought perhaps you were referring to that sort of spam...
    • Incidentally, are the motivations of these spammers known? Are they just trolling the group? Providing a first-hit-is-free to prospective customers? Is this the kiddie-porn equivalent of numbers stations, indiscriminately broadcasting a signal intended for only a few recipients?
      • Well, a few years ago there was a large group of people who used anonymous remailers to send encrypted images to each other over Usenet. Most of them managed to remain anonymous, as far as I know, and law enforcement was only able to identify a small number of the participants or their victims. That was encrypted, however; some years ago I saw cleartext advertisements for child porn posted on Usenet, but it was a while ago.
  • Affirmative act... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by gstrickler ( 920733 ) on Thursday May 10, 2012 @08:48AM (#39953443)

    That's the key phrase. Stumbling upon it is not sufficient, but taking action to save those images is. While I didn't see this point addressed, continuing to view other images on that site, or logging into a site and viewing a significant amount of CP images could be interpreted as an affirmative, so I wouldn't say this is strictly limited to "downloading" or possession. This simply makes it clear that incidental access is not make one a violator. Sounds like a very sane ruling in an area that often goes overboard "for the children".

    • Let me first say that I'm in favor of this ruling, especially as a friend of mine is currently serving 5 years in prison because of child porn that was posted in a regular ol' legal porn trading forum he frequented.

      If your intent is to look at child porn, there is no reason under the terms of this law why you couldn't go to a site with child porn, view it, and access it later simply by opening the file from your browser cache. Provided that you don't clear the cache, it's still there. Distribution would be

  • Intent Matters (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Hydrian ( 183536 ) on Thursday May 10, 2012 @08:49AM (#39953467) Homepage

    While this does give a loophole to pedophiles, I think it is an acceptable risk. Just having a 'child porn' photo in you browser cache should not be enough evidence to charge you as a pedophile. I know here in the USA, even being charged with a 'child porn' related crime is devastating. It can ruin your career whether you are guilty or not. How many times have you had a unexpected pop up from porn site or virus/trojan infected site that displayed possibly illegal content. Also this helps the people who are interested in something else on a site but the site also happens to have under age material also. This is a important because what if some add banner shows some underage content. In the past, this could have been considered enough evidence.

    The big thing here is that viewing (browser cache) doesn't necessarily prove intent.

    • You cannot arrest someone for wanting to cause harm; everyone will want to harm another person at some point in their life. The point of arresting people who possess child pornography is that they might have paid for it, and thus encouraged someone to abuse children i.e. they indirectly caused harm to children. Yet a line must be drawn somewhere; having images in a browser cache is not proof that a person paid for child pornography or otherwise encouraged its production, and moreover it is not even proof
  • driving slowly by the playground is legal, just don't load up your van
  • The NT legislature is working right now on a law to make even seeing CP illegal.
    • The federal law already does. 18 USC 2252A (a)(5)(B) covers someone who "knowingly possesses, or knowingly accesses with intent to view, any book, magazine, periodical, film, videotape, computer disk, or any other material that contains an image of child pornography..." However, prosecuting someone under this requires demonstration of intent and knowledge.

  • by CowTipperGore ( 1081903 ) on Thursday May 10, 2012 @09:02AM (#39953653)

    "Errr... just because he didn't download the pictures, how does this make it okay? He's still accessing child porn! "

    The bulk of the charges against him were confirmed and he'll still suffer heavy punishment. However, two counts were overturned because the law requires you to knowingly posses or obtain images and these two charges relied on data from his browser's web cache. The prosecution failed to prove that he was aware of the cache and how it works, so he couldn't have knowingly obtained or possessed those images. The law does not make it illegal to simply look at the images, whether on a billboard, a neighbor's back porch, or a web site. The judges agreed that child pornography is an abomination, but the majority said it was up to the Legislature to declare merely viewing to be a crime.

    However the court ruled that this was not the same as having a saved image. This means that people from New York state who click the wrong link by accident will no longer face serious jail time and a lifetime of registering as a sex offender. People will be able to report what they've found to the police who can then go after the source of the child porn, instead of someone who was merely browsing the internet."

    The court ruled that the the defendant must knowingly posses or obtain the images. This ruling helps you (directly, at least) only If you know nothing about browsing caching.

    • Hate to reply to myself, but to clarify - this ruling was regarding the NY state law. US federal law already covers access with intent to view, but it does require knowledge and intent. In theory, accidentally stumbling upon some CP shouldn't run afoul of the law but a case like Professor Kent would be covered.

  • now i just need to store all my child porn in my browser cache folder and i'm free and clear
  • The ruling makes sense to me. In light of the outrageously stiff penalties for viewing CP, there should be some real clear intent. That said, I've browsed a vast, vast, vast, vast amount of internet pron in my day and have never happened upon CP, so I'm not sure how often it's accessed absently. Vast.
  • However the court ruled that this was not the same as having a saved image

    That's really a false distinction, to me. I know that most people don't have enough knowledge to poke into the browser cache and that it is essentially a "black box," but there are no end of web clients, no end of ways of configuring them (or modifying the source!), and no way to reliably know what a person actually does or does not know how to do.

    Meanwhile, the people drawing this false distinction don't seem to draw the more critical distinction: viewing a photograph of an incident of child abuse, verses

  • by J'raxis ( 248192 ) on Thursday May 10, 2012 @10:18AM (#39954707) Homepage

    Of the defendant in the case which sparked the ruling, though, reader concertina226 asks "Errr... just because he didn't download the pictures, how does this make it okay? He's still accessing child porn! "

    Because "accessing" isn't the actual statutory offense, and "possessing" is? But never let facts get in the way of mindless moral panic, eh?

Marvelous! The super-user's going to boot me! What a finely tuned response to the situation!

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