At the end of the day, as you say, it comes down to a question of incentives, power, and consequences. The problem is that there is little or no consequence to an LE officer ruining someone's life. Every incentive is there to pursue further, make sure they're not a threat, err on the side of presumed guilt. Having no incentive other than personal morals to treat the guy fairly is a big, big problem.
I personally respect you and I'm sure your colleagues are equally stand-up guys. But the system as a whole is sick. For LE officers to whimsically decide whether or not to ruin someone's life with charges of kiddie porn is too much power. Way too much.
"Child porn" has outgrown all reasonable legal bounds and i now used as a general person justification for doing basically anything. Look at us in Australia - it is now used as an excuse for censoring the entire internet. Other countries cannot be far off. You must realise this. I am not even sure where to start putting down the child porn bogeyman but it is absolutely, absolutely, a manufactured fear.
I see what your saying; and in truth there is a good point in there.
> For LE officers to whimsically decide
I dont think that is the case necessarily. It's more a careful choice I think.
> "Child porn" has outgrown all reasonable legal bounds and i now used as a general person justification for doing basically anything.
On this we are in agreement. I actually just contributed to a book about the new French web monitoring/filtering laws which are being "legitimized" using child porn as an excuse. We argue that really it has no effect on the "business" of CP and basically it is just political posturing (Ill provide a link if your interested).
I personally respect you and I'm sure your colleagues are equally stand-up guys. But the system as a whole is sick. For LE officers to whimsically decide whether or not to ruin someone's life with charges of kiddie porn is too much power. Way too much.
"Child porn" has outgrown all reasonable legal bounds and i now used as a general person justification for doing basically anything. Look at us in Australia - it is now used as an excuse for censoring the entire internet. Other countries cannot be far off. You must realise this. I am not even sure where to start putting down the child porn bogeyman but it is absolutely, absolutely, a manufactured fear.
Child Pornography == Emmanuel Goldstein