These are not the Canadian twins in question.
The report offers that "approximately 90 per cent of the images were of cartoon drawings called Japanese Anime, while the remainder were of actual children." (Just once, I'd like to see one of these reporters actually reach out to an anime/manga expert, so that they could at least get the terminology right.) Apparently the computer forensics also found that at least one of the boys was trying to figure out whether the material was legal or not.
The article claims that it's legal in the United States, somewhat erroneously-- the 2003 PROTECT Act, better known as the "Amber Alert law," also includes legislation against drawn depictions of minors engaged in any kind of sexual intercourse; the law has not been tested in courts and previously the Supreme Court found in favor of the legality of such drawn depictions, so it's unclear whether the law would stay on the books if the Court got to try it.
But back to the point at hand: since it was unclear which twin did most of the downloading, and both admitted to having done some, they received the same punishment, although one brother may have "a low risk to re-offend" based on reports, while the other "admitted that he was attracted to 12-year-old boys" and had thought of approaching them.
Now, it seems to me that compared to Christopher Handley-- the Iowa native who plead guilty to a PROTECT Act charge in May, who is facing up to 15 years in prison --their sentence seems fairly light. And Handley, as far as I'm aware, had ONLY manga-type drawings, as opposed to these two, who had a small number of real-life kiddy porn images as well.
Speaking of Handley, I did some research on the PACER court database, and while he was originally supposed to be sentenced in August, as I recall, but instead it looks like in September the prosecutor is still working on the pre-sentencing report, which was drafted, objected to, and then not objected to. The most recent document in the case is from September 17th, which was just a declaration that they published the Order of Forfeiture of additional property of Handley's-- which means there's been nothing filed in the case in a month.
I'm not a lawyer, and I don't know exactly what that means in terms of when Handley will be sentenced. It seems odd to me that they'd wait so long, though-- I've e-mailed Handley's attorneys of record, so I'll let you know if/when I hear back from them.
Len would know, he smuggles the stuff out of Canada.
I agree with Len though, the logical mind states that sans the 10% CP they probably wouldn't be sentencing them. Then again, we're talking about the "logical" mind, not the perceptional biased minds of the masses.
See the above comment-- they already did sentence one guy for nothing but manga CP, although it *looks* like it might not have included jail time.
It's still crazy to see someone in the US getting potentially 15 years for the same crime as the only-manga guy, though @_@
Very well-said, and similar in character to author Neil Gaiman's own thoughts-- which can be summed up as freedom of speech isn't worth a damn if no one will defend the speech that they find offensive and/or distasteful.
There are two things I want to address in regards to Gia's pondering in the article about the difference in sentancing it should be noted Canada and the United States of America are two different countries with different judicial system along with different laws and punishments for breaking said laws. Generally the justice system here in Canada is more leanient and less rash than the U.S. in terms of sentancing. For instance the maximum sentance is life with 25 years until a possible parole this is also something you would probably only see with first degree murder(s) [assuming 18 or older] or high treason (means treason during wartime or trying to assassinate Queen Elizabeth II during a time of peace). Contrary to the U.S. where you are one of the 58 countries that still practice Capital Punishment, (37 prisoners executed in the U.S. last year via http://bit.ly/2wYJp7) which had a de facto abolishment in 1963 in Canada with total legal abolishment in 1998 last person to be hanged [how capital punishment was praticed in Canada] was in December 1962 in Toronto. Seeing as I'm not a lawyer especially one who deals with international legal disputes I won't go too much further into this though if I could contact my friend who is currently studying to become a criminal lawyer (she's been very busy lately hence why I can't talk to her about this at the moment) I'll end this before I mess up something.
As for Mein Kampf at least if a publisher decides to localize that/get the liscense for NA you would be able to buy it in the U.S. I'm about 99% sure Chapters/Indigo (a monopolistic bookstore chain, which pretty much is the only retail distributor of books in Canada) is run by Heather Reisman who in 2001 banned the sale of Mein Kampf in her stores making the only choice to import it via Amazon.com or some other site if one wants to own a copy. I suspect the same kind of censorship would happen should the manga get distributed/liscensed for the U.S.
I don't know the current situation. I'm not sure if the laws have passed. I suspect they have. This is happening right now, the week of November 22. The law was to come into effect Thursday, I am writing this on Friday.
- Here is a link to the story from CBC news, entitled: "ISPs to monitor child porn under propsed bill"
- And a similar article covering the same story, entitled: "ISPs must help police snoop on internet under new bill"
Don't quote me on this: but I seem to remember hearing a CBC radio report that said it will now be illegal not to tell the police about known "child-porn" activity. So if someone you know deals with "child-porn", and it is somehow shown that you knew, you are considered an accomplice through compliance.
lol gay as hell.