American Faces 20 Years Over Loli Manga
- Filed under: Manga, News
- Date: Oct 24, 2008 12:30 JST
- Tags: Censorship, Crime, Delicious Cake, Iowa, Law, Lolicon, USA
An Iowa manga enthusiast has been charged with possession of obscene materials, based on the allegation that of his collection of over a thousand volumes, a handful depict underage participants; he faces a prison sentence of up to 20 years if convicted under the PROTECT Act.
A free speech legal defence fund, the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, has leapt to his defence, claiming the law is a flagrant violation of the First Amendment rights Americans enjoy to free speech; the CBLDF is scathing:
“The government is prosecuting a private collector for the possession of art. In the past, CBLDF has had to defend the First Amendment rights of retailers and artists, but never before have we experienced the federal government attempting to strip a citizen of his freedom because he owned comic books.”
The CBLDF is most unhappy about the assault on freedom of expression, and is now also concerned that the move represents an unprecedented extension in scope of a law previously targeting chiefly dealers of pornography:
“In the lengthy time in which I have represented CBLDF and its clients, I have never encountered a situation where criminal prosecution was brought against a private consumer for possession of material for personal use in his own home.
This prosecution has profound implications in limiting the First Amendment for art and artists, and comics in particular that are on the cutting edge of creativity. It misunderstands the nature of avant-garde art in its historical perspective and is a perversion of anti-obscenity laws.”
The PROTECT Act being used as a basis for the charges has already taken a beating in courts, with portions being ruled unconstitutional, but sections still retain validity.
In particular, for a guilty verdict to be rendered the jury will have to decide that the material concerned is “obscene”, which involves applying the so-called Miller test to allow the material to be stripped of First Amendment protection:
• Whether the average person, applying contemporary community standards, would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest.
• Whether the work depicts/describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct or excretory functions specifically defined by applicable state law.
• Whether the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value. (This is also known as the (S)LAPS test- [Serious] Literary, Artistic, Political, Scientific).
In the past, application of these criteria has proven complex and highly controversial, so it remains to be seen what kind of decision the manga in question will prompt.
The PROTECT Act, an act containing a diverse jumble of “child protection” measures, itself has been the subject of much legal action, and it is still not clear to what extent it maintains the ability to target artistic or “virtual” material depicting underage participants.
We do not hear how the unfortunate individual in question came to the attention of authorities.
Via ICV2.
Another dangerous comic book enthusiast kept off the streets?
このロリコンどめ！lol
Is this one kind of movement of anti-lolicon supporter?
I hope Japan and USA don’t really ban it, it’s awful… :(
Whoah shit!
Someone was actually prosecuted!
However, if all they found was lolicon manga material then something seriously stinks.
I wonder what other fictional form of art will be taken down next?
My money is on Guro.
Nah, guro’s fine. Gotta have their nationalist torture porn, it’s the only thing they can jerk off to.
What I’m worried about now is how this will affect future rulings in court. I doubt this will be the last time we’ll be hearing about this sort of thing.
wow. wtf kind of shit is this? you cant own some lolicon manga that you bought with your own money? thats some bull shit.
Yeah, bro. What’s next? I can’t have sex with the 3 year old I bought with my hard earned cash! Bullshit!
This is two months late, but your comment is ridiculous.
Agreed.
There’s going to be a lot of free speech tossed around here, but fact of the matter is some heinous stuff gets carried out because of the “WON’T SOMEBODY PLEASE THINK OF THE CHILDREN!?” defense, usually in boldface disregard for civil liberties.
Not to defend pedophiles, but if it’s just a comic, then it’s not harming anyone. You can’t arrest someone for owning something that might potentially somehow in someway influence illegal behavior. The system doesn’t work that way.
Over a thousand volumes ? Thats some lolicon.
I wonder how they found out.
come on… i have more than 800+ volumes…
in digital format, btw.
Actually on Japanator.com, this story stated that the local post office had searched his mail and alerted the authorities of the contents of a “strange” package arriving for the Iowan in question…
Argh! I can see it now… (remember, this happened in Iowa) …”Hey, Earl, what’s with this here funny lookin’ box with the scribbles all over it? That some kinda foreigner thing? This from some weird place, ain’t it? Well. We don’t abide no foreign shit ’round these parts, do we? Let’s open ‘er up!”
And for them, their suspicion was justified, wasn’t it?
Ridiculous bullshit asshole small-minded American fucktard bastard busybody government dickweasels.
I am sick of my country’s brainless right-wing conservative enemizing of my culture. And now I seriously dislike the post office even more than I did already.
Remember, kids: always have your lolicon manga shipped to you via UPS, FedEx, or DHL!
It wouldn’t be as bad if it was just the right wing conservatives doing this. If current democratic leaders are any indication (many of whom seem so fiscally liberal as to approach socialism), many of whom are willing to throw in with Jack Thompson (who is so bad he got disbarred), the left side of our government seems more than willing to toss the first amendment in favor of looking like they are ‘protecting the children’. I think tracking down real child molesters is too difficult, so they’ve decided to go after easy targets instead.
I tend to lean right politically, but if I ever saw a politician who actually seemed to support free speech, I’d support them whatever party they were.
When I say we’re going back to the dark ages regarding freedom of speech, citizen’s rights and morality, some people thinks I’m overreacting.
But everyday I collect new evidence on that.
And this news is just another one to add to the endless pile.
Justice system is collapsing already.
Can someone write a follow up article on this when it’s all over? Otherwise, I’ll pretty much never know what happened.
Just wow and lol @
“Another dangerous comic book enthusiast kept off the streets?”
RUN!!! HIDE ALL THE LOLI!!! The End is near!!
>.<
but really, i just think anime is to crazy for the world T.T
In Absurdum.
While I’m certainly no fan of loli anything, this is just retarded. Soon people’ll get jailed for murder because they own the Berserk manga.
このロリコンどもめ indeed.
By the way… were all the books necessarily about underage b&? Lolicon is a pretty large area, supposedly including adult petanko as well, because they resemble children with undeveloped sexual characteristics… just saying…
From the first sentence:
“based on the allegation that of his collection of over a thousand volumes, a handful depict underage participants”
Perhaps this is not written clearly enough…
Ha~, sorry if I came off as critical to you, wasn’t my intention. I just didn’t read clearly enough.
It’s a strange topic, though. It’s illegal to murder people, yet comics about such are generally accepted, though frowned upon. Animated/drawn lolis? Not so much so, apparantly.
I sincerely doubt 56-year old pedos got to be how they are because they read Lolicious manga…
Utter bullshit if you ask me. Possesing drawn images of young girls shouldn’t be against any law. If you want to frown apon it sure then go ahead you have that right. But to arrest and prosecute over it? F**k off. So he had X amount of loli manga. Did he have any ACTUAL child porn anywhere be it video or pictures anywhere in his house? Obviously not or they would of made that their case. This seems to me like just a guy who like a lot of people, are into the loli genre. He wasn’t hurting anyone, he wasnt raping any kids, he wasn’t watching them while they were at the playground or anything. So leave this guy alone. Fark he already has it hard enough now that everyone in his town knows that he likes that stuff. Poor guy
The original report even gave out the man’s name… I understand it to be a matter of public record, but even so.
I agree. I mean what you do in your own home is what you do in your own home. espically if no one gets harm or hurt
What, it’s illegal to watch kids in the playground these days!? I’m going to jail now (I was just watching a few kids play during taking a rest from playing basketball on the court adjacent to the playground, just watching out of curiosity… Not perversion, I mean, if I had kids, could I be arrested for watching them play video games!?) lol…
ZOMG
Damn it, this is ’shit’ !
lol
“The government is prosecuting a private collector for the possession of art. In the past, CBLDF has had to defend the First Amendment rights of retailers and artists, but never before have we experienced the federal government attempting to strip a citizen of his freedom because he owned comic books.” <— humu humu
If the characters within the comics, who participated in the acts in question, looked (and were) of legal age instead of below it…
If it helps to tell the story, then okay. But if it’s used to fuel some sick fetish while the enthusiast is masturbating…
If I was the judge, I’d sentence the guy to 10 years as a human dildo in one of these aging, hanger-on porn studios.
what!? were you being sarcastic?
so, now we must be prosecuted because other people don’t have the same opinion and tastes as “you” do?
just because i like yellow and “you” don’t understand why and disagree with me i must be put in jail?
go to 2ch or 4ch, browse through some of the 18+ channels, in your way of though they should be all arrested right?
oh, and don’t forget all those companies creating sex toys only to “fuel” some sick fetish…
he is
(sigh)
there are some people who feel they must be right at all cost. beside we have other things to worry about then one man’s oppion
Hey Tyrenol, how did you like Pico x Coco x Chico, eh? Did it stand up to the high standards set by its predecessors?
OMG! WTF! The only way they can do this is if the man was acting on those “books” in real life. there is no problem with owning that kind of material unless it leads to taking indecent liberties with a minor and even then its hard to say it was the books fault. This guy may have some slight issues, (but then again who doesn’t) but prosecuting because of his comic collection UNBELIEVABLE!!
Dear idiots in the usa who try to unleash all your stupidity on innocent people, will you do a favor to god and please die out? It’s about time now. Thanks.
aman!!
If the man is ever connected to child molestation accusations, then this case might hold merit. Other than that, he WILL get off scot-free (albeit with a ruined reputation) because even if he gets convicted of anything at all, this case will get appealed to a higher court, and if the lower courts don’t strike it down, the higher courts (Iowa Supreme Court maybe) will.
And whoever said our justice system is collapsing has never studied law, just watched too much MSNBC.
Let’s ban all comics. Pedophiles will have free hands to move onto children then. ばか アメリッカ。
If comic book is not acceptable, then digital images collected will be the same in the future.
How about internet site? There are so many area they can step in…….hope not……
This article is misleading. He is not being charged with possession of obscene materials (those charges were dismissed). Rather he is being charged with transporting obscene material across state lines.
google ” Case 1:07-cr-00030-JEG-RAW Document 59 Filed 07/02/2008 ” for proof.
yeah this guy is screwed. no juror in their right mind would go on record as supporting this.
TL:DR possession of lolicon is fine transporting it across state and federal lines is not.
Thank you for providing some clarification.
The CBLDF statements were presumably inaccurate then? I’m also curious as to why they managed to get rid of the possession aspect…
And of course there is the issue of how one can possess lolicon without transporting it somehow…
Gee, federal laws continue to amaze me. So how does one possess lolicon material (presumably of the fictional 2D kind) without having it transported some distance? What about someone’s collection online? If he shares it with some friends, is that considered “transporting and disseminating” across state boundaries?
Since when have we forgotten that the role of government is to protect its citizen’s rights (rights so painstakingly enumerated and preserved as to be called the “Bill of Rights”) and promote economic prosperity, not to legislate individual morality?
IF the man had actual 3D child porn, no doubt the kids must be protected. But the difference between 2D and 3D is huge.
We don’t have leadership currently which understands that role of government. Reagan, Bush, and Shrub were twenty years to Clinton’s eight… and that conservative, religion-pandering mindset has done much to warp the shape our government was initially formed to be.
It’s disgusting to me in the extreme that it’s the conservative base - the alleged “keep the government at a minimum” party - which has been leading the charge of intrusion into privacy for the better part of three decades now.
The original statement by the cbldf is not inaccurate per se. I would presume he was still being charged with possession at the time the statement was made.
“Because subsections
1466A(a)(2) and (b)(2) (of the protect act)do not require the visual depictions be obscene, and those subsections of the statute restrict protected speech, the Court finds those sections are constitutionally infirm and
cannot form the basis of a charge under the superseding indictment”
Also
“Defendant is not charged in counts one through four with mere private possession of obscene materials. Defendant is charged in count one with receipt of obscene materials that were
transported in interstate commerce and in counts two through four with possession of obscene
materials that had been transported in interstate commerce.”
hope those answer your questions.
“We have already indicated that the protected right
to possess obscene material in the privacy of one’s home does not give rise to
a correlative right to have someone sell or give it to others. Nor is there any
correlative right to transport obscene material in interstate commerce”
Transportation across state lines only applies to physical objects, not downloaded content.
(see 18 U.S.C. §§ 1461, 2)
also, Kadian1364, The defendant argued just that:the government should not legislate morality and cited Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558 (2003) as precedent.
The court disagreed that assertion.
“The Third Circuit concluded it was error for the district court to rely on the holding in Lawrence and thereby ignore longstanding Supreme Court precedent regarding obscenity. Id. at 162.
I do not understand how stuff like this is supposed to enter your possession physically without first crossing state boundaries, though. Since loli manga probably isn’t printed in Iowa, possession can just as well be a crime, as it’s impossible to possess the stuff in question without falling under the above two statements:
“charged in count one with receipt of obscene materials that were transported in interstate commerce”
and
“with possession of obscene
materials that had been transported in interstate commerce”
I’m German, so this might just be me being fuzzy on what exactly constitutes ‘interstate commerce’, but I’m still curious.
The second statement sounds especially fuzzy to me. Friend1 illegally imports obscene material through state borders. Gives it to Friend2 without informing him of such. Possession is not a crime, yet Friend2 is still a criminal for possessing goods that were transported across interstate borders.
Wha?
What is the definition for transporting obscence materials? how about if post office found a japanese young looking gal sex doll? They might think it is odscence materials…& charged like this poor man…..how about online transporting images,…….
see 18 U.S.C. §§ 1461, 2 its long. But the gist is that something has to be mailed for it to be considered to be transported. This does not, however, protect you from charges of distributing obscenity over the internet. see http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/10/05/porn/ for an example of this.
TL:DR you can download loli for personal use but you can’t
A. distribute it within the U.S. ( this means on U.S. based servers)
B. Transport it in any way using any mail system in the United States.
DISCLAIMER: I am not a lawyer please, do not take this as sound legal advice
I really don’t get this law because it seems like there would be a lot more people in trouble. I bought Range Murata’s Throwline from someone (in the US this time) and you could say there is some suggestive underage pictures in there (though, there’s no sex or anything and in my opinion its very artistic…). Another example would be Robot and APPLE which I bought off of amazon. There is underage nudity and a few very gorry stories in there.
So now, if I decide I want to import some douginshi from Japan am I going to be prosecuted?! Or even if I just order something that may have some suggestive things in it such as a couple of my art books.
Bleh…I don’t get it.
So buying loli manga and importing them from Japan breaks some “child protection” laws while downloading the same content (whether you paid the artist for it or not) does not? This is ridiculous!
Not to speak of being one law that actually encourages internet piracy…
Internet= grey area.
There are very few internet laws, so just don’t bother bringing into how ‘unfair’ things are compared to internet laws.
It’s better this way but won’t last much longer.
Oh crap…
I’m so totally going to be arrested halfway through Artschool, god forbid I’ll be drawing nubile girls u_u
Fuck.
Let’s all move to mexico?
Oh man! This really saddens me for the way this world is taking. Instead of seek for real pedophiles who do real harm to real children, they seems to seeks this kind of stuff because, probably, is easier for them. *sigh*
And see how every thing htat seems to have even the slightest sexual connotation, such as the sukumizu in animation, is censored while all the violence is leaved alone and in peace.
Now I’m getting really worried about the society, and, even, be afraid on what could happen in a future. I don’t want to be repressed.
Rest assured, if they mention kids, reasoning and logic go out the window. That poor dude is going to catch hell one way or another.
But in my own honest opinion… just reading loli manga never hurt anyone.
The CBLDF is a great organization. If the CBLDF existed fifty years ago, then American comics would never have suffered from decades of harsh Comics Code censorship, and would be as equally developed an artform as Japanese and European comics.
EPIC PHAIL… sigh… another poor, innocent soul gets prosecuted when the REAL criminals/CP makers/terrorists/killers are out there… Misplaced Priority, anyone? In b4 “FBI raids Anime Convention, releases convicted terrorist”
This is just further reaon for me to say VIVA LE REVOLUTION! I mean i’m sorry but wtf it’s a comic i myself am a lolicon but that dose NOT make me a pedophile i think that people who do that should be killed mercilessly like the