While surfing reddit, I came across a submission titled “Man being jailed for MANGA. [NON-LINKJACKED]” which was submitted by “masta“. After having a run-in with “masta” and his team who I believe run a mass up-vote/down-vote operation (very similar to the shady “DIgg” teams we all love to hate on Digg.com), I tend to ignore anything this guy posts. For some reason, the title sounded interesting. I was wondering how someone could possibly be on trial for simply having Manga. Who doesn’t have a little Manga lying around?
After reading the article linked to the reddit submission, it became very clear to me that the title on reddit and on the article were extremely misleading. The article’s title is “CBLDF Serves As Consultant in PROTECT Act Manga Case”. So far, everything I have seen on the internet concerning the case either does not mention that this is a child porn case or they don’t mention any specifics until you are a ways into the article. The first sentence of the article:
The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund has signed on as a special consultant to the defense of Chistopher Handley, an Iowa collector who faces up to 20 years in prison for possession of manga.
I’ll be looking into this case a little more, but he’s certainly not on trial for having Manga in his house. This guy had manga that the government claims was obscene. If you are interested in the story, definitely check out the via link below but don’t read too much into it. There aren’t enough facts shown in the article for anyone to have a legitimate opinion. Right now, I am left wondering if his rights were violated or if he’s a scum bag who liked reading animated child porn.
Via Newsarama.com
October 11th, 2008 at 11:56 pm
His rights were violated even if he is a scumbag who liked reading animated child porn. Yet, even if possession of drawn pornography is wrong … 20 years? Give me a break!
October 12th, 2008 at 12:23 am
20 years may be harsh unless there’s something we don’t know about. Possession of any kind of child porn needs to be dealt with my opinion.
October 12th, 2008 at 6:17 am
Drawn pornography is protected under the first amendment. Its possible that real child pornography was involved. In that case, the possession of drawn pornography can add to his sentence. Yet if that were true, the man would be on trial for possession of child pornography and that is not the case here. He’s being tried for obscenity. This happened before with an underground cartoonist named Mike Diana ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Diana ). You may not like it but this isn’t the 1950s anymore. No physical child was hurt or even used. The fact that these men can and have been convicted for shapes drawn on paper is in itself pretty obscene.
October 12th, 2008 at 4:51 pm
I certainly believe in protecting artists and consumer of art. I’m pretty much against censorship. About the only time I agree with censorship is when is something is dangerous or harmful. Most of the times, our government will try to make some things out to be dangers that aren’t. With this case, it’s unfortunate that there’s no good news out there about it. I honestly cant make up my opinion about it, because the charges were vague and every article on the case is vague. The name(s) of the publications he was charged for might help.