I am not a lawyer.

There is something ironic about US laws that attempt to prevent crime A by outlawing action B. For example:

  * A: physical sexual abuse of children. B: possession or distribution of CSAM
  * A: drug trafficking or tax evasion. B: structured cash withdrawals

It's my understanding that conviction of CSAM-related crimes do not require any physical act to have ever occurred to any real person: one can be convicted of CSAM-related crimes related to paintings/drawings/created_art of fictional people.

It's my understanding that one can be convicted of structured withdrawals that are not driven by, linked to, or in any way related to anything nefarious.

> one can be convicted of CSAM-related crimes related to paintings/drawings/created_art of fictional people.

This isn't necessarily the case in the US, though I believe only for drawings. AI-generated CSAM probably wouldn't fly in a court of law.

Regardless, it's a naive conception of a system of law to think of it as a utilitarian system of restitution in contexts of "this individual harmed this individual". In fact, that would fall under the category of a "tort" rather than a "crime". The law is just as much about enforcing social mores and norms as it is about dealing with individuals harming each other. Hence why locales like Canada outlaw all forms CSAM, even fictional ones. The victim taken is to be society itself. The possession of this material, implicitly entailing enjoyment of it, is so gross a violation of society's norms and mores that it becomes elevated to a legal matter.

I don't think these are the same. Outlawing CSAM gives law enforcement the ability to shutdown markets and prevent commercial distribution of CSAM. Sexually abusing children is heinous, but sexually abusing children for financial gain is even worse.

Our society is pretty aligned that distribution is another kind of harm. Non-consented distribution of sexual images (eg: revenge porn) is also a crime. Children don’t need to be the ones to press charges in child porn unlike with adults. That’s a good thing.

At least in the US, fictional content is legal even if it depicts minors sexually: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashcroft_v._Free_Speech_Coalit...

There have been a handful of convictions based on fictional content, but usually the defendants also possessed real CSAM so there wasn't much point in contesting the charges over fictional images.

It's even worse than that. If you make withdrawals with the intent of evading currency reporting requirements you've committed a crime even if the withdrawals don't constitute structuring.

Also, in regard to the fictional CSAM depictions that stuff is still wending its way through the courts.

No. In short, in US law, CSAM is a visual depiction of a real-world act of child sexual abuse. Visual depictions like you're describing are covered under a different law, and I'm not aware of it having a short name. There's a good expert thread on this with links to the relevant federal laws here: https://bsky.app/profile/rahaeli.bsky.social/post/3lbt7zkvlq...

a 17 year old can take a nude selfie and be charged as an adult in possession of CSAM

> CSAM (“see-sam”) refers to any visual content—photos, videos, livestreams, or AI-generated images—that shows a child being sexually abused or exploited. Child sexual abuse material (CSAM) is not “child pornography.” It’s evidence of child sexual abuse [1]

I can't wrap my head around how AI-generated imagery is evidence of child sexual abuse (CAS). How are you abusing a real child by generating an image of a fake one?

[1] https://rainn.org/get-the-facts-about-csam-child-sexual-abus...

A: cyber crimes or other digital crimes. probably applies to many of the other crimes you mentioned too. B: privacy

I don't think there's a particular connection between indirect enforcement mechanisms and inability to detect the crime, though:

- Structured transactions are illegal because we put a minimum on the amount of cash that has to move before government financial surveillance applies. The alternative (at least, one acceptable to the state) would be that the government knows every transaction you make[0] no matter the size. Since we don't want that, it has to be illegal to lie about the size of a transaction. Furthermore, the harder it is to get away with structuring your transactions, the more legible the financial system becomes and the easier it is to catch drug dealers.

- Pedophiles have not stopped possessing or distributing CSAM to reduce their legal liability. Actually, this argument ignores the main reason why pedophiles store and trade CSAM around in the first place: it's specifically to scare victims into silence and revictimize those who tell the cops. In fact, this is why we stopped calling it "child porn" and started calling it "child sexual abuse material" - because it is specifically material designed to sexually abuse children by way of it's mere existence.

If you're a "no touch" pedophile (they do exist!) that's still trading real CSAM around, well... Congratulations, Nobuhiro Watsuki, award-winning author of the hit samurai manga Rurouni Kenshin, you're still doing the dirty work for the full-contact pedo who recorded the damned thing.

As for drawn child porn, involving fictional characters (i.e. not CSAM), it is legal in certain jurisdictions. Notably, America, where the 1st Amendment errs on the side of creative expression[1]; and Japan, the thinking man's Epstein Island, where... I actually don't know why the fuck Japan is so weirdly tolerant of all this sick lolicon trash. Hell, Watsuki didn't even get cancelled when it came out he had 100 DVDs worth of actual CSAM.

There's an additional layer to this, though, in that for all the crimes you brought up, there's been a history of active state complicity in the crime:

- The CIA is a drug trafficking gang that happens to moonlight as a government intelligence agency

- A good chunk of elected officials and heads of state in multiple countries were compromised by notorious child trafficker Jeffrey Epstein

- The government doesn't pay taxes. I mean, obviously, they're the ones levying them.

We like to think of law enforcement as a cat-and-mouse game: criminals do a thing and law enforcement tries to hunt them down within the bounds of 4A/5A. The reality is more complicated. There are cases in which governments actively collaborate with organized crime, either because the government is corrupt as sin, or because the criminals are offering the state a way out.

[0] Fun fact: if you use Bitcoin, you're automatically opting into this.

[1] To be clear, while I agree with the American argument, you still shouldn't actually expose yourself to this kind of porn, because you're training yourself to get horny around kids. I shouldn't have to say this, but just because it's not illegal doesn't mean it's safe to use.