Heheh, ok, my two cents on this.

I'm Canadian, and I've been on the internet a *long* time. About three years ago, I was working in the R&D department of a large ISP in Calgary, Alberta - there was a guy I knew in another department, seemed pretty nice. He was just in the process of becoming one of our group of friends, when suddenly he was fired. I saw him once more after that, and then haven't heard about him - except in the newspaper - since.

What happened was this - he was running a tiny FTP server on his new ADSL connection, with an upload/download ratio set - in order to download, you first have to upload. You know the type, with a bot on IRC advertising in the #whatever-sex channels... He didn't set up his server properly, though, and after uploading a file, you could download from any section of his site, including the "uploads" area.

Well, he went away for a weekend, and when he returned, he found the police waiting for him at his apartment. He was read his rights and taken into custody - where he found out that he was being charged with distribution of child pornography. It turned out that while he was away, his FTP server had had a pile of pics uploaded - a police officer from Germany, of all places, had logged on later, found these pictures, and notified the Calgary Police - within a few hours, they had a warrant for his arrest, seized his computers, and were waiting for him.

He sounds innocent - right? Not really - you're responsible for what your computer offers for distribution, so the case went to court. I have no idea what happened in the case, but the fact remains - the newspapers got ahold of the story, and it was front-page news (as usual) that a child pornographer was busted. What's worse, he was 19 years old - when you're over 18, in Canada, they can release your name and photograph, which they put on the front page of the paper. He lost his job *instantly* - I shudder to think of what happened to him if he actually went to jail over this, he probably wouldn't survive.

Kiddie porn, in my opinion, is just intrinsically *wrong* - but there's still a part of me that will defend freedom of speech. Just don't forget how incredibly *dangerous* is is to have it!!!! It can literally destroy your life; I've seen it happen.