The whole reason these systems are proposed is because "detective work" is ineffective and the harm is ongoing. You gotta a least meet people where they are. Don't you think the level of policing required to actually find people who possess CSAM wouldn't also be a massive overreach? Or are you hoping that "just do more" will come to nothing in practice?
Prosecuting members of the ruling class in this country is a whole separate issue, and one that I'm sure we are in total agreement on sans the "well if rich people are above the law why can't everyone be too" take.
> Don't you think the level of policing required to actually find people who possess CSAM wouldn't also be a massive overreach?
Obviously. Criminalizing possession of data is dumb. It's essentially a declaration that some numbers are illegal. It's the exact same problem faced by copyright. Any attempt to actually enforce these laws at scale will be a massive overreach to the point of tyranny. They are incompatible with the computing freedom we enjoy today.
I don't buy this argument because you can make any law sound silly by reducing it to something absurd. Saying that that the benefit isn't worth the trade in freedom is totally valid but the quip about illegal numbers isn't super persuasive.
"Criminalizing possession of nuclear weapons is dumb, it's essentially a declaration that some molecules are illegal."
"Criminalizing hate speech is dumb, it's essentially a declaration that certain combinations of sound frequencies are illegal."
"Criminalization of murder is dumb, it's essentially a declaration that I certain locations where I store my bullets are illegal."
It sounds absurd because it is absurd. Think about the absolute control that would be necessary in order to stop our computers from working with arbitrary data. Obviously this logic cannot be applied to the physical world.
Detective work actually is effective. The people investigating already know where huge amounts of trafficking and abuse happen. It happens in the CPS system. The problem is they have made it such a quagmire of rules regulations and gotchas that only the truly angelic and those looking to abuse children to make a quick buck are willing to get involved. I got news for you one of those numbers is greater.
> The whole reason these systems are proposed is because "detective work" is ineffective and the harm is ongoing.
In Germany, there recently was a news story about two journalists infiltrating and effectively shutting down an insanely large darknet forum for child abuse material.
That story exploded, because evidently, law enforcement could have done a lot better, as all the journalists did was crawling for webhoster-links and reporting the content there - the hosters immediately followed through - terabytes of abuse were deleted. The admins of the forum even spoke with the journalists and told them, literally no one cared before and the whole userbase was caught in surprise.
Not-so-much-fun facts: IIRC that site had millions of accounts registered; apparently at least 1% of men are attracted to children; it's been mostly non-commercial, user-made abuse material - strongly motivated by that community's demand.
The journalists concluded: It's not enough to persecute individuals and gather evidence. It is absolutely imperative to disrupt those communities, too, as those sick people not just consume abuse material, they very much actively promote the abuse itself in their interactions. Now, it's not single hit, lasting solution, but requires constant effort. However terabytes of abuse material are not moved in an instant, and they are surely not delivered via Tor to literally millions of people. Apparently it takes about two people, who know Python, to take down a platform like that. (The argument of destroying evidence is moot, as you can easily do both, within law enforcement capabilities.)
TL;DR: Before everyone's privacy and democratic distribution of power are getting compromised, ... maybe lets make sure law enforcement is actually doing their job first.
Prosecuting members of the ruling class in this country is a whole separate issue, and one that I'm sure we are in total agreement on sans the "well if rich people are above the law why can't everyone be too" take.