It's a very unpopular opinion, but I have argued that mere possession of bona fide child pornography should not be illegal. My primary reasoning is based on the ultimate futility of trying to police bits. And I think the argument that not punishing the consumers of it would encourage the production of more is specious - in fact I'd imagine enough has already been produced to satiate demands, and allowing the easy distribution of pictures would actually get evidence of new production into the hands of law enforcement quicker. But I obviously don't have a direct stake in that argument, besides knowing that all of the easy-to-persecute malinterpretations are ongoing injustices (eg having any pornography without explicit documentation that all participants are >=18, having your computer hacked and used as a proxy, inadvertently coming across it on a general website are all harshly illegal)
But I don't agree that we should somehow appreciate this practice because it can highlight other bad laws. Fishing expeditions function whether the laws are sensible or not. You can modify my above catfishing scenario for whatever happens to be illegal. Even if the images are fine, keep going with texts that show an intent to meet up. Even if no meet up occurred, it's still a big hassle. The setup is basically DIY entrapment for whatever crime you want to design.
The problem is not merely being caught up by other bad laws, but Cardinal Richelieu's old "If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him." The unfounded search is the problem, as it focuses police attention on the victim as a new potential criminal to investigate.
But I don't agree that we should somehow appreciate this practice because it can highlight other bad laws. Fishing expeditions function whether the laws are sensible or not. You can modify my above catfishing scenario for whatever happens to be illegal. Even if the images are fine, keep going with texts that show an intent to meet up. Even if no meet up occurred, it's still a big hassle. The setup is basically DIY entrapment for whatever crime you want to design.
The problem is not merely being caught up by other bad laws, but Cardinal Richelieu's old "If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him." The unfounded search is the problem, as it focuses police attention on the victim as a new potential criminal to investigate.