93c Venner Road, Sydenham, London SE26 5HU. 020 8659 7713 E-Mail A_Baron@ABaron.Demon.Co.UK December 11, 2003 Dear Sir, I am writing to you on a matter of some concern. Like most Internet users I am deluged with spam and unsolicited E-mails. Many of these are of a sexual or even pornographic nature advertising penis enlargement formulae, photographs and hard core videos. Some of these "porno-spams" have no headings, some come apparently from known users, some have innocuous or misleading headings. Most, fortunately, do not contain actual photographs but simply links to websites, or advertisements. A while ago I received an E-mail which advertised under-age boys engaged in sexual activity. I clicked on it and it contained a photograph of what could have been an under-age boy performing fellatio. I was concerned about this and immediately contacted my ISP. The Demon helpline told me to forward the headers from the message to abuse@demon.net, but not to forward the actual image, and under no circumstances to save it. I posted a message about this to Usenet and was informed by one correspondent that I probably wouldn't be breaking the law by receiving the E-mail, something I found less than reassuring. I would be most grateful if you could clarify the legal position, not just for my benefit but for the benefit of all Internet users. In particular, what should people do if they receive such photographs? Should they save them to hard disk and forward them to the police? Should they delete them at once? Should they report them to their ISP? What if an apparently innocuous E-mail contains one? Is one committing a criminal offence by opening an E-mail under any circumstances, and if so what? It is estimated that a third of all British households now have access to the Internet; in practice Internet users are probably in the majority. This is therefore an extremely important legal matter. I have enclosed a page from a recent issue of the Times weekend magazine. Although horrific, this extremely well-known photograph of a naked girl from the Vietnam War is not construed as pornographic. Occasionally too we are assailed with naked children on TV and even on advertisement hoardings, usually advertising toilet roll or some such. As ignorance of the law is no excuse and as we have recently had media hysteria over paedophiles, it should be possible to lay down clear and unambiguous guidelines about what constitutes a criminal offence under these circumstances, and I would be most grateful if you could do this. Yours Sincerely, A Baron
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