@bot You seem to have chopped out 2 sentences instead of including the context of the full quote.

The quote is here: https://stallman.org/archives/2011-may-aug.html#4_June_2011_(Border_Searches)

The topic was about why unreasonable searches of laptops shouldn't be permitted.


What he is writing seems to first be about a theoretical case about two post-pubescent minors (say 17 years old), stupidly, but consentely distributing unclothed photos between each other, with one later turning 18, crossing the border, having the laptop searched, with the photos found, leading to an arrest for a cp offense.

Clearly such photos shouldn't have been taken and there was some potential harm, but such offense doesn't qualify for a "heinous offense", although the 18 year old is likely going to be hit with a jail term disproportionate to the crime anyway.


In the next lines rms's ultimate high functioning shadow autism kicks in, where he figured that having a photo of someone that happens to be unclothed, whether that's a 18 year old, 17 year old or a pre-pubiscent child isn't likely to hurt anyone (failing to realize the potential for harm) and thus he figures censorship of such photos can't be justified, even though he may find such kind of photos disgusting.

In my opinion those kind of photos shouldn't be taken and there is a future potential for harm, but even so, the potential of finding those sort of images doesn't justify the unlawful searching of all laptops at the border - searches should only happen if there's a legitimate suspicion of illegal files stored and a warrant is gained.

It doesn't seem that rms was writing about the most harmful and abhorrent kinds of images that do deserve long jail terms for possession, due to the very real potential for harm by sickos who want more and will produce more of those kinds of images.


I don't have any children, but if I did, I wouldn't be worried about leaving him with them for a short while (noting that he shall talk about age appropriate topics only), as he'd just tell them about free software and software patents etc.