Framed as crime scene evidence, it is kind of strange that simply possessing it, for any reason, is a serious crime worth decades in prison. The pedophiles are

Framed as crime scene evidence, it is kind of strange that simply possessing it, for any reason, is a serious crime worth decades in prison. The pedophiles are voluntarily taking pictures and videos of themselves committing crimes and sharing it on the internet. I am sure that if internet sleuths were allowed to investigate such material, like law enforcement is, many, many more child abusers would ultimately get caught. Distributing it should obviously still be illegal, but banning simple possession doesn't stop traffickers (obviously) and eliminates an enormous free workforce of amateur sleuths who I am sure would seriously help the problem. They have helped solved many cold case murders that police never could. It's kind of creepy in a way when you think about it. No other crime scene evidence is guarded in that way. Is it illegal to possess photos/videos of someone getting stabbed, shot, beheaded, etc? Surely there are people who derive sexual pleasure from that material too, yet it proliferates and no one really cares. It's almost as if the powers that be REALLY don't want the general public to know who's behind some of this stuff. We already know very rich and powerful people are routinely involved in child sex rings... And the AI image generation stuff makes it even more dangerous and ridiculous. So we're approaching a time when someone can just generate some images locally with stable diffusion or whatever of what looks like CSAM (but no actual children involved), get it into your possession (either remotely or just dropping an SD card in your house somewhere you don't see) and now you are liable for decades in prison...hopefully you don't have any enemies.