Posted on 06/09/2004 8:59:40 AM PDT by KentTrappedInLiberalSeattle
The credit card "ban" won't work. You can get prepaid MasterCards from vending machines these days.
Credit card companies will fight it. Child porn is cash cow for these scumbags.
How traegic. (British spelling)
In this country this would be thrown out as entrapment.
Visiting a website that claims to offer illegal images and offering it your credit card number is not a crime--or should not be.
Actual crimes involve actual harm to people or society. What this 'crime' is is a "thought crime", worthy of 1984.
Suppose they could read the minds of people on the street, and detect a person with pedophilic tendencies--but who had never acted on them. Could they arrest him? For what crime?
--Boris
The very essence of Big Brother, unconstitutional, and an extremely bad idea.
The very essence of Big Brother, unconstitutional, and an extremely bad idea.
And it goes on every day. The constitution is not just a joke, it is an old joke to these folks.
Jiminy, you people scare me.
Just what we need. Socialist law enforcment being promoted on a global basis while we are fighting communisum, also on a global basis.
I sometimes try to fathom what this country would be like if the fed gov EVER got their $h1+ together.
If the websight is going to loose money will they switch to money orders?
I cannot imagine why. We punish the act, not the thought. At least in civilized societies we do.
If something does not happen (such as the downloading of porn) then what is the crime? Visiting a site that claims it contains porn? Presenting a credit card? Obtaining access but not downloading anything? If there is no victim, no actual harm to society (the site was a sting, right?), what is the crime?
A friend of mine called me once. Her accountant, a man in his 50s, nice family, good income, was arrested for trying to arrange an encounter (on Santa Monica Pier!) with a policewoman masquerading as an underaged person. No sex actually occurred. Nobody touched anybody, except when they put the cuffs on him. OK, he is a slimebucket, but please...again...tell me what crime was committed and against whom? What actual person was harmed or placed in threat of harm? IMHO this is plain nuts.
I understand that in England in the Middle ages, it was common to try and convict--and then punish--animals. Say a man was butted in the head by a goat and died. They'd try, convict, and put the goat to death. We do not do that today because we realize that intent to do harm must go together with an actual harm. "State of NY versus Billy Goat" we (so far) ain't got. The goat isn't charged because it is incapable of forming the intent. Mr. Perv (in his head) who does nothing to anyone is not charged (or should not be) because he did not actually do anything. This should be transparently clear.
We are (literally) losing our grip on reality...and little by little, "thought crime" is becoming a reality.
--Boris
The same crime that was committed when you hire a hit man or extort money from someone. We are trying to PREVENT crime. We don't want to wait until there is a victim before we act because it may be too late.
The pervert tried to download child porn. He just wasn't successful. That is a crime. We stopped him BEFORE he was able to create victim.
OK I am not a lawyer but hiring a hit man--without actually consummating the murder--would be charged as conspiracy, it seems to me.
In the case of extortion, there is actual harm to an actual person in the attempt.
Firing a bullet at somebody and missing is a crime because it is attempted murder (by a bad shot). Also it scares the piss out of the intended victim.
My thought experiment was: what if you went all the way up to the point of downloading and then did not download anything? Especially from a site specifically set up as a sting. What crime has been committed?
It seems to me that you are not trying to PREVENT crime--you are trying to prevent THINKING ABOUT COMMITTING A CRIME.
I'm thinking about robbing a bank right now. Who you gonna call?
--Boris
Let's make this perfectly clear. In the case of the Santa Monica Pier incident, there was a fictional person, who was portrayed online by a male police officer. The male police officer is not the victim. A fictional person cannot be a victim. And since no contact occurred between the decoy and the 'offender' then she is not a victim either. (Furthermore she is an adult, not a child.) So tell me again: what crime was committed and against whom?
--Boris
He gave them his credit card so he was conspiring to obtain child porn. The only reason he didn't get the porn was because it was not there. But he thought it was. That's the crime. He purchased child porn.
I'm thinking about robbing a bank right now. Who you gonna call?
Give me your credit card number and show me your are serious about it.
You don't necessarily need a victim. You have a perpetrator.
First: a party of one cannot 'conspire'. Is it your position that he was "conspiring" with the police department?? If so would not the police department also be a defendant in the case?
Second: notice the words 'he thought it was'. So if I buy a bag of oregano from you but think is is marijuana then I am guilty of...buying herbal spices. Any argument that depends upon what you think the other guy thinks must fail unless telepathy has suddenly become possible.
Third: evidently he tried to purchace the right to download child porn, which is something quite different from actually downloading it.
"The only reason he did not get the porn was that it was not there!" Sounds like a line from Monty Python. The only reason I did not rob that bank was that they were closed when I got there!
How about this: the crime was committing fraud by selling a nonexistent product!
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