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The buzz is that this is even more widespread than we know----and that Congressional staff members are also preying on youngsters.

Government officials and employees on government workstations engaged in the viewing and downloading of pornography, or child porn, and using government resources to conduct such activities must be investigated.

Authorities have prosecuted cases where individuals engaged in activities centering on the internet (where porn is rampant). People have been indicted for viewing and downloading internet pornography including male and female child porn, frequenting internet chat rooms to engage in conversations with children, perhaps arranging to meet underage male and female children for the purposes of engaging in sexual activity.........and bringing underage children across state lines for sexual activity.

The use of government resources for such activities coerced taxpayers into underwriting the commission of crimes against children without their knowledge or consent, which constitutes the crime of second degree coercion of taxpayers.

I hope the "buzz" is correct and as many as possible of the child molesters and sodomites in D.C. are made known, and prosecuted to the fullest extent for any criminal activities.

Foley should be castrated for his repugnant behavior. But, Liz, I will tell you what is also appalling - the moral equivocation from a lot of Republicans. They willingly shed any sense of decency when they state things such as, 'the legal age of consent in D.C. is sixteen', as if that exonerates Foley!
Republicans are being very dishonest, and they will learn, hopefully sooner rather than later, that they cannot remain viable whilst standing on feet of clay.

"Man was destined for society. His morality, therefore, was to be formed to this object. He was endowed with a sense of right and wrong merely relative to this. This sense is as much a part of his nature, as the sense of hearing, seeing, feeling; it is the true foundation of morality... The moral sense, or conscience, is as much a part of man as his leg or arm. It is given to all human beings in a stronger or weaker degree, as force of members is given them in a greater or less degree. It may be strengthened by exercise, as may any particular limb of the body. This sense is submitted indeed in some degree to the guidance of reason; but it is a small stock which is required for this: even a less one than what we call Common sense. State a moral case to a ploughman and a professor. The former will decide it as well, and often better than the latter, because he has not been led astray by artificial rules." --Thomas Jefferson to Peter Carr, 1787.

...frequenting internet chat rooms to engage in conversations with children, perhaps arranging to meet underage male and female children for the purposes of engaging in sexual activity.........and bringing underage children across state lines for sexual activity.

These Dateline shows are amazing. Perps will drive for hours to get their hands on what they think is a 13-year-old. Every one of them is interviewed, arrested and carted off to face a bail of $50,000.

Part II of their California sting is on this week. Dateline NBC - "To Catch a Predator", Fri Oct 06 09:00pm EDT

The TV Watch
Gotcha! 'Dateline' Paves a Walk of Shame for Online Predators
By ALESSANDRA STANLEY
Published: May 17, 2006

The "Dateline" correspondent Chris Hansen unmasks computer users hiding behind their screen names in "To Catch a Predator," tonight.

In 70's movies like "Death Wish," Charles Bronson hunted down criminals and deviants with a gun. NBC's "Dateline" uses the Internet and chocolate-chip cookies. Both methods offer the instant gratification of vigilante justice, but now the fictional version has been revamped as reality television: "Punk'd" for perverts.

"Dateline" works with a civilian watchdog group and local law enforcement to unmask would-be pedophiles using Internet sting operations. An adult poses as a teenage boy or girl online and invites a predator for a tryst. The suspect finds himself in a cozy suburban kitchen filled with snacks, only to discover the "Dateline" correspondent Chris Hansen and hidden cameras lying in wait. Since the first installment of "To Catch a Predator" on "Dateline" in 2004, all kinds of men have fallen into the trap, including a rabbi from Potomac, Md., who thought he was going to have sex with a teenage boy. Many suspects are passive and astonishingly candid when confronted: a testimony, perhaps, to the hypnotic powers of a television camera.

These raw, unscripted spectacles of men caught sweaty-handed were such a hit that "Dateline" has made "Predator" a recurring feature, usually timed to a sweeps week. The current one, set in Florida, concludes tonight at 9 Eastern and Pacific times with yet another group of would-be gropers who are offered a cookie, surprised and dressed down by Mr. Hansen, and then tackled to the sidewalk and handcuffed by police.

Television entrapment isn't new: the "Dateline" segments echo Mike Wallace's hidden-camera ambushes on "60 Minutes" in the 70's. Those fell from favor after the decade passed, but NBC's sting operations have found new traction in a era of Minutemen groups rounding up illegal immigrants along the Mexican border and self-styled anticrime crusaders who have their own watchdog television programs, from John Walsh's "America's Most Wanted" to the prosecutorial scoldings of the three cable-news crime divas: Nancy Grace, Rita Cosby and Greta Van Susteren.

Violent crime is down since the 1970's, but the public's fear of more insidious, high-tech perils stokes the ratings of vigilante television.

The "Predator" segments are as seedy and fascinatingly repellant as the suspected predators they showcase. The suspects are seemingly ordinary men, many married with children, many middle-aged and portly. A few, like a mild-looking man in his late 40's whose screen name is, aptly, "GenericWhiteMale," send their Internet prey pictures of their genitals — and sagging, hairy bellies — demonstrating, at the very least, a delusional level of self-confidence.

On last week's episode GenericWhiteMale sauntered into the house wearing glasses, a yellow tank top and shorts. When the decoy, an actress posing as the 15-year-old girl, invited him to have a cookie while she got ready, he sat down, helping himself with the expectant complacency of a blood donor waiting for his well-earned reward.

He seemed only mildly surprised when Mr. Hansen walked into the kitchen instead of his teenage date. "Is this some kind of setup or something?" he asked.

An equally generic middle-aged man whose Internet pseudonym is "Donni1957" seemed almost resigned when confronted by Mr. Hansen; he had seen "Predator" episodes before. "I know this is probably going to be on 'Dateline,' too," he says mournfully. "So go ahead, put it on." He admitted he would probably have had sex with the underage girl if she had been willing. "Yes, I do see things wrong with it," he conceded. "But I have a lack of judgment." He said it as if that were a medical condition, like diabetes, which, it turned out, he did have. Later, in jail, he was treated for diabetic shock. (Cookies were another bad idea.)

NBC ran into a little trouble over a series taped in Ohio last April when it was revealed that "Dateline" had paid the group Perverted Justice $100,000 for assistance in that operation. "Dateline" was accused of checkbook journalism, which technically would be correct if the cheesy magazine program actually rose to the level of journalism. At best, it's a tabloid-entertainment show with a muckraking streak. NBC easily shrugged off the ethical questions, and went on to set new traps in Florida.

Those who raise questions about entrapment, on the other hand, have a point. It is hard to tell from the program whether the suspects are active predators intent on luring children into offline sexual encounters or kinky fantasists tempted by "Dateline" into crossing a line. (Their Web names alone tend to sound incriminating, however. One calls himself "Importuner81.") "Dateline" tries to back up its allegations. One man kept yelling, "We were in a role-playing chat room, dude," his way of saying that he had reason to believe that his online correspondent was pretending to be a teenager for kicks. Mr. Hansen somberly informs viewers that, in fact, it was a romance site.

However sensationalist and unsavory, "Predator" is hard to fault; its targets deserve worse than a "Dateline" walk of shame. But the program's success seems to be inspiring others to try their own brand of ambush journalism. The "Today" show recently recruited a private investigator to put a hidden camera in a BMW and test the honesty of valet-parking attendants in Los Angeles. "To Catch a Glove-Compartment Pilferer" doesn't have quite the same pizazz.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/17/arts/television/17stan.html?ex=1305518400&en=c239ee9d5e2e673c&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss