Posted on 08/14/2007 4:27:34 AM PDT by Dudoight
The show was an instant success. It lured would-be child-sex predators to a public shaming, delivered by a handsome host. Ratings, awards and even praise from members of Congress followed. But now Dateline NBC's "To Catch a Predator" series is taking heat. And so is the police chief of the Collin County town that hosted it eight months ago. The troubles stem from the show's visit to Murphy, where more than 20 people were arrested but escaped prosecution because of evidence problems. Also a former district attorney ensnared in the sting shot himself.
(Excerpt) Read more at dallasnews.com ...
The video is the judge. Who decided the facts when the video of Klebold and Harris was shown after Columbine? Who decided the facts when the video was shown of the TWin Towers coming down? The OJ car chase? The Detroit Pistons fight? The Rodney King riots?
These guys were not strolling down the streets and were ambushed. They showed up to meet the victim. They walked into the videotape of their own free will.
From a randomly created screenname? I would be shocked by that. Anyone can use that name.
I'm not sure how to stop the "spread of perversion" into this country - using your example, the spread of pornography. I am certain that legislating morality is likely not the way to do it. So long as it involves consenting adults of sound mind...I don't think it should be outlawed - and let me tell you why (at least anecdotally...)
My wife's friend is a raging liberal. We're talking kook, lunatic fringe here. She's works as Assistant Dean of Students at a large university. Not long ago she was discussing a Baptist Student Organization that she had more-or-less chased off campus....she just used the existing regs at hand to make it so that it was more convenient for them to meet in a church immediately off campus, rather than right on it. She was pretty proud of her accomplishment, because they were "Intolerant Bigots" and "Wierd".
Her next topic of discussion was the new LGBTQ center that she was promoting on campus, and how proud she was of it. (if you don't know, LGBTQ is Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Questioning...)
I stopped her right there and said something like..."You want to get rid of Baptists because they're 'wierd', but yet you fully support people who don't know WHAT SEX THEY ARE!!!!???" She said, "Yup", without a trace of smugness or sarcasm. She had absolutely no concept of the dichotomy of thought, and was certain that what she was doing was completely correct.
Intolerance and religious zealotry are not the sole domain of the right, I'm afraid. And I think that backing either side's moral standards with legislative might is generally a bad thing. As for me, I always am very very dubious about people that do things "For My Own Good", because they'll do them with a completely clear conscience.
MySpace is installing software that identifies adults pretending to be children through their grammar, usage and vocabulary. These programs are remarkably effective, detecting approximately 90% of adults pretending to be children.
If a software program can do it, can’t a person? Perhaps some of these guys discerned that the decoy really was not thirteen years old.
They are still idiots, I will grant you. They are still perverts, even. But are they criminals?
This many stupid predators being caught speaks of how many smart and really smart ones are out there.. Obviously they don’t go to mostly queer web sites.. else the haul of predators would crash the site.. and overwhelm the cops..
Yes they are criminals because they conspire to commit a crime. As we have seen from the show, they aren’t shy about committing the crime.
For every pervert, there is a victim. I KNOW some of the victims. 13 year-old girls who think it is cool to talk trash to men online. Even sexually explicit stuff. It really does happen. I expect adults to know better.
Note: I have a 13 year-old daughter and some of her friends got busted for it. Mostly Myspace and Facebook stuff.
Suppose, for the sake of argument, a man had the MySpace software installed on his machine, and it indicated, with certainty, that the adult decoy pretending to be a minor that he was corresponding with was not a minor. Suppose, further, than in his communications, the adult decoy exhibits knowledge of events from before she was supposedly born, and uses sophisticated language and usage that would further indicate that she is, in fact, an adult.
Would this man be committing a crime by corresponding in a sexually explicit manner with an adult who he, in fact, thought was an adult all along?
He’s still a moron, I will grant you. A pervert even. But if he was genuinely convinced that the decoy is an adult and the decoy is in fact an adult, how can there be a crime?
I understand that, and I am not condoning it. NBC should release the information when appropriate. I don’t think they can do that when it is part of an ongoing investigation?
But in this specific case they had enough to convince a prosecutor to go to a judge and get a warrant. The evidence had to be convincing, or else the judge and prosecutor are somehow part of the conspiracy, or plain stupid.
I am certain that your daughter wouldn't do something like this, if only because you're interested enough in what she's doing to know things like this. But to ask the obvious question...where are the other parents?
Granted, when I was 13, none of this technology existed. But I can't imagine the having the opportunity (never mind the motive) to "talk trash to men (women, in my case) online" for an extended period of time. Mom and Dad were pretty permissive, but they had a solid idea of pretty much where I was and everything that I had going on.
I guess to me, that's the way to change the moral center of the country....one kid at a time. My kids won't have the motive or opportunity to do stuff like this. Setting that standard and expecting my own kids to live up to it is a good start. Hopefully, their friends will follow the example my kids set.
No if he is sure it is an adult, he is clear. He cannot role play with a minor though. If she says she is 13 and he responds as if she is 13, he is in trouble.
My daughter’s friends were claiming to be 17. That would negate the crime. However, if the adult mailed a naked picture to the minor, it doesn’t matter how old he thinks the person is. It’s still a crime. That’s why you should never do it. It’s like giving beer to a minor.
The two don't have to be mutually exclusive, and I don't see how they are in this case.
I’m not sticking up for the pervs, but law enforcement should do their job without all the fanfare BS.
So law enforcement should refuse to cooperate if a private organization chooses to do all the investigative work and collect the evidence of a crime? Are you saying that the police should just ignore the evidence that has been gathered?
Private individuals do not have to sit back and wait until the police find out that people are committing crimes and see if the police ever gather evidence to charge these people. Private individuals cannot violate the law in their attempts to gather evidence of a crime, but it doesn't appear that NBC was violating the law.
My mistake I went back and they did have his e mail and phone number.
I’m afraid to say that sometimes the parents help girls create accounts and even help their friends. I know girls who spend the whole day alone at home while parents work.
My daughter knows there are no such things as secrets on the computer. That includes me as well. All our computers are open. Mine is in my office because everyone complains about the shooting from Call of Duty but I usually keep the door open.
It is hard to raise children and keep them away from the perverted pron/drugs/violence messages pushed on them in the media. Those who attack efforts to catch these predators reveal their own secret or not so secret agenda.
NBC cares not a whit about your or anybody else’s children. They want ratings — period.
If private individuals have information about criminal activity, of course they should report it to law enforcement.
The question is how active should private citizens be in identifying criminal activity. Does that include setting up a private facility to spend time and money on the net trolling for pervs?
Wouldn’t a better solution be for parents to monitor their children’s internet activities just like they watch them in a public park or at a mall?
I don’t know. I don’t think it is too much to ask for adults to quit using children as sexual toys.
That took place in a blue state. :)
All our computers are open. Best way to do it. Our PC is in the living room, and generally, I work on my laptop in the TV room. Although - I'll sometimes take it into another room if I need to concentrate (my tech work is a little concentration-intensive, occasionally. not much room for mistakes....).
There was a previous poster (#254, right above) that more-or-less proved my point, vis-a-vis moral fanaticism. As someone who's not 100% in favor of the methods used in this show, I have a "secret agenda"...or a "not-so-secret agenda". Whatever that is.
On a totally unrelated note, what do you think of Call of Duty? Usually, I wind up getting a game, playing with it for a day or two, then not looking at it ever again - so I don't invest in them very often. Call of Duty, though, piqued my interest.
COD is a great game that is easy to play online. I don’t play Single Player anymore. I only play the PC version. I have not heard good things about the console version. COD requires a fairly decent video card. Nothing major. I was able to play COD 1 on a Radeon 7000. My kids have a low-end card and it plays COD2 well. I can usually be found on the MoG servers.
Pick up the demos from Fileplanet and give it a shot.
Precisely. It is like the prostituting of the police force into some form of Mexican federales..
Did you see any of the Channel 8 videos on Google yet?
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