Posted on 04/28/2008 1:31:54 PM PDT by newgeezer
... He ... heard a pounding at his door. ... Police officers ... massed outside. Visors covered their faces. They rushed in, pushed him onto his sofa and announced that they had a warrant.
...
Child pornography, said a policeman.
Oh, God, the man thought.
... It will take them a while to process the computer, the defense attorney said, and what happens next will depend upon what they find.... The man said they would find child pornography. ...
It seemed to him that people who molested children often got less time than men who possessed child pornography.
...
So how did a "good guy" get in this situation? He said he had a habit that many people might find disgusting. He watched pornography on the Internet. (... Family Safe Media estimates that worldwide, there are 72 million visitors monthly to pornographic sites. ...)
... The first time he accessed a video containing child pornography, he did not realize what he was getting. Then he began seeking them out. He knew it was wrong, but he ... said he never entered a chat room, never conversed with anybody about any of this, never thought about abusing a child.
...
The people he told ... were shocked, but understanding, ... They know me, and they know this doesn't define me, he said.
Still, when the indictment comes, it will mean public humiliation, and then, almost certainly, prison. When that is over, he will have to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life.
...
... investigators have a list of 22,000 Internet addresses in Missouri that have offered pornographic images of children, but the state lacks the resources to check them all out. ...
(Excerpt) Read more at stltoday.com ...
It does seem odd, though, if a child porn possessor would get a longer sentence than a child molester. And, if downloading is enough to land him in the sex offender registry, I suppose it's more evidence that the registry is a good idea gone bad. Then again, it's not as if he was only caught peeing behind a bush.
It's like the system sees no difference between someone who has committed a violent sex crime and somebody who has simply viewed this stuff in his own home, he said.
Nice try but, unless I'm mistaken, the registry will list your crime(s). If the system really saw no difference, every registrant would simply be a "sex offender" with no further explanation. Be glad that anyone who cares can see you're not a (convicted) child molester.
He knew it was wrong, but he thought that since he was not paying for these videos, he was not really contributing to the exploitation of children.
Good luck with that.
They know me, and they know this doesn't define me, he said.
Yeah, right. They only thought they knew you.
Perhaps we should spend more resources trying to catch the people who make these videos instead of spending them on the people who view them. But nobody would want to suggest that because nobody wants to appear to be defending a person who views this stuff. It's easier to think of them as monsters — until you meet one.
Anyone who understands capitalism knows that supply will ALWAYS strive to meet demand. Supply-side prosecution will never be enough. Look at the failed "war on drugs" for all the proof you'll ever need. The key is to eliminate demand. Only then will the supply diminish.
So, yes, go after the producers. But, if you don't squash the customers, there will always be new producers to meet the continuing demand for the product.
Oh, please.
"The first time Billy snorted cocaine, he didn't realize it was cocaine that he was snorting."
Sounds like the writer of the piece is quite sympathetic to pervs like this. Yes, the producers of the stuff are worse, but it’s pervs who like to view it that keep them in business. Yes, I’d like to see them get more of the producers, but this jerk should be punished as well.
Nice touch for him to invoke the Almighty when the cops announced the reason for their call. s/
What is needed is a hotline for reporting abuse
if you spot something like this on the internet you can immediately call a number to report it
it helps law enforcment all around to have people turn in the places they find this stuff, and makes it quiker to ‘traingulate’ though the web
Oh, I can believe that. I went to a website the other day looking for a search and sexual images popped up. They had tagged it with innocuous terms for their purposes.
But continuing? When you watch child porn,what you are watching is a child getting emotionally and perhaps physically devastated. It’s like tearing the wings off flies.
The worst perpetrators involve homosexuals entering schools to try and sell their disgusting perversion to grade school kids and getting away with it.
Oh, please.
While in this situation such a claim is questionable, but overall, it is a valid statement to make. Also, just the mear fact a single child porn photo has been viewed on a computer is enough to send someone to prison if authorities push it.
So imagine someone has a real bad grudge against someone. Emails them an attachment and they claim it to be something else entirely. The person opens and views the attachment. Bam. Its on the computer. The person with a grudge files a report secretly with police, they search and find it. You are done.
hmmm...I was thinking of a different place to make the "cut off" in the effort to fight child porn.
I cannot relate to anyone who is sexually aroused by looking at images of children. I am baffled by it, as I am baffled by this reporter’s obvious attempt at generating sympathy.
Child pornographers are the world’s greatest at documenting their crimes.
“I accidentally visited a site”
“What about the 200 DVD’s we found?”
“I accidentally made those”
That seems to imply that he got caught because he was sharing material; not only downloading it.
The police will not bust you for one file. They are smarter than that. You cannot control which attachments you receive.
I have no sympathy for this guy, either, or anyone else like him, but it seems to me that with the laws the way they are, it would be extremely easy to frame someone you didn’t like for this stuff............
P2P users are rank and file idiots.
No, I believe him on that much. I inadvertently downloaded child pornography once, and the difference between me and this guy is that he sought out more, and I called the police. The police were totally uninterested btw.
He likely was downloading torrents and didn't realize that by default you are involved in the distribution of them by so doing.
Ignorant is curable, but stupid is not.
“...nobody wants to appear to be defending a person who views this stuff. It’s easier to think of them as monsters — until you meet one.”
Does this guy think molesters sit around watching reruns of old cooking shows or something?
When the child molesters were caught on camera none viewed themselves as really bad people. But how many of them do you think were deeply involved with child pornography? Maybe monsters is too mild a word after you meet one.
These are U.S. agencies for reporting Child Pornography.
Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section
Criminal Division
U.S. Department of Justice
1331 F Street NW, 6th Floor
Washington DC 20004
Phone: 202-514-5780
www.usdoj.gov/criminal/ceos/
The Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section (CEOS) of the Criminal Division, U.S. Department of Justice, has supervisory responsibility for Federal statutes covering obscenity, child exploitation, child sexual abuse, activities under the Mann Act, sex tourism, missing and abducted children, and child support recovery.
Innocent Images National Initiative
Federal Bureau of Investigation
www.fbi.gov/hq/cid/cac/innocent.htm
The Innocent Images National Initiative (IINI), a component of the FBI’s Cyber Crimes Program, is an intelligence-driven, proactive, multi-agency investigative initiative to combat the proliferation of child pornography/child sexual exploitation facilitated by an online computer.
ICE Cyber Crimes Center
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement
Toll-free: 1-866-DHS-2ICE
/www.ice.gov/graphics/investigations/services/cyberbranch.htm
U.S. Postal Inspection Service
Inspection Service Operations Support Group
222 S. Riverside Plaza, Suite 1250
Chicago, IL 60606-6100
www.usps.com/postalinspectors/kid-porn.htm
That's because it's one of those "Hey, look what we found!" add-on charges they can make stick to somebody they really want for crimes the Federal Government considers truly heinous, like tax evasion or drug trafficking without paying political kickbacks. Easy to plant the evidence, destroys all public sympathy for the defendant, and guarantees a long enough sentence to keep the inconvenient perpetator off the streets for a while.
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