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Is Peter Townshend Really a Criminal?
self | 1-13-03 | WL-law

Posted on 01/13/2003 11:00:09 AM PST by WL-law

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To: WL-law
I mean, There will be no shortage of sycophants and enablers such as yourself to ensure he is comfortable and fawned over the rest of his lfe.
41 posted on 01/13/2003 6:19:54 PM PST by Kevin Curry
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To: WL-law
So what makes you think that this transaction didn't begin with a solicitation?

While the whole ordeal with Pete could have started with a Pop-Up solicitation, the fact that he accepted it by clicking to the actual site and making purchases makes him culpable.

Also, in regard to your "end-user" issue, think about marijuana. Under current U.S. law, the end-user is usually charged with possession of pot if caught. Why not the end-user of child porn as well? The same law of supply and demand applies. Stop the demand and the supply dries up.

(BTW, I'm a big WHO fan as well, and certainly hope that Pete is telling the truth. But if he isn't then he should have to face the consequences.

42 posted on 01/13/2003 6:19:55 PM PST by peteram
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To: wtc911
I know of no decent people anywhere who allow or excuse even the slighest sexual use of or insult to children.

Oh by the way, if you read my comments carefully you will certainly see that NOWHERE do I condone the sexual abuse of children.

It is a # of important degrees of separation from the creator of such porn to someone who may - innocently! - end up with such images in erased/deleted files on their computer. I've gone through the scenarios where that can happen, and nobody has seriously refuted my conclusion.

Now I also give Townshend the benefit of the doubt -- and some other threads have even found written statements he made on his own website a year earlier -- that he was upset about the child porn on the web, its easy access, etc. So I am inclined, based on that verifiable and good hard evidence, that this is a more complicated case than many here would see it.

43 posted on 01/13/2003 6:22:27 PM PST by WL-law
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To: WL-law
From another article posted tonight from Fox News:

The Who's Pete Townshend has been arrested in Britain for suspicion of making and possessing indecent images of children and of incitement to distribute indecent images of children, relating to research he claims to have been doing on the subject via the Internet.

The Fox 411 has obtained an impassioned letter Townshend wrote and posted to his own Web site a year ago — and since deleted — which may or may not demonstrate that he was doing what he said he was doing.

Titled "A Different Bomb," Townshend discusses his own difficult childhood at the hands of a domineering grandmother. He writes about the suicide of a friend who was the victim of child abuse, and then observes: "On the issue of child-abuse, the climate in the press, the police, and in Government in the U.K. at the moment is one of a witch-hunt."

"The world of which I speak is that of the abusive pedophile. The window of 'freedom' of entry to that world is of course the Internet. There is hardly a man I know who uses computers who will not admit to surfing casually sometimes to find pornography. I have done it. Certainly, one expects only to find what is available on the top shelf at the news agents."

Townshend, possibly to his own detriment, exhibits in this article a wide range of knowledge on this subject.

Hardly your garden-variety pedophile, IMHO.

44 posted on 01/13/2003 6:25:55 PM PST by WL-law
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To: WL-law
'I'm sure there's no warning label at the site he visited, for instance.'

Didn't he use his credit card to access said site?

45 posted on 01/13/2003 6:27:28 PM PST by new cruelty (Read this tagline, then see the movie!)
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To: sharktrager
From what I understand, he wrote an essay about all this on his website a year ago. He discussed buying the stuff, the need for tighter controls over the distribution of child pornography and his suspicions regarding his own abuse as a child.

I don't know if this exonerates him or not. Roy Cohn used to say some pretty bad things about gays, and he died of AIDS. Maybe Townsend's essays were just a way of rationalizing his own perversion. It does seem like the media is yet again going off half cocked (bad pun, I know) and selectively reporting the facts. That isn't fair.

46 posted on 01/13/2003 6:33:50 PM PST by Skip Ripley
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To: WL-law
Driving an SUV is not against the law. Possession of child pornography is. There is nothing similar about it.

In some states, possession of child pornography is considered child sexual abuse...not sure about all states.

We had a case in our state where an OB GYN had a boatload of child porn...first claimed to be doing research for a book...was a crock of baloney. No notes, no research data...he typed up a book outline that a high school teacher would have flunked.

You must be a lawyer if you think criminal activities require a warning label or you get a pass...Ha Ha, good one. I go to banks all the time, stores...have yet to see a warning label that robbing them is illegal.

I doubt that they busted this guy for merely stumbling across a website with child porn...my guess is we will be astonished to hear the volume of child porn on his computer...but will take time...it all has to be examined.

No, you do not have to be in the chain of supply to be in violation of the law.
47 posted on 01/13/2003 6:36:58 PM PST by Jesse
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To: WL-law
'6) If they have a credit card transaction then they have the seller -- although they probably have a jurisdiction problem with that party (i.e., Russia).

That party is based in Texas.

'Operation Ore was launched last year after the US Postal Service found a website for paedophiles being operated by a Texas couple.

Investigators found 75,000 sub-scribers worldwide. In Britain up to 1,300 suspects have been arrested, including 50 police officers, a judge, a magistrate, dentists and a former deputy head teacher.'

48 posted on 01/13/2003 6:36:59 PM PST by new cruelty (Read this tagline, then see the movie!)
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To: WL-law
Yes
49 posted on 01/13/2003 6:39:49 PM PST by TruthFactor
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To: Lance Romance
Do you think it's alright

To leave the boy with Uncle Ernie?

50 posted on 01/13/2003 6:45:48 PM PST by Jim Noble
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To: WL-law
You are right in some cases this sort of "material could end up on your system 'uninvited', the best thing to do is alert the authorities.

BTW, Townsend's has been charged with possesion, distribution and production of child porn according to tv reports, far greater cupibility than possesion alone.

IMO voluntary possesion of material that by definition requires a crime to produce, makes the consumer an accesory to the crime.
51 posted on 01/13/2003 7:04:22 PM PST by Leto
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To: Jesse
You must be a lawyer if you think criminal activities require a warning label or you get a pass...Ha Ha, good one.

I suggest you do a little research on the concept of mens rea in the criminal law. Take a try with Google, but be careful that no child porn jumps up by mistake -- you MAY end up being a criminal!!

52 posted on 01/13/2003 7:08:50 PM PST by WL-law
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To: Leto
BTW, Townsend's has been charged with possesion, distribution and production of child porn according to tv reports, far greater cupibility than possesion alone.

Don't know anything about the distribution charge, and of course that makes it more serious.

BUT!!! --I know of a recent case where a student was charged -- and convicted of distribution of some sort of illegal material, where he had jpg files in a folder, and he also had a Kazaa - type program on his system. Conflating the two, 3rd parties were -- possibly unknown to the student -- able to download the files from his computer.

And -- guess what -- he was convicted of distributing the illegal material, expelled from college, sentenced, etc. All of this even although he may well have been "innocent" in thes sense of having a formed intention to commit a criminal act.

53 posted on 01/13/2003 7:16:18 PM PST by WL-law
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To: WL-law
So basically you are asking if we should prosecute the person who hires a hit man to commit murder.

And Clinton should not have been impeached but Monica thrown in jail.

Are you referencing Scottish law?

54 posted on 01/13/2003 7:22:25 PM PST by Diddle E. Squat
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To: WL-law
The guitarist went on, "I saw the first awful photo by accident. It repelled me and shocked me to my very core. I was not breaking the law at the time. This was in the winter of 1996-1997.

It was then illegal to download, which I did not do, not to search and view. I did not think using a credit card was illegal either at the time. As a public figure I would never have given details had I known I would be breaking U.K. law. I need to regain the trust of police and authorities involved in protecting children to continue to use my energies and determination to help what they do...Chasing after people like Gary Glitter (who's been convicted on child porn charges) is important, and it is important that the police are able to convince themselves that--if I did anything illegal--I did it purely for research. I am not a pedophile."

55 posted on 01/13/2003 7:31:29 PM PST by dennisw (http://www.littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/weblog.php)
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To: Diddle E. Squat
So basically you are asking if we should prosecute the person who hires a hit man to commit murder.

Well, except for getting the causation chain BACKWARDS!!! you make perfect sense (*sarcasm alert*). Nobody alleges that Townshend "commissioned" any illegal acts -- the acts had already occurred, since the pictures already existed!!

56 posted on 01/13/2003 7:31:47 PM PST by WL-law
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To: WL-law
And you are being absurd, comparing apples to oranges. Child porn just doesn't jump on your computer, and all the porn sites on pop ups are not child porn. You may not like it, but they are not illegal, just as driving an SUV is not illegal.

You get an A for obfuscation, though. You have the potential to be a great trial lawyer.
57 posted on 01/13/2003 7:44:10 PM PST by Jesse
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To: Jesse
And you are being absurd, comparing apples to oranges. Child porn just doesn't jump on your computer, and all the porn sites on pop ups are not child porn. You may not like it, but they are not illegal, just as driving an SUV is not illegal.

(Ahem! -- here's a secret -- I am already a [great] trial lawyer!)

But seriously -- let's try an experiment. I'll bet I can construct an innocent way that such images might appear. Let's say you're writing a paper on Nabokov's Lolita and you want to searcn the web for references. Try typing Lolita (and Nabokov)on Google and see what jumps up. Maybe you're shocked and you click on one of the references that has just poped up and you're not really sure what it means. Or maybe you're even amused and titillated, thinking, this can't be real. Then you click (and that's the criminal act - not an assault, a robbery, no criminal intention, just a ---!CLICK!) and your computer is BARRAGED with images, solicitions, etc, and the pictures are ALREADY THERE!!

Guess what -- you've already committed a crime, and most of the Freepers here responding are HAPPY WITH THAT OUTCOME! Unbelievable, in my opinion. And even if you immediately erase the file, its still on your hard drive and you still POSSESS it. And so you can't 'de-criminalize' yourself. Gee that's SWELL!

And it gets worse -- in those pop-up storms that you CANNOT shut down, one of the sites will slip some code into your system files and take over your homepage, and now every time you try to get on the internet, POW --Russian child porn! Did you know that one of Microsoft's recently released patches was an unsuccessful attempt to correct that system vulnerability, and that there is no real way to cure your system once it occurs except by a complete reload of the operating system?

Yes, this is all true -- I have clients in the industry and can verify ALL of this.

So there you have it -- and hence my defense of Townshend in the face of universal condemnation. I don't know if he is innocent, but I SURE don't know if he is guilty, although most here have reached that conclusion.

58 posted on 01/13/2003 8:05:51 PM PST by WL-law
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To: WL-law
You asked if Pete is really a criminal, and if an end user should be the proper focus of the authorities. Pete wanted the child porn, so he went out and purchased some. You seem to be arguing for giving him a pass, while prosecuting the provider. My example was of someone who wants a person murdered, but instead of doing it themselves, hires a hit man to be the provider. The person hiring the hit man is still the equivalent of an end user, since he is seeking a certain result. In both cases an intermediary is involved, yet in both cases(IMHO) employing an intermediary should not separate one from accountability and the actual guilt.

And while Bill and Monica's romp was not against the law, it does provide an excellent simple illustration of the ludicrousness of trying to compartmentalize responsibility by claiming the provider, not the end user, is the primary problem and the only one who should be held accountable.

Also, is not one of your concerns expressed on this thread the danger of entrapment?(certainly an excellent topic to discuss re:PT) It seems that in this case any half-decent defense lawyer could raise reasonable doubt by laying the examples you earlier mentioned of unsolicitated popups being stored on the hard drive. So if a case is to be successfully prosecuted one would think that a PATTERN would have to be established of acquiring or accessing these images, rather than a few conceivably random or unfortunate encounters.

Similar logic might also be able to differentiate between research and gratification usage. For example, the defense might be able to build a decent argument if he were logging a wide variety of sites and seeking proprietary info. Likewise if he kept returning to download images of the same particular boy or hovered for many, many visits from a single site, the prosecution might be able to shoot holes in that argument.
59 posted on 01/13/2003 8:07:40 PM PST by Diddle E. Squat
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To: WL-law
So there you have it -- and hence my defense of Townshend in the face of universal condemnation. I don't know if he is innocent, but I SURE don't know if he is guilty, although most here have reached that conclusion.

He's guilty of purchasing kiddie porn. The only question remaining is his motive for doing so.

Is he a crusader or a stinking pedophile?

60 posted on 01/13/2003 8:11:53 PM PST by jwalsh07 (March for Life in DC ,1/22/03.)
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