Posted on 01/13/2003 11:00:09 AM PST by WL-law
Before we embrace the news coverage of Peter Townshend's "bust", I'd like to pose a few questions that trouble me here:
1) Aren't crimes in this area of law typically defined as requiring and/or involving "distribution" and "creation" as the core elements?
2) Townsend PURCHASED via a credit card -- he didn't sell or otherwise distribute. He wasn't in any chain of distribution or any "stream of commerce".
3)Yes he was an 'end-user' (pardon the pun), but is that, or should that be, the proper focus of the authorities? Yes, I know that purchases "fund" the criminal enterprise, but remember -- someone is trying to make you out to be a criminal because you drive an SUV based on the same logic -- so there are limits to that form of argument.
4) Are the end-users the more- or the less-culpable parties in this enterprise? Why is the focus on the end-user, then, with no mention (no intellectual curiousity,even) in the coverage of the supplier?
5)And did Peter Townshend "seek out" though surruptitious means to get this info, or did it pop up on his system unsolicited? Do statutes that criminalize "possession" presume the older days of dark alley meetings, physical swaps of material, secret "buying clubs", without an understanding of the changed circumstance of every-day, in-your-face and in-you-house solicitation through your e-mail and pop-ups? There are programs that actually TAKE OVER your computer, for God's sake, and re-rewrite your Home page so that you can't turn on your system without an avalanche of this stuff taking over. Could the drafters of the law ever have contemplated this?
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).
Having said all that, considering the scales of justice and the mens rea required for criminal conduct, how does somebody know what's legal-to-buy-but-awfully-crude-and-pornographic (i.e., S&M material, whatever else you-name-it) versus the illegal stuff? I'm sure there's no warning label at the site he visited, for instance. And one might assume, since the local ISP isn't being prosecuted for broadcasting this stuff into your home, that it IS legal.
Am I the only one wondering if the goal here is to embarrass some high-profile public figure?
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.
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.
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.
Didn't he use his credit card to access said site?
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.
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.'
To leave the boy with Uncle Ernie?
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!!
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.
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."
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!!
(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.
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?
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