More Media Madness???

[+ Lucky]

Remember the McMartin preschool case years ago where allegations were made that very young children were being molested, if not forced into satanic rituals, by people that worked at the school? Trials were had, jail sentences imposed...and then it turned out to be all wrong? The kids had been influenced by social workers and made the stuff up!

 

Now here is an actual quote from a reporter's story in yesterday's New York Times about the congressional hearings on child internet porn:

 

"The witnesses...said that sexual predators were preying on victims as young as 18 months by using instant messaging and web cameras to meet, lure and digitally stalk children..."

 

How many infants are online at any given moment? 18 month old kids actually instant messaging? This is hysteria gone mad!

 

The arrest of the Homeland Security guy for seducing a supposed 14 year old is bad enough. And we know that young Justin Berry was heavily involved in online seduction. So there is no denial here of a real problem.

 

But the cause is not served by trying to suggest that baby Huey is at any real risk over the internet. And even the Justice Department has only arrested one person from the some 1500 names that Berry supposedly gave them as predators he had dealt with. Are they so lax, or is this situation being overhyped?

[Guest skrubber]

It is my experience that prosecutors and law enforcers in general overhype everything.

[Samai139]

Anyone else around this site old enough to remember "first hand" a US Senator by the name of Joseph McCarthy?

I am NOT suggesting that child porn/child molestation should be tolerated but when a nation goes on a witch hunt and the privacy of the home(comnputer) is routinely invaded, some innocents may be "dunked."

[Guest]

Espousing deviant political beliefs is neither illegal nor immoral (as long as no one is harmed). Expressing deviant lust over children with internet seduction is both illegal and immoral. I find it rather sickening to suggest a similarity between joining the Communist party and seducing 14 year-olds over the internet.

[Samai139]

Perhaps my post wasn't worded very carefully--I was not attempting to compare joining the Communist Party or being a Communist to Internet Peddlng of Child Pornography. When a government attempts to expose/contain/identify a group, regardless of their beliefs, innocent people may be involved. During the McCarthy Era, many people were accused of being Communists who had NO connection with the party. Isn't it possible that innocent people today are also being identified as internet "deviants" and their reputations are tarnished? Or worse, lose their employment and their families? I don't know how, but I wish those who take the photos and send them out could be identified and punished. Those who visit such sites and store photos on their home computers are also guilty, but......it frightens me to read about the "sting" operations that are being conducted. I know I should be able to trust my government to do the "right thing" but.......

Recently there was an episode of "Numbers" that involved a middle-aged man who had disappeared. When the FBI searched his home, they discovered a cache of photos on his computers of a very young girl. Turns out, he was not a pedophile, but a grieving man who had lost his daughter to leukemia and was haunted by the photos of this little girl---he "needed" to find her, help her and release her from her hell---a task he was not able to do with his own daughter.