Is the Internet Aiding Growth of Child Porn?
John on April 28, 2007 at 11:43 pm
Recently, a prosecutor in Australia was discovered to have a significant collection of child porn on his laptop computer:
Along with 29,000 images of adult homosexual pornography, a Department of Public Prosecutions IT worker found 31 videos of graphic child pornography and 433 child sex images, which so disgusted him he immediately reported Power.
The videos showed men having sex with boys as young as seven. These were in a folder marked “good”, according to agreed facts tendered to the court.
It became a huge story because of the implicit contrast. Well-heeled professional and the vilest things imagineable on his computer. And yet, in preparation for trial he was able to put together 59 witnesses who will attest to his sterling character. This raises the question, have we become a bit desensitized to just how horrible a crime this is. It seems at least some portion of us are, because the problem is growing rapidly:
The number of images of child rape online has quadrupled in three years, according to figures released two weeks ago by the British Internet Watch Foundation (IWF).
“The images appear to be on a trend towards more severity, probably because there is greater demand,” IWF chairman Peter Robbins told Reuters. “The age of the children involved is predominantly under 12.”
Dr Olav Nielssen, a psychiatrist at St Vincent’s Hospital, told a sexual-health conference in Sydney this month that the availability of child porn on the internet has created an appetite in people who otherwise may never have considered it.
“It is the internet itself that has created a new disorder,” he told The Sydney Morning Herald. “Because they have access to the material, they then are able to develop the interest and the interest takes hold.”
This is one area where I’d be willing to trade a little freedom for a lot more control. We need to be making it a lot more difficult for predators to transmit this material across the net. No doubt the technology is already in existence. What we lack is the ability to employ it without raising the hackles of a phalanx of ACLU lawyers.
One more good reason to ignore the ACLU.
Category: Blogs & New Media |
This is a great way to expose the ACLU for the (generally) sick puppies that they are while doing something to protect these kids as well. We need a Constitutional amendment against pornograpraphy to take it out of the court’s hands. If it were worded properly it should pass easily.
April 29, 2007 @ 3:25 pmIn my research, I’ve both heard and seen for myself that child porn viewers cover the entire spectrum from low-life losers to respected ministers, educators, and law enforcement officers. In fact, it’s surprising to me just how many police offers are being found with child porn. Maybe it’s a case of foxes guarding the hen house…
Calling child porn child rape (as is done in the quote) is totally disingenuous. Some child porn is undoubtedly child rape, but it’s VERY clear that a lot of child porn is far from any type of rape.
April 29, 2007 @ 7:10 pmFollow the link and read the whole story. When they say “child rape” they’re not using a euphemism in this case.
April 29, 2007 @ 8:18 pmDear John,
I wouldn’t be willing to trade my freedom, but I would sure be one for the death penalty for anyone who lays a hand on a child.
Are we becoming desensitized? People used to be hanged for stealing a horse because that was the means by which a person or family made a living. I can make the arguement that a child, once their innocent is Stolen in such a horrific manner, has been murdered. That child no longer exists.
I know this to be true. I have worked with some. It is awful. Only a slow, drawn out death…but we are too good for this? What? (I was thinking about what the other side would say. You know the type. The 59 that would say what a stellar person this animal is.)
I must admit, I know they will never give the death penalty for a person, even if they murder the child. Would you like to know why? Because they cannot vote…think about it.
April 29, 2007 @ 9:20 pmYes, I see that is this case Power’s did have material that would constitute real child rape. But is many cases child porn seems to consist of material that would be more accurately described as showing “statutory rape” – sex with those deemed too young to legally consent. It’s still child porn of course.
I have previously read other stories about the IWF, and that they say the quantity of child porn with forced or violent child rape is increasing. I can’t comment one way or the other on the accuracy of that claim. It may very well be true.
It’s just the way the quote is above it gave me the impression that it was referring to all child porn as child rape, which is patently false.
April 30, 2007 @ 11:18 amUnfortunately, I personally knew a child predator, (thankfully he is now dead, as he died a horribly painful death, which continues – 23 years later – to give me satisfaction), and it was very labor intensive for him to acquire pictures and “pamphlets” of young boys back then. He had to physically visit and frequent these underground clubs, where he would have to network with others in order to find pornography that would whet his appetite.
The internet, however, has brought those underground clubs and difficult networking requirements right into a pedophile’s home now.
Forget whetting their evil appetites, they are now being FED – buffet style.
I would gladly give up a lot of freedom to control this.
April 30, 2007 @ 1:48 pmBlondie,
What’s interesting to me is that you are willing to give up “a lot” of freedom to control this without any credible evidence that giving up that freedom would actually help alleviate the problem.
I study this issue, and I see that every year most states and the federal government pass one or more pieces of new legislation to combat the child porn problem. Each such piece of legislation takes away a little more of our civil liberties, yet the problem never seems to be brought under control. In fact we are constantly hearing of how the problem is exploding.
When I read these new laws, it is usually very clear to me that the laws will be largely ineffective. The people writing these laws clearly have no real understanding of the Internet.
The other common denominator I see in the dozens of child porn news stories I read each week is that most of the people caught are caught because of their own stupidity, not because of any of the laws that are nibbling away at our civil liberties.
Most anti child porn laws are a result of politicians needing to look as if they are doing SOMETHING even though they have no idea what to do.
May 3, 2007 @ 8:01 pmCPE-
I don’t disagree with your rationale. What I was trying to share, but I guess not very effectively, was that (using your example) if a useful piece of legislature were to be written, and some of my liberties were asked to be given up for the common good, I would do so.
Many people will stand firm against any law written, even one with serious merit, if it means trading just a millimeter of personal freedom.
That would not be me.
May 4, 2007 @ 1:53 amI can’t beleive this “debate”. The internet is like a sewer flowing along, with every bit of dead rotting flesh and excrement, along with a few descarded apples. It makes me stop and wonder if we realy are all awaiting a judgement.
July 27, 2007 @ 6:10 pmBut an a more “here and now” level, seriously!
We fought WW1 & WW2 for “freedom”, what about a childs’ freedom to grow happily? It means little when they, unlike adults, cannot yell loud enough. So were worried about loss of freedom? The changes(loss of freedoms) since 911 have scarcely dented our lives. This “loss of leberty” thing is a furfey. And with the amount of money in the world today, affordability of policeing is no excuse iether.
It all shows how immature our society is, right to the top. And it boggles me the the explicit porn(and even child porn) is available even to children. Seriously, what kind of society are we now? It makes Communist China appear saintly, at least(surely, as far as I know) they can & do limit the internet(sorry if I,m wrong about that). We seem to regard the total freedom of the internet as sacred! Now that is a perversion if ever I heard one! But then again, we are now a perverted generation. If our forefathers could see us they would roll over in their graves. We are a shameless lot of jellybacks at best, citizens of Sodom and Gommora at worst. If god is an angry God, woe unto us! But thats sounding “religious and Victorian isn’t it? I hear the cry “take that man’s reply and remove it immediately!!”
I am not professing to be holier than thou. I am trying to shake a tree that almost deserves to be cut down, and that tree is our whole society. How will the next generation appear? And the generation after that? At what point does it become rancid enough? What will shake us to awaken us, other than some good old fasioned “fire and brimstone”? Do we think we don’t deserve it?? After the Port Aurthur massacur John Howard fought hell and high water to see gun reform. For that he was a statesman.
Surely our jellybacked career obsessed politicians can do something about cleaning up the online sewer, and make a positive mark in history.