With the recent stories regarding Pete Townsend of the Who, je is said to have looked at kiddie porn, I have a question.

Should it be illegal to look at the sites? If it is illegal to look then how would anybody know what it was?

I myself have gone to several porn sites while viewing e-mails that seemed to almost be from someone who knows me. "Hello Nathen, here's those pictures I promised", well good grief, how do I know that it is a come on?

Make no mistake about it, I am opposed to anyone taking advantage of children, I think that a resonable treatment would be to first introduce the man to a device that cattle owners use on their bulls and then to brand them on the forehead, but to have gone to a internet site to see what was there just does not seem to me to be a crime.

What of freedom of speach?
What of the poor fellow who goes to WhiteHouse.Com instead or WhiteHouse.Org? what a surprise, and it is nearly impossible to get out once you get there.

What are your views?

edit to condense and correct spelling

<center><FONT COLOR="#000080">--- Edited 1 times, lastly by Nathen on Jan 15, 2003 ---</FONT></center>

Personally, I like clothes and I like when people where them. I have to say that I am against all pornography, and am even more disgusted with child porn. I guess it's a matter of understanding really. I don't understand how a person could get a thrill out of looking at children, let alone acting on the thoughts that arise from that. And quite honestly, I don't want to understand it. And that works for me.

On a side note, this post has nothing to do with my thoughts of Pete Townsend. If he was only doing research for his book, then it's too bad he has to go through the humiliation of an arrest, and if not, well, it's not up to me. But Paul Rueben? (Pee Wee Herman) does very much gross me out.

<center><FONT COLOR="#000080">--- Edited 1 times, lastly by Ters on Jan 14, 2003 ---</FONT></center>

It is a concern when you are writing or editing: "Who might think I'm going there because I like it?" You can be (as I have been) writing something that's supposed to help kids avoid and report potential or real abuse. Some things you just have to research. I never had to go anywhere gross, but I did worry that I would run across something like that without meaning to, or that someone someone would see where I was going and investigate me. But I had the writing assignment from a high-profile, legitimate organization, so that helped. I just hope Townshend was really doing research for his book and has enough evidence of that.

In England it's against the law to download porn. If found guilty a 5 yr. sentence is the norm.

*And Narcotics can be purchased over the counter. What a kewl country. Aye?

Free speech is for adults. This isn't speech, it's images.

He's innocent until proven guilty.

Being ever suspicious, I dunno about the research part.

Time will tell.

I think what bothers me is the fact that BIG BROTHER and certain do gooders who think themselves so much better then the rest of us, can visit every porn site and it's legal and good and wholesome, where as if I want to know what all the fuss is about and visit the site I could go to jail. Now downloading is another thing as is paying to be there, but I have yet found any child porn on the net, mind you there are many other sites that I would not recommend to anyone, but it still bothers me to be faced with censorship.

Lewis Carrol might be thought to be into child porn and promoting drug use, if one reads his works with the right slant, others see it as just fun, where do we draw the line?

It is very difficult to decide where the freedom of adults ends and the protection of children begins. Wal-Mark has a history of turning over pictures to the cops of things which by their nature is innocent, a dad holding his nude baby girl and things like that. Where does one draw the line?

My wish is for all the children to be free to grow up without this smut and certainly if a person produces porn or has a website with it, then they ought to be made to answer.
How is it that a site can be on the net without a person being connected directly to it?

I don't know the answers but these are questions that can only be asked in our modern age and I guess it's up to us to decide how to handle it, how I wish I had to wisdom to do so.

This is a really difficult subject. Who should be the "internet police?" Do we need them? The question Nathen posed is interesting, where do you draw the line between adults' freedom and protection of children? Working in the library we have had to study the question of Internet filters, which were required on many of our computers because of government funding regulations (Child Protection Act). How do the filters know what is porn? For example, try to get to the Super Bowl XXXVII site on a filtered computer--too many X's! It won't let you in. But a little girl, trying to look up "horses" left out the first 's' and got an eyeful!!! She knew she shouldn't be where she ended up and asked for help, but there you are.....

Again, I have no answers, just more questions. <img src="http://www.arlo.net/ubb/smilies/smile.gif" width=15 height=15>

Maybe he was researching a book about Michael Jackson?

I agree, Nathen,,,deceptively labelled spam is a form of entrapment, and, since that stuff is "hosted" by AOL, obviously, they, (AOL) enable these "entrapers" to function...dispite their blathering away about parental controls.
I'm no longer amazed at the corporate hypocracy which gets accepted as fact..sad, & disappointing....