Pete Townshend admits downloading child porn

[Dauphin]

Originally posted by GP
ACtually not even creating the images...it is the murder or rape or abuse itself that is the crime...not recording it. But buying and viewing them is not.

You can make buying it a crime without interfering with free speech laws.


Reminds me of a film (starring Kelsey Grammar) called 15 Minutes (about murder not paedophilia).

[TCO]

Originally posted by Sagacious Dolphin


You can make buying it a crime without interfering with free speech laws.


Reminds me of a film (starring Kelsey Grammar) called 15 Minutes (about murder not paedophilia).

Could you make buying socialist writings a crime also? Or would that abridge a speech right?

[Dauphin]

Could you elaborate?

[Boris Godunov]

Being a practicing socialist isn't illegal, though. Being a practicing paedophile is.

[TCO]

There is a certain argument which is that the act of murder, rape, theft, abuse, etc. is wrong. But that watching it is just speech. (And of course the right to speech has generally included being able to buy magazines and the like...not just to look at them.)

[Boris Godunov]

Well, first of all, many people would argue that watching an act of murder/rape/abuse in progress and not doing anything to stop it should be illegal, and in many places, it is. By a similar strain of logic, one could say that by viewing child porn (and paying for it, too), one is creating a market for pornographers to continue abusing children in such a manner. By creating the demand, you're aiding in the crime and encouraging it to take place. You can't encourage people to commit murder, so you can't encourage people to make child porn.

[Dauphin]

There is a certain argument which is that the act of murder, rape, theft, abuse, etc. is wrong. But that watching it is just speech. (And of course the right to speech has generally included being able to buy magazines and the like...not just to look at them.)

I don't see how preventing the receipt of money earned due to illegal material or acts is a restriction of free speech. No impediment on the transfer of ideas, information, or other such, is being imposed.

[TCO]

There is a difference between putting a contract out on someone. And paying for it after the fact.

[Guynemer]

For one, I believe Townshend's explanation.

However, it excuses nothing--he became part of the problem the second he logged onto that website, and he should be prosecuted for it.

But just because the man is sick it doesn't mean I won't enjoy his music as much I have prior to this week.

[Berzerker]

Mad Viking -

Townsend did contact the authorities before they charged him. In fact, maybe they charged him BECAUSE he let them know he was going access porn.

If true, that puts the case in a different light. What did the police tell him in response to his notification? Did they tell Pete that would be illegal and he will be arrested and charged or did they tell him go right ahead because they let researchers buy child porn?

The $20 or so he paid to hardly will fund the child porn industry.

$20 here, $20 there, and soon you have suppliers meeting the demand.

If viewing child porn is a crime, so is owning a handgun. If the first "supports" making child porn, the second "supports" the murder industry. Smoking marijauna supports the illegal drug industry who sell heroin to teenagers.

Can you buy child porn without a child being victimised? Nope. Can you buy a gun without someone being murdered with a gun? Yup. Would knife and baseball bat buyers guarantee people are knifed or clubbed to death by the sellers? Nope. Can you use pot without somebody selling heroin to teens? Yup.

I have a picture of my two sons, when they were aged about 7 and 10, stark naked (full frontal) singing a song. Are the police coming to arrest me? What if I show it to my parents, does it become porn then? What if I show it to a friend of the family? Is it only porn if the person looking at it gets a boner? Should the police put electronic devices in all our pants?

Parents/people have been arrested and immense harm done to them and their families by social services/police/courts because they had pictures of their kids in the buff, and this is outrageous. That's why I don't like this crusade against child porn, but unlike the witch hunts, child porn does exist. I just wish the people running the crusade had some brains. I don't like child protection agencies having policing powers, they tend to see pedophiles behind every tree when most people not blinded by the crusade can make distinctions. Frankly, outlawing child nudity is part of the problem, outlaw having sex with children and pictures of the behavior. That is how you know if it's child porn, how does one know if the image of a nude child is porn? To people who aren't pedophiles, those images are just pictures of naked children which could have been taken by parents, etc.

If someone breaks into my house and steals my photo album and posts the picture on the web, do I go to jail?

Exactly! If authorities cannot nail down the context in which the photos were made, it's silly to call it child porn. To me, child porn is an image of children having sex (or simulating sex). What child porn laws tend to do is make it a crime to have pedophile thoughts - getting excited by child nudity - while also punishing people who produce the images without even thinking like pedophiles, like most parents who take photos of their kids.

If someone thinks about pedophilia, should they be arrested?

There is a difference between thinking about it or creating images from thoughts and actually using children.

If they draw a picture of what they were thinking about, should they be arrested?

No, but the problem authorities then claim to have is proving an image was of an actual child or a manipulation. While I sympathesize with that argument, I won't support criminalising thoughts put on paper.

Btw, I agree with Jules caution, if Britain's age of consent is 16, then we don't know for sure if Pete accessed a site advertising and containing actual child porn or if it was just older teens. But if Pete is justifying his actions by claiming he was molested as a child, then that implies the site had children and not older teens.

[Sikander]

Originally posted by Boris Godunov
Why EJ? Because he's a homosexual?

Let the witchhunts start...

Yea, haven't you heard? It seems that homosexuals are the root cause of all of this stuff. You should get out more, or read some of these groovy Chick tracts that are out now.

[/sarcasm]

Elton John seems to me to be pretty creepy. He gives me a very similar vibe to Michael Jackson. But honestly I don't really suspect him of pedophilia, he was just my best off the cuff guess given the premise that another (presumably British) rock star is being investigated.

[Sikander]

Originally posted by Skanky Burns


I though that meant that they were around 25-30 years old.

With balloon type breast implants, bleached hair, long fingernails and lots and lots of makeup.

[puke]

[Dr Strangelove]

According to the latest article about this on E! Online Townshend had voiced anger over the easy access of Child Porn to both Roger Daltrey and Jerry Hall in the past, so appartently somebody knew he was doing something along the lines of his claim to be researching the subject. He evidently was nabbed as part of a masive effort involving British police and the FBI which also nabbed 1300 other people.

http://www.eonline.com/News/Items/0,1,11109,00.html

[*End Is Forever*]

It would seem that Townshend hasn't actually admitted to viewing any pictures. He gave his credit card details in order to access a site but did not pay any money; many sites, I believe, are like this. If he's speaking the truth, then he might just escape. He's certainly been naive and stupid if nothing else.

[Seeker]

On the distinctions, I'd have to say if he actually gave money, then it is illegal.

On what should be illegal, I'd have to say actual sex acts only, or really obvious abuse/fetish type stuff. According to some of these laws, you'd better get that pissin' cherub of your lawn pretty quick...

Research: I don't know what sort of legal grounds it has, but psychological and other research material has involved images, for example child abuse, trauma, abnormal behaviour is one of the big things studied and they do indeed have media images of the things some disturbed/abused kids get up to. However I think that is much more 'legitimate' reserach than some guy on his own.

Also certain medical and human biology texts have real pictures of human sexual development using real models, things like comparing normal sexual develoment to abnormal.

And I believe that some wacky countries use a wierd 'erection monitor' in a test of pedophiles or certain types of job where the testee is shown child porn images and 'tumescence' is measured, which is a BS test IMO, since erections are not a reliable measure of anything.

I remember we had an interesting debate awhile back on faked images, photoshopped stuff, heads on different bodies, and older legal models who just look really young. There are countries with lower consent ages than the US, and sometimes a 16 year old model, with a little preparation, can look 2-3 years younger.

In order to get around these annoying enforcement grey areas, we get these ridiculous blanket 'anything that looks young and naked' laws. It's like it leaves it up to the judge to decide whether they like a guy or not if something is 'porn'.