Internet in the News

The use of the internet to distribute Pornographic materials has been happening for years and the nature of these materials has legal constraints to them. Distribution of child pornography is illegal and punishable by law. This has in now way stopped these sick individuals from obtaining and trafficking these photos and materials. Just this last week there was a bunch of arrests made of people who were distributing child pornography online. One of those arrests was here in Oregon this is only a drop in the bucket when it comes to stopping this problem. The World Wide Web is just that world wide and in some places it is not illegal (or is not stopped by police), this opens the door for these individuals to gain and traffic more illicit photos. There have been some real high profile cases in the news over the last few years; like the man who said he killed the young JonBennet Ramsey, just to be extradited back to the United States to then find he was not telling the truth, he just did it to get out of charges he was facing overseas. Then there was the coach from South Salem High School in Salem who was pleaded guilty last summer of sending and receiving illegal photos of girls and boys. He admitted to sending and receiving photos while he was coaching students at the school. No comment has been made to whether or now any of the photos were of students he coached or students from the school he was at. The FBI has developed a group of agents who actually spend time searching the World Wide Web for deviant internet porn, tracking and searching for those people who are involved. Several laws have been put in place to like the Communications Decency Act of 1996 which was violated first amendment rights. By the media coverage given to these arrests shows there is a news interest; or at least the news planners think we as viewers want to know about this. I understand we need to know when the people who commit these crimes are school teachers, clergy, medical professionals or political figures because these people are in direct contact with either our children or are making decisions that affect our futures. What we as citizens do with this information are where the real change will happen. If we ignore these criminals who distribute or take these photos and those child predators that molest young children and then get away with it because the legal system doesn’t want to proceed with charges, we are tacitly approving this behavior. A different story all together is the prosecution of the predators and those who help them stay out of the legal system. The articles I used to form this are the news story about the arrests this week, also an article from the Oregonian http://blog.oregonlive.com/breakingnews/2007/12/exsouth_salem_coach_gets_priso.html and then this web site http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20050923-5346.html