Child Porn and Jail
I was just reading this story and although it deals with the child porn stuff, that doesn't really seem to be the central issue to me. It's kind of disturbing. Let's look at it like this... you, John Q. Smith, are sitting there browsing blogs very similar to this one. You get into a strange one that's talking about sexual adventures or whatever. Nothing too scandalous, but then there is a link. Like many people, you click the link...NAKED BABIES.. or pre-teens for that matter come up in hordes. All the sudden you have this stuff in your cache. Let's say that John Q. Smith is ignorant on how to change that. He quickly leaves the site after he realizes that that's FUCKING DISGUSTING and goes about his blog reading. Two days later, his business is audited or some other sort of crazy shit happens and someone with authority is searching his computer. All the sudden he's got Child Porn on his computer even though he never wanted it there. He gets arrested and his life is ruined. There are certain labels that you can throw on people that RUIN lives and friendships. One is Rapist and the other is Pedophile. You say that someone is either one of those words, and I don’t' care if you are the pope or a father of 5, you are screwed. People assume guilt. Believe me, I'm talking from experience here.
So anyway, John Q. Smith gets arrested and sentenced to 5 years in jail, and he's a felon.
Courts claim that because it was on his computer he had possession...how is that fair? How is that just? That you take possession of something because you look at it? You can't tell WHAT is going to be on a web page when you click a link. You may have an idea, but you can't KNOW. If you did the why the hell would you click it?
I'm not being an advocate for Mr.Edward Ray Barton... that bastard looked at little children for 4 hours...sick and twisted shit. But I guess you have to wonder, is four hours worth 20 years of his life? Why is he to blame? I understand that if people don't look at it, then there is no demand and the industry will stop, but let's be honest...it's not going to happen.
I guess the question is this... is he a repeat offender in the sexual predatory world? Does he do this all the time or was this a one time curiosity thing. If I go to a bestiality web page and look around because it's a curiosity and I'm disgusted, does that make me an animal fucker? No.
It just disturbs me that someone can get 20 years just like that. Maybe I don't know the whole story, but that's just lame.