Comments on Stop Child Porn: Federal Government to change laws?

The problem is, the argument that having the polic...

2009-02-13T09:58:00.000-08:00

The problem is, the argument that having the police monitor Internet activities will somehow prevent child porn is one that does not follow. The police can only ever act on crime, after the fact, based on probable cause. By the time they find child porn online, its too late to "stop" it, because a crime has already been committed.

All it can do is help catch someone after the fact, which brings me back to my point - if we have a system that is unwilling, for whatever reason, to lock these predators away from the rest of us for significant periods of time, how will this do little else but amount to speeding up the catch-and-release of these offenders. That is why I still reiterate my point - why potentially create another problem if the gov is unwilling to properly fix the main causal problem here, which is putting these guys away for a long long time when convicted in the first place. That would go a lot further then a surveillance state, as there are only so many pedophiles out there.

All we need is a justice system with some accountability and teeth. Before we keep making more and more laws, it would be more prudent if we would enforce the numerous ones we already have on the books. By far the most productive thing we can do is lobby to make the justice system more accountable itself, ie, sentences that reflect the depravity of the crime and also some way of holding judges themselves accountable.

Mandatory sentences are a great thing to strive fo...

2009-02-13T06:06:00.000-08:00

Mandatory sentences are a great thing to strive for in these horrific cases but sentences can only be given to those that have been caught.

I believe this legislation will help stop the crimes earlier on or if some of the abuse is happening in real time. This will protect children earlier on and get people who behind bars earlier.

My two cents...

This shrewdly puts anyone who stands in opposition...

2009-02-12T09:52:00.000-08:00

This shrewdly puts anyone who stands in opposition to this in Parliament in the position where the spin doctors will accuse them of "supporting child porn" if they object to this plan; a plan which at the very least begs the age old question posed by the Roman poet Juvenal: "Quis custodiet ipsos custodes" - Who will watch the watchers?

I still do not understand why this kind of offence does not qualify for a mandatory life sentence anyways, which itself would be far better at protecting children than opening up this hornet's nest of civil liberty issues.