Dateline NBC Mole Outed At DefCon

An anonymous reader writes "Dateline NBC allegedly attempted to infiltrate the DefCon hackerfest with a producer using a hidden camera. The show hoped to tape hackers admitting to illegal activities, but DefCon got wind of the plot and displayed the would-be-mole's photo before every presentation. Dateline refused to deny the planned infiltration. 'All journalists covering DefCon sign an agreement upon registering for the conference that outlines the rules, but the DefCon organizers say the mole apparently registered as a regular attendee, thereby bypassing the legal agreement. Dateline NBC is best known for its controversial To Catch A Predator series, which uses hidden cameras to tape men who are allegedly seeking to have sex with minors they met online.'"

Comments

Despicable

[boyko.at.netqos]

Not that "To Entrap A Predator" was good, but this hidden camera, secret registration bull goes against just about every ethical journalistic rule I can think of. They should be charged with violations against wiretap laws for pulling this stunt.

Re:Despicable

[TheSHAD0W]

I think that, in any sort of event with open registration, you're fooling yourself if you don't think you're subject to covert surveillance. What would your opinion be if a private person, not a member of the media, used a hidden video camera to tape the proceedings?

Dateline NBC is an obnoxious show but come on, we've already achieved the surveillance society, and big brother, little brother and all the brothers around and in between are watching you.

Re:Despicable

[Sycraft-fu]

You are surely fooling yourself in Vegas. Any of the hotel/casinos there not only have cameras, they have a SHITLOAD of cameras. They watch their grounds more carefully than you can believe. Most of it is focused on the floor when the gambling takes place, of course, but don't think they don't have an eye on everything else. You go in to a place like that in Vegas, you are being recorded, you face is being checked with facial recognition software, you ARE being watched.

Brilliant

[Alchemist253]

Attempt to carry out what is basically technological espionage against some of the best technological espionage people in the world... real smart move.

Re:Brilliant

[MikeBabcock]

You obviously have no clue what this conference is about. Get a history lesson.

Re:Brilliant

[hoggoth]

> people who have (for all intents and purposes to the layman) magical powers that are so grand they can effect corporations, something most armies would be hard pressed to do. It would be insanity for an individual to deliberately provoke that whole community

Give me an f*ing break. I'm sure everyone at DefCon goes around telling each other they are the highest form of life, but really, the layman doesn't think they have magical powers. They think they are spending all their time screwing with computers because they can't get laid.

How unoriginal

[Anonymous Coward]

They could've had some real fun with her had they not exposed her so quickly.

Dateline should stick to catching perverts

[Chessucat]

It is easier to catch perverts than hackers, 'eh?!;-)

Dateline NBC isnt news. Its just another TV show

[Jackie_Chan_Fan]

Good for the Hackers. Fuck NBC and their bullshit. They wouldnt have presented a fair story anyways. They were out to paint all hackers in a bad light and produce yet another sensational story which i'm sure would have ended up with the word terrorism in it.

Dateline should stick to entrapment. It seems that they're far better at entrapping lonely horny guys and ruining their lives for tv ratings.

ROFL

[drix]

LOL! You mean.. you mean to tell me that that was going to pass as a DefCon hacker? That is just a great end to my Friday.

The only thing surprising here was that they had to be tipped off.

simple freedom of the press

[aka-ed]

should Journalists identify hemselves to the chef before eating at a restaurant under review? Reporters are representatives of their readers; I want MY reporters to be able to go anywhere without revealing their identity. When ABC's hidden cameras revealed that Food Lion was deliberately selling "iffy" meat, Food Lion sued on the basis of reporters falsifying employment applications. The courts eventually found in ABC's favor, as they should have! I'm sympathetic to hackers, but they deserve no special protection from the press.

Re:simple freedom of the press

[HeaththeGreat]

I don't see wired pleading for special treatment. If dateline had been smart enough to catch a hacker talking about illegal activities, more power to them. The point of the story is that you need to be really good at subversion to outsmart the most subversive and paranoid among us.

The moral of the story is that hackers are smart; child molesters are dumb.

Re:simple freedom of the press

[SamP2]

Why can't we just approach the issue as follows:

- Press can do whatever they want (as long as it is not a crime) to try and sneak in. If it is legal for an average person to do whatever in the conference, it shouldn't be illegal just because the person happens to be a journalist.
- Hackers can do whatever they want (as long as it is not a crime) to try and expose the press.

Let it be a private game of catch and mouse... Best one wins, simple as that. There is absolutely no point imposing legal restrictions on this matter.

Which makes you wonder

[fistfullast33l]

How was she going to fit in at a hacker conference?

Re:Which makes you wonder

[archen]

But think of it this way. You have this hot girl who is at a hacker conference. Chances are more than a few of them are socially ... struggling. So how would YOU impress a girl at a hacker conference? Brag about your exploits of course! Yet I agree that NBC is rather stupid because even by that logic this woman does not fit in. They should have gotten a goth / skater type girl with dreadlocks.

Re:Which makes you wonder

[dr_dank]

In most male-dominated geek scenes (sci-fi, hacking, gaming, etc), a mildly attractive girl can easily find herself the center of attention and have a platonic harem of male geeks at her beck and call. If she could have played the part and flirted the right way, she could have easily fit in. Girls are rare enough in those parts; nobodys going to question the shining oasis in the desert. Only the hardcore paranoids in the crowd would have seen through her rouse.

Re:Which makes you wonder

[Anonymous Coward]

> Only the hardcore paranoids in the crowd would have seen through her rouse.

You've never been to DefCon, have you? It might have worked better than what NBC tried, but the paranoia's half the fun.

Media believes it is above the law ...

[AHumbleOpinion]

They should be charged with violations against wiretap laws for pulling this stunt.

The media believes it is above the law, and from a practical sense it often is. The media confuses the absolute right to print whatever they discover with a right to do anything they care to, legal or not, in order to obtain that info. They have the former (print) but not the later (discover). However many in power are so dependent on the media to obtain or keep their positions of power they rarely go after the media.

Don't get me wrong, I believe the media is an important check to the power of government. However the law is supposed to be a check on the media's abusive behaviors.

Re:Media believes it is above the law ...

[mcpkaaos]

However the law is supposed to be a check on the media's abusive behaviors.

I disagree. I believe people are the only real check on the media. If the media is a check on the government and the government is a check on the media, you wind up with no checks and you can forget about balance. The responsibility to monitor the media falls squarely on we the people, and most of us are too busy (or at least think we are) and/or complacent for the job.

Re:Media believes it is above the law ...

[gkhan1]

Wow... this... this is pretty much the most absurd thing I've read all week. The media is a "religion" and a news-anchor is our "priest" and they are "feral beasts" and I don't know what else. Lighten up on the rhetoric, you sound like a crazy-person.

First off all, do you think this a new thing? Do you think it was only recently that newspapers became biased, that people didn't try to use the media to push their POV fifty years ago? It was even worse then, because now we have so many options that we can actually form an idea of what is going on!

Listen, ass-hole reporters are the price you pay for a free media. You get the datelines, the people that infiltrate conventions and try to vilify innocent people. But you also get Nellie Bly, who infiltrated a mental hospital and reported on the horrible conditions. Sure, you get partisan hacks that try to scare you into agreeing with them, but you also get Thomas Nast, fighting an enormously corrupt regime with a few drawings, and winning. And lest you think all of these examples are are ancient ones that don't apply today, let me ask you something: if the media had been "reigned in", how would you know about NSA wiretapping program? How would know about Abu Ghraib? How would you know about any of the masses of republican scandals? The answer: you wouldn't.

It's these things that go if you start curtailing the media. If you start demanding stricter control over media, it's not going to be Bill O'Reilly who loses a job, it's going to be two young reporters in the seventies working for the Washington Post called Bernstein and Woodward.

"The cons outweigh the pros"? "More of an enemy to democracy than an ally"? What the hell are you smoking? Listen, in these days of the Bush administration, the ONLY thing that stands between him and autocracy is the media. The ONLY thing. You would sacrifice that because some dude in the media isn't playing nice? Congress may be democratic (and who can we thank for that?), but it's weak. The Supreme Court is just to the left of Joseph McCarthy. What do we have? We have the New York Times. We have 60 Minutes. We have The Daily Show. And yes, we have Slashdot.

There is a reason the media is the only industry specifically protected by the Bill of Rights.

Re:Media believes it is above the law ...

[kcbrown]

I know that by saying this, I'm playing into the hands of those who would see freedom of speech curtailed. But I feel that the modern media really is a "feral beast", whos cons are now beginning to outweigh its pros, and which is becoming more of an enemy than an ally to democracy. I'd like the media to be something better than it is, I really would. But it isn't and sooner or later we are going to have to face up to that fact. Truth be told, I'm more afraid of the media than confident in it.

The media is the way it is because it is the mouthpiece for those who own and/or run large corporations. It's not the media itself that has power, so much as those who own it. It is those who own it who crave power and wealth.

The media in the US today, like the telephone company in the US, is an effective monopoly, with its only real competition being the multitude of internet sites where individuals can express themselves freely (more or less). The connection between corporate campaign "finance" and the influence of the media is the people who own and operate the media corporations.

The media no longer needs or wants journalistic integrity because the media doesn't really compete with anything to speak of. Its corporate owners also completely own the medium over which the media plays: television and newsprint. As a result it can, and does, speak with one voice: that of its masters. This is the fundamental reason democracy in the US is entirely broken, and why it cannot be fixed.

The only way to eliminate the influence of the media today is to simply ignore it (the real remedy, to break up ownership of the media into a bunch of tiny independent pieces, cannot happen in the current environment, just as a breakup of Microsoft proved impossible). But most people don't, and will never, know to do that.

So the corporate ownership of the US government will continue unchallenged, and eventually malevolent fascism will blanket the US. It's just a matter of time now. If you don't want to be here when that happens, get out now, while you still can.

Re:Media believes it is above the law ...

[moosesocks]

In Soviet Russia, the government became the media.

In 21st-century America, the media is becoming the government.

Re:Media believes it is above the law ...

[Kirijini]

While I'd like to second you what you said in your post, I also want to add something. What you said about muckrakers is right and important, but its all missing a crucial element. The press in the past was more free because a) it wasn't backed/directed by large economic powers (Rupert Murdoch) and b) there were a ton of newspapers, most of the them independent. I think Alexis de Tocqueville's perspective on this is still informative and insightful - check out chapter 11, book 1. Most relevant to this discussion, while speaking of newspapers/"the media": "the Americans have nowhere established any central direction of opinion.". It useful to bear in mind that FOX News is nowhere near as biased as the small time newspapers of the 18th and 19th century - but every newspaper had its own amateur and highly opinionated editor, so that bias didn't aggregate well.

The best news sources are independent or small chain papers. The ones that don't have an overlord looking over their shoulder when they're writing editorials.

Re:Media believes it is above the law ...

[Penguinisto]

This is new?

As a fairly passionate Titanophile, I've read a TON of accounts of how the media of the time (in 1912, y'all) did all kinds of crazy shit just to get an exclusive. Even Guglielmo Marconi, the guy who invented wireless radio, haggled with a fairly rabid pack of newspapers - just to rake in a shedload of money for an exclusive story from the one surviving Wireless Operator (one Harold McBride). The whole "guy wearing a dress" thing is credibly rumored to have come from a snubbed reporter - who was pissed at an exhausted survivor that told him to bugger off and let him sleep. Before the Carpathia (the ship that picked-up all of Titanic's survivors) even got fully into New York's harbors, boats loaded with reporters tried to clamber aboard the ship.

This is just a small set of examples among a shedload... and back then, little things like libel and fact weren't really that much of an obstacle set, so long as the headlines sold the paper that day.

/P

Re:Media believes it is above the law ...

[trianglman]

I have to disagree with you somewhat.

Listen, ass-hole reporters are the price you pay for a free media.

False, they are the price you pay for a profit centered media. Back when the news was "free" you had reporters like Edward R. Murrow and the original Bernstein and Woodward that you so aptly mentioned. These journalists would report the news, and programs like Green Acres and Leave It to Beaver would make the money. Now conglomerates like ClearChannel, Viacom, Fox, and GE see the 30 minute evening news as underused advertising space. They sell out news time to "partners" (read company that stands to gain from you listening to this "article").

Newspapers are worse, being completely starved for cash. Every advertiser is so precious to them that alienating one large company could end the print cycle for a newspaper (almost). Imus is an example of that in the arena of radio. I don't agree with what he said, but I think he was always a dick. The only reason he lost his job was because he pissed of advertisers, not because he didn't deserve to have a program in the first place.

The GP's religion analogy was one I hadn't heard before, but it was fitting. He did paint with too broad a brush in calling for press restrictions. But I do agree that sensationalist, profit driven news should go the way of the dodo and the dinosaurs. Unfortunately I don't see that happening any time soon....

Re:Media believes it is above the law ...

[schnell]

The press in the past was more free because a) it wasn't backed/directed by large economic powers (Rupert Murdoch) and b) there were a ton of newspapers, most of the them independent.

I studied the history of journalism in college (journalism major, natch) and your impression is a common one but it's overly romanticized. In the late 19th century and early 20th century heyday of American newspaper journalism, there were indeed more papers - but many if not most of the largest papers were owned by robber baron demagogues who make Rupert Murdoch look like a saint. Read up on yellow journalism and the antics of the American press of yesteryear will amaze you.

As one of the above posters mentioned, we are much better off today: you still have biased media moguls pushing their agendas, but at least you have literally thousands of media sources to choose from instead of one to three daily papers (in the 19th or early 20th centuries) or three television stations (for much of the late 20th century). The rise of "citizen journalism" has increased the crap quotient somewhat (just like the rise of "citizen architects" would dilute the overall quality of building structures) but it is much more democratized. There are many reasons to admire the historical legacy of American journalists, but they didn't operate in any idyllic vacuum free from corporate interest or bias.

Re:Media believes it is above the law ...

[gkhan1]

I don't really understand the rosy picture that you all paint of the history of journalism: do you think that media conglomerates are a new thing? Have you ever heard of William Randolph Hearst? Rupert Murdoch is a spit-ball in a rainstorm compared to Hearst. And what about Murrow? He was part of a huge media network too, it was called the Columbia Broadcasting System. Murrow wasn't the first one to go after McCarthy, public opinion had already started to turn. There's no doubt that he played a big role in that affair, but it's also a complete miracle that William Paley didn't can his ass. He certainly would have if Murrow had started 6 months earlier.

There will always be be media giants that control a huge chunk of the market, it has been that was since newspapers started publishing. So, yeah, FOX is pretty biased. But you know what, there are three other networks that has a government mandate to report the news. Not to mention the New York Times, the Washington Posts, Salon, Slate, Comedy Central, PBS, NPR and all the other ones.

You talk about the sensationalist journalism, and how it is all about the money. That kind of journalism actually has a name, it's called Yellow Journalism. This was invented by William Randolph Hearst! Honestly, it's stunning to hear someone argue that we are in worse shape now than in the fifties. It was the fifties! Blacklists, segregation, HUAC, sexism, homophobia, communist paranoia and the Cold War. Honest journalists like Murrow did their best to make things better (and in sometimes they succeeded), but free speech and freedom of the press where a pittance in comparison to what they are today.

Is the state of American journalism perfect? No, of course not. But it does represent by far the biggest insurance of a free society we have.

Re:Media believes it is above the law ...

[gkhan1]

Oh, you're so wrong. You're so wrong it's not even funny. In my immediate family, there are three journalists, my parents and my sister (my parents are actually editors, but they started out as journalists and see themselves that way). In my extended family there are a few more. Every night at dinner time something concerning journalism was discussed. Most of their friends which I met where regularly where journalists. I can assure you, there are few professions in the entire world that values integrity as high as journalists do. I mean, look at Judith Miller. Whatever you think of her as a person or a journalist, she went to jail for months because she refused to divulge a source! And the source was Scooter Libby! And this isn't something that is rare, this is what most journalists would do, they wouldn't name a source to save their life.

See, people who want to do serious journalism want to do so because they are idealists. They want to be the people that airs dirty laundry and keep people honest. They aren't the people that get the most column space, that's for the gossips, but they are the people that affect change and report fairly. Pick up any serious newspaper and browse through it and you'll see pages written by people who has every bit of integrity as Murrow. You have an overly romantic view of the past and a an overly cynical view of the present.

And by the way, what's wrong with Brian Williams?

A hacker of sorts

[megaditto]

Women tend to be good at social engineering and networking. She might be pretty good at 'hacking' horny geek brains.

Bad NBC

[dotslashdot]

That dateline guy is really annoying and smug. He seems to take pleasure at lording over others' predicaments/fear. The predator series is just plain wrong for many reasons. It's pretty much entrapment, especially because the men are convinced by the girl at the end to enter the house even though they seem apprehensive. And what's up with the tackling every guy by the cop, even the ones who surrender? Does NBC host the show Big Brother? Because these jackasses seem to be helping bypass civil liberties by unlawfully spying on everyone and inducing them to commit and confess to stuff that is probably not even illegal, or that they would not have done/followed through on, but for the shows.

Re:Bad NBC

[Unnngh!]

It shouldn't be any surprise that a man can be seduced by a woman, and most of what I've seen on this show is an adult posing as a minor and being very convincing at seducing men. It's not a level playing field and the entire thing *is* set up to trap people, even if it's not technically, legally, entrapment. This country is also psycho about "pedophilia". Many 12-14 year olds are pretty adult in body and mind and are sexually active even if they don't have the proper experience to decide responsibly for themselves. Doesn't mean it's right, but it's a societal thing that says someone under 18 can't have sex with someone over 18, not a biological one. I wouldn't be happy with any of these guys at home with my hypothetical 12 yo daughter but I would also expect that I would have a) brought her up well enough and b) watched her enough that this kind of thing would not happen. If I caught my daughter in a chat room provoking men in the same way as these "reporters" she would be in deep shit.

Re:Bad NBC

[Anonymous Coward]

Possibly because it looks more like a case of "attempted solicitation by a minor".

Just meet in a two party consent State

[Anonymous Coward]

And then they would have to get consent to make an audio recording of anyone. And if they didn't, then it would be the MS NBC reporter going to jail or paying a fine.

Nevada is a One-party Consent to Tape State

[redelm]

Unlike California, Nevada (and most the rest) are One-Party Consent to Tape jurisdictions. So the NBC observer broke no law.

And I rather doubt DEFCON can impose any boilerplate contractual terms on its' attendees. Most would revolt! Few would agree the sky is blue.

Only be honest to your clergy, doctor or lawyer

[AHumbleOpinion]

Only be honest to your clergy, doctor or lawyer. Well with respect to past events that could get you into trouble, don't mention future plans to do so. ;-) Hmmm ... what if a journalist impersonated a member of the clergy, a doctor or a lawyer to get info. You know, I bet they have done it already.

Re:Dateline NBC isnt news. Its just another TV sho

[sqrt(2)]

I hate their To Catch A Predatory series. The questionable legality should be obvious to anyone. I don't like being in a position where I'm defending alleged pedophiles, but the law is there to protect everyone, even the accused (who sometimes need extra protection because of their vulnerable position). Never at any point was there an actual child who was in danger, no actual crime was committed. It's staged from end to end and yet they completely gloss over that part when their over dramatized edited version of what happens gets aired. This sort of vigilantism is not helpful to society. NBC are the real pornographers here, and sadly it seems people can't get enough of it.

NBC Voyuerism

[ThatsNotPudding]

There is something deeply disturbing about this trend that NBC is spearheading. It is sick and twisted in itself to want to watch and see (AND BAIT) the 'scum of the earth' that are arrayed against You and Your CHILDREN!!! You know where the children are most safe from crime? Police States. And sadly, there are so many stupid, scared people in this country who make that deal in a heartbeat. Provided they are still regailed by entertaining tales of cruelty, sadism, and murder.

"They Thought of The Children" will be carved on the tombstones of free societies.

Re:"That'll make good TV."

[MikeBabcock]

Nobody ever proved he was a pervert, nobody witnessed him committing a crime, and arguably someone else's actions caused him harm. Sounds like you need your brain wiring fixed.

Just because someone can be almost entrapped (he didn't show up) doesn't mean they're a criminal, that's why entrapment's illegal in the first place. Take a psychology course, then one in ethics and come back to the argument with your neurons working at full speed.

Sheep groupthink

[dedazo]

I hope that when the next undercover investigation on electronic voting machines or some form of government corruption surfaces I'll see the same level of outrage directed at the "offending" journalist as I'm seeing here. I hope they're called "moles" as well.

This is an expression of the idea of freedom of the press. It doesn't matter that it targeted a hacker convention. You can't have your cake and eat it.

Re:"That'll make good TV."

[Original Replica]

Some pervert off'ed himself? Why the fuck should I care?

Yes, the guy was a pervert. He had problems and needed help. He probably knew that he needed help, that's why he didn't show up at the sting. The thing is "pervert" was just one facet of the man. He still had family and friends and a successful career. But once the cameras showed up "pervert" was all that he would ever be again, it the public eye. It wouldn't matter if he got the help he needed. It wouldn't matter if he went overseas and got himself castrated to control his unacceptable urges. (Illegal in the US even at the patients request) He had been publicly declared a "pervert" and instantly became a sub-human monster. No trial, no getting speak up for himself, just condemnation. Pedophilia is no where near the national problem that Alcoholism is in terms of total damage to lives and property, but alcoholics aren't required to be on a national list, or live a certain distance from schools (or bars), and are rarely run out of town or refused housing. The only reason that it is OK to write this guy off as being less than human is because his particular failing is taboo.

Fox has never done anthing as bad a CBS...

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think I've ever seen Fox using obviously forged documents in a fake "news" story right before an election.

CBS has done just that.

And if you don't think those docs were forged, well, I'd call you a fucking idiot but I don't want to insult all the people in this world who are merely fucking idiots.

Gotta love how the "tolerant" left is trying to shut down a news organization just because they don't lean left like most of the mass media does. But boy, the left sure does love those "news" organizations that swallow fauxtography hook, line and sinker. Who cares for the actual truth when you can have "truthy", or even "fake but accurate".

Not really anything wrong here

[spiritraveller]

This is a fun story. I like that she was outed and ran scared. But calling this unethical is just silly. There's no allegation of lying, only that she went in there undercover as a regular citizen without press credentials.

Guess what, you don't need "press credentials" to take video in a public place. Absent a contractual agreement (or the public shaming that she received), there's not much anyone could do to stop her.

Dateline is a horrible show. I'm quite glad they didn't get their story, because you can be sure they would have twisted it to sound as salacious and titillating as possible.

Re:Not really anything wrong here

[Scudsucker]

Guess what, you don't need "press credentials" to take video in a public place.

Was this in a public place? Aren't conventions usually in rented property, thus voiding the "no privacy in a public place" canard?

Re:Not really anything wrong here

[spiritraveller]

Was this in a public place? Aren't conventions usually in rented property, thus voiding the "no privacy in a public place" canard?

The kinds of private places that are protected from "invasions of privacy" are places like bathrooms and bedrooms. A public gathering (even on private property) is not a place where you can expect to be free from public scrutiny.

It might be different if it were a group therapy session or an AA meeting at the local church. But it's not.

It's a group of people talking about how to break the law. I can't think of a place where the public has a greater interest in what is being said and who is saying it. They can kick her out, but they can't stop her from showing images that she has lawfully obtained.

Re:Not really anything wrong here

[ThePyro]

But calling this unethical is just silly. There's no allegation of lying, only that she went in there undercover as a regular citizen without press credentials.

She was specifically told that video taping in secret was not allowed, but she did it anyway. Sounds pretty unethical to me. In contrast, the DEFCON staff seemed to handle the matter well. She was offered an official press badge on multiple occassions before they finally got fed up and outted her.

I'll give you ten

[Dachannien]

New York Times
LA Times
Washington Post
San Francisco Chronicle
National Public Radio
CBS
NBC
ABC
Time
Newsweek

All of these are easily left-leaning news outlets, either in major cities or with major nationwide reach. I'd mod you funny, but I think you actually somehow believe that the news media is suddenly dominated by the right after all these decades.

Debatably, CNN and MSNBC used to be left of center, but when Fox News showed that roughly half the country (a) was right of center and (b) watched cable news, they revised their lineups to be more inclusive.

Re:I'll give you ten

[evilviper]

All of these are easily left-leaning news outlets,

It's sad, very sad, that the right-wing talking points and propaganda has been so successful that people are tricked into believing absolutely unbiased (and fact-based) news organizations are somehow left-leaning.

By all means, take the big 3 networks CBS, NBC, ABC, and try to list ANYTHING they've done that is liberally biased (as opposed to factually based).

The fact that you think that facts, unbiased new, and simple reality are liberal, says a lot about conservatives.

Re:I'll give you ten

[Anonymous Coward]

There is no "true" reality. Reality is what the observer makes of it, biased by its very nature.

Re:Dateline NBC isnt news. Its just another TV sho

[ceejayoz]

Look, if an undercover cop asks you to sell him drugs and you do so, you go to jail. Doesn't matter that he didn't use the drugs. How is this different?

Re:"That'll make good TV."

[AVonGauss]

that's why entrapment's illegal in the first place. So is having a sexually explicit conversation by telephone or via the Internet if you believe the other party is a minor. When the police knocked on the door, the deed was already done. It then becomes a question for the district attorney's office (a little ironic) and the trial process in the courts to determine if the man was guilty of the crime he was accused of committing.

You brought up psychology, so I'll ask you this, why do you believe the man committed suicide when the police knocked on the door? I'll be the first one to point out just because he committed suicide does not infer his guilt, but it does make you wonder. The other question you need to ask yourself is why did he believe they were knocking on his door. If I got a knock on my door and looked out and saw the police department and cameras outside my door, my first thought is not to kill myself, it would be to wonder what the hell is going on.

"Reality has a well-known liberal bias"

[Anonymous Coward]

All of these are easily left-leaning news outlets, either in major cities or with major nationwide reach. I'd mod you funny, but I think you actually somehow believe that the news media is suddenly dominated by the right after all these decades. Liberal is Air America. The only 2 on that list that are left-leaning are the San Francisco Chronicle (what did you expect?) and NPR in some ways.

Debatably, CNN and MSNBC used to be left of center, but when Fox News showed that roughly half the country (a) was right of center and (b) watched cable news, they revised their lineups to be more inclusive. No, they both became more sensationalist and showing obvious bias (often right-leaning) in their stories. Just like Fox. If that's what you really think all media should be like, that's Pretty Fucking Sad.

Re:"That'll make good TV."

[MikeBabcock]

... because of course, its the knock that made him kill himself. Of course not, its the lead-up to it, its the combination of things.

If you got accused of being a child molestor and actually thought through the social consequences of it, I dare you to believe you'd want to continue living. I'm not (nor are you) the man's shrink, I'm just saying the OP had a point.

Also note, it is not illegal to have sexual conversations with a minor in all places, nor should it be. Otherwise, you wouldn't be able to explain to kids how condoms are used, nor any other valid sexual health discourse.

Don't give me the "that's different" garbage either, because although it is, to you and I perhaps, its not to the law. The law needs to be clear in what is and is not illegal, and making sexual conversations illegal would be stupid for the reasons above -- sexual invitations are different, luring is different, etc. Many places simply leave it at strange laws like sexual interference which is left up to judges and juries to interpret.

Sex laws in some countries (or states) are pretty convoluted in fact.

PS, I'm in Canada, so its a whole world different here too.

Re:Dateline NBC isnt news. Its just another TV sho

[Scudsucker]

Look, if an undercover cop asks you to sell him drugs and you do so, you go to jail.

Nope, that's also entrapment.

This isn't about pedophilia

[arth1]

Pedophilia? If he thought he was chatting with a post-menarche 14 year old, it's not pedophilia. It's desiring someone illegally young, but it has nothing to do with pedophilia at all. Most men would feel sexual attraction towards young women that age. If they are past puberty, that's perfectly natural. But most men are able to control themselves and not act on any stray desires they may have, which is a good thing. It probably helps to not admit the desires in the first place, and possibly also helps to describe anyone who admits to those desires as a monster.

That control becomes harder to maintain once the other part is apparently repeatedly coming on to you, like in this entrapment. Face it, very few of us ever have apparently horny young girls come on to us, or at least not after we ourselves came of age. That he managed to say "enough", and stop before actually meeting shows to me that he did have at least some control. That he committed suicide shows to me that he realised the futility of trying to clear himself from the one charge where you're always considered guilty -- if not by the courts, by the rest of society. Your life does in reality end there, because people will ostracise and hate you for the rest of your life. Probably because those who so strongly want to cry out "monster!" are exactly those who know how precariously close they themselves are to being the same, and have a psychological need to distance themselves.

Back to pedophiles. Pedophilia, for those who don't know, is sexual attraction to prepubescent children. That's usually a facet of arrested mental development, and those who have it are completely innocent about how they feel; it's not a choice.
    If they live out their fantasies with a pre-pubescent child, they commit a crime. That crime is not pedophilia, but child molestation.
    If they don't live out their dreams, they are no different from those who fantasize about other strange things (self-mutilation, necrophilia, being raped, sodomizing the pope -- you name it, someone probably has a kink about it), i.e. we wouldn't even know it, and it's really none of our business.

Dear Dumbass.

[Torvaun]

I've seen what an alcoholic is capable of. One of my best friends had an alcoholic father. He still has scars, both physical and mental, from his childhood. In my personal opinion, the best effect alcohol ever had on that abusive drunk was when he was killed by a drunk driver in the greatest feat of poetic justice I've ever known.

You want a dozen alcoholics over a single pedophile? Fine. But first, allow me to mention a few more things. Just because someone is a registered sex offender does not mean they're a pedophile. Honestly, I'd bet that most of them aren't. Most of them are going to be people convicted of public indecency: streaking, public urination, public sex acts, that sort of thing. Among the people who are on that list for having sex with a minor, I'd bet about half of them were within a few years of their 'victims.' An 18 year old having sex with a 17 year old might be statutory rape, and will get you put on the list, but I wouldn't call the 18 year old a pedophile.

Also, alcoholics are dangerous even when it's late at night and everyone's at home. Last year, about a mile from here, we had a (presumably) drunk driver hop the curb at a T intersection and crash into someone's living room. No one died from it, but in the following month, we had a remarkable jump in the "Don't drink and drive" TV ads from the police department.

Re:"That'll make good TV."

[Pantero Blanco]

If I got a knock on my door and looked out and saw the police department and cameras outside my door, my first thought is not to kill myself, it would be to wonder what the hell is going on.

If I got a knock on my door, opened it and saw a cop or two, I'd ask what was going on.

If I got a knock on my door, opened it and got rushed by several cops and newsmen with cameras, two things are going to rush through my mind:

1. I'm going to be accused of something very serious.
2. When they arrest me for whatever-it-is, that is going to be recorded, broadcasted, and probably viewed by everyone that I care about. Of course, it might not be, but considering everything else going on, I'm going to be expecting the worst.

One of the worst things about the situation is that playing along and staying quiet makes you look guilty to the people watching, even though it's the best choice when you're arrested (regardless of innocence or guilt). You're basically forced to incriminate yourself one way, or the other.

Cameras catching someone walk into a house is one thing; news cameras rolling alongside the police when they raid a house is something else entirely. Can we at least have empirical evidence that someone's guilty before throwing them out on national tv?

It's an interesting case, really

[Torque]

On one hand, you have a tragically flawed and misguided news organization, which builds and runs shows like To Catch a Predator. They're a really unsympathetic party. On the other hand, as many have pointed out, you have the fundamental truth that sometimes, undercover reporting is vital to the functioning of a free society.

Personally? I'll risk the tragically flawed and misguided news organization if it means I have a better chance of learning when my rights are violated by my government.

I'm pretty shocked that that's so far from a unanimous view here, given Slashdot's libertarian bent.

Re:It's an interesting case, really

[cmat]

The big problem here isn't the legality of the press pulling this stunt; it's that there are presenters at this conference that have potentially broken laws (copy protection circumvention anyone?) in the course of discovering weakness in systems and products we use everyday. The content of this conference is very "touchy"; with very little alteration it would be easy to misrepresent what is said by people at DefCon. I believe if you want a conference like DefCon to succeed (where success is defined by people that find weakness in software and hardware agreeing to present at DefCon), then you need to enforce that the press identify themselves. The premise of the show that this reporter worked for also doesn't even try to have any journalistic "protection of sources"; if they did and people could trust that the press would always hide the identities of those at DefCon (and just report on the content), I think the whole press-pass thing might be less of an issue with the conference organizers.

So yeah, journalists should have the ability to report on hat they see; they should also NOT do this for the purpose of identifying and exposing individuals. Ya know, reporters are somewhat protected in this respect in the US and Canada, and this is exactly why.

Re:Calm Down

[timmarhy]

you can't possibly be so navie?

it's been shown time and time again that trashie affair tv shows like dateline use deceptive editing and misquoting to only show the side of the story they want to.

the problem with allowing assholes like dateline in is they won't let their lack of technical experience prevent them making allegations that are completely untrue. no doubt this bitch heard the word "hacker" and decided everyone going to defcon was breaking the law.

it's like the old saying "never let the facts get in the way of a good story". only these stories ruin peoples lives.

No, no, no. You've got it all wrong.

[BenEnglishAtHome]

You're not *allowed* to talk rationally after someone utters the word "pedophile." Don't you understand that? If people start talking rationally, Dateline won't be able to make money and all those people out there screaming for blood won't have yet another underclass to feel superior to. You're upsetting the whole balance of nature; quick, take it back!