Slashdot Mirror
FBI "Took Over World's Biggest Child Porn Website" (telegraph.co.uk)
An anonymous reader writes with this excerpt from The Telegraph: The FBI took over the world biggest child pornography website in a sting operation intended to catch viewers of sexual images of children sometimes 'barely old enough for kindergarten', it has been revealed. The controversial operation ran for nearly two weeks last year, when the bureau took control of the Playpen website in an effort to weed out users who would normally be hidden because they accessed such sites through encrypted addresses. Agents have defended the dubious of ethics of a government agency running a child porn site by insisting there was no other way to catch offenders.
The officers that distributed child pornography committed felonies. The government is not allowed to commit felonies in the pursuit of criminals. In fact with this knowledge in hand any attempt to prosecute anyone involved is under threat of having the evidence suppressed because of the felony.
This would be akin to officers selling drugs on the street and allowing everyone to drive off after purchasing in the hope that maybe they could catch a couple of them several weeks later. This would not be legal and the officers would be prosecuted for distribution of a controlled substance and sent to prison. All the FBI agents involved should be prosecuted for distribution of child pornography.
If I have to choose between siding with child molesters or siding with a police state, I'm on the side of child molesters. Simple self interest.
Child molesters have no interest to bother me. The same cannot be said about a police state.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.