Well, I do agree with that claim. But since I believe the people they are threatening are in fact factually guilty of the crime in question, even though they have yet to be convicted, my sympathy is not aroused.
A) ditto, too – that is, I believe the people they are threatening are in fact factually guilty of the crime in question.
B) So what if they gleefully post the transcripts? That’s not illegal.
You and I have very different ideas about what “very little evidence” is.
Since other police departments, even other departments IN VIRGINIA, have successfully made arrests in cooperation with the PJ site, my guess would be that the Fairfax County spokesperson’s response was more ass-covering than anything else, to deflect criticism over the “zero arrests” statistic.
That’s not true.
Stop being skeptical. They are perfectly admissible. Photos can be Photoshopped – do you think that photos are no longer admissible?
In U.S. v. Tank, 200 F.3d 627 (9th Cir. 2000), David Vernon Tank was implicated in the possession of child porn by comments made in a chat room; the chat room log was saved by another person - not a law enforcement officer or state agent. At his trial, Tank argued that the court should not admit the chat room logs into evidence because the government had laid an insufficient foundation. Tank inveighed against the logs’ reliability, objecting that there was no foundation for admission of the chat room log printouts into evidence because undetectable “material alterations,” such as changes in either the substance or the names appearing in the chat room logs, could have been made. The trial court ruled that Tank’s objection went to the evidentiary weight of the logs rather than to their admissibility, and allowed the logs into evidence. On appeal, the Ninth Circuit agreed with the trial court.
The problem isn’t so severe, in my view, because they are factually guilty. Why should I be sympathetic?
Can this possibly be Bricker, Mr. Law and Order, advocating vigilantism and a determination of guilt made outside of a courtroom?
Hi,
I thought I’d pipe in, since my father fucked me and all.
I saw the show, I went to the site, I read the logs, I read the forums. I created a yahoo profile of a 12 year old. I joined a chat room. I never said a word. Within seconds, I was approached by someone wanting more than a weather report.
I wish I could put my fathers name, address, phone number, employer, etc. on that site and let loose the dogs of war. He hasn’t been convicted. The state of Georgia is notoriously lazy about prosecuting these cases. They didn’t investigate mine. They ignored my sisters. He’s probably about 3 seconds away from being busted by these folks. I check the Georgia forum to see if he’s been nailed yet and ponder ways I could bust him. The day he dies, will be the happiest day of my life because I know legions of children will be safe from him at least.
Why do child molesters get such light sentences? Why are so few prosecuted? Why isn’t this a priority in our child obsessed society?
Read some of those logs. Even if you believe those logs have been tampered with, do a little experiment yourself. Better yet, check your local law enforcement website for registered sex offenders in your zip code. There are 20 in my zip code. Those are just the ones that have been caught. Now figure the number that hasn’t. Now figure the ones that are classified as absconded. Now let your daughter walk around alone, let her on the internet unsupervised. The world is a tad more dangerous than it used to be, the difference is that we have more ways to catch them. They don’t have to diddle their daughters any more, they can go online and try to diddle yours.
Let me get one thing perfectly clear to you. They don’t care how old they aren’t. They care about access and opportunity. Females are for fucking, the younger the better.
Let’s not sugarcoat what these folks are doing, they are actively seeking out severely underage girls to a. talk dirty to b. beat off to c. send pictures of their dicks to d. hope to fuck.
Let’s say the pervert your daughter got in a conversation with yesterday, while you were watching TV, you found the log of, the police won’t take it seriously, but you read it, you saw it with your own eyes, the guys number is right there, with his name, you google it and verify the name matches the number, the police do nothing. You sit back and say "oh, he didn’t commit a crime (although he did), he hasn’t been convicted (because the police won’t investigate it) and according to our justice system, he’s innocent. How innocent would you think he is? Would you? Could you? leave it at that? Really?
Because I would take a baseball bat or any other effective weapon and gladly bludgeon my father until there is nothing but a mushy mass of infected scum left. There’s no one else in this world I could even imagine harming like that. But I could him.
But I have woken to my own screams. I have seen the face of evil. I have heard the lies, I have felt the pain, the shame, the disgust of myself, the guilt, the insignificance. And I have seen them in my sister, who followed in my steps 18 years later.
I’m glad you are better than me and think what perverted justice does is worse than what these folks do. I’m glad you can be a better person.
I see those shows and it fills me with glee. To see that they aren’t so smart, they aren’t so clever, they aren’t so powerful. To see them cry and beg to be let go, to hear the cries of the damned shows me that all the things I thought and feared weren’t really all that true, it just felt that way.
FWIW, my father started fucking me when I was 3 years old. He never stopped trying to fuck me. I just stopped being in the same state he was in.
If you are in Dalton, GA, he’s the friendly guy, with lots of friends and lots of pets. All sorts of fun things go on at his house. Always a group of kids around, sleep overs, etc. And the youngest gets to sleep in the big bed with my father. Boy or girl, he’s not particular. He’ll even bring a friend home to molest them too.
Oh poo. This isn’t the pit. I may have been a tad too graphic and crude. Mods, delete my post or modify it to fit this forum.
I’m sincerely sorry. This is a bit of a sore subject for me.
My feelings, too. Vigilantism isn’t a problem because I believe the targets are guilty? Jesus H, I expected better from a lawyer.
Things that make you go :dubious: hmmmmmmm…
Bricker, I find it hard to believe that you, of all people on this board, are for organized retribution (harassment) without due process. I can understand a loathing for pedophiles/pederests, but punishment with their day in court? I’m afraid that I don’t understand where you’re coming from on this one.
…and on preview, I see that there is someone else confused by your stance on this issue.
Auntbeast,
I am truly sorry to hear about the horrors your father put you through. I am also truly sorry that the law-enforcement isn’t doing its job of protecting its citizens. That is not one crime, but two.
You have every right in the world to try to get your father in jail/ prosecuted/ incarcerated. You have every right to enlist the services of people who will work with law-enforcement to catch all such monsters. I also agree that sentencing for child predators is way too light.
My only concern with such groups as perverted-justice is that they can dole out punishment without following due process. What troubles me is when people begin calling family, friends, work, etc. telling those they call that someone is a pedophile, when that has not been proven. I find it ironic that a group to watch the group watching for internet predators was formed. Rather than rehash their arguments against perverted justice, I’ll point to the link in catsix’s post.
I think we can all agree that was terrible. However, your father’s guilt does not prove that all other men accused of molestation are guilty.
Personally, I feel that all child molesters should be taken to an isolated spot and tortured to death by vigilanet clowns. However, before we go strangle people with ropes woven of clown balloons I think we should be sure that they are actually guilty.
Who said it was worse? Show me one poster who said that.
I agree with Catsix that PJ has too much potential to destroy the lives of innocent people. Chatlogs are so easy to tamper with, and without leaving any sign of the tampering, as to be almost worthless as evidence. Confessions gained under duress are worthless. So, you want to ruin people’s lives based on evidence that is either worthless or almost worthless?
Could somebody post the quote from Man For All Seasons?
Bricker If I and my band of killer punchinellos are ever caught (unlikely, when we dispose of a body it stays disposed), I can expect you to represent me. It would be in keeping with your endorsement of vigilanteism.
I said what they do makes them lower than the people they’re doing it to.
I said that for a few reasons, the most relevant of which is that in my opinion, they’re making it HARDER for law enforcement (you know, those guys who really do have the power to take people who are guilty out of the public, removing them from the chance of doing it (again)) to catch these people.
If someone pretended to be 12, was solicited, and immediately reported that to the police, with the person’s screenname, email address, phone number, whatever, and then the cops followed up on it and gathered enough evidence to charge a person, that I would not have much of a problem with (besides just some random joe pretending to be 12 just to catch people doing something they shouldn’t be…that’s a little weird). That’s not, in most cases, what’s happening.
Blast you Garfield226!
I retract that statement.
I stand by my larger point. Auntbeast your father is a hideous excuse for a human being and has done horrible things. This does not mean that any man accused of molestation is guilty and hideous. Yes, there are plenty of molesters out there. That does not mean we should start a witch hunt. Do you remember a Geraldo special called Satan’s Underground? Do you remember the staff of a daycare center convicted of molestation and sent to prison for years before it came to light that the evidence was pathetic and they were innocent?
At the last Dopefest I attended, I was alone with the child of WeirdDave and GingerOfTheNorth. We were in his bedroom. I marveled over a tiny model of the internal organs. I collected the organs strewn about the room, and put them back in the clear torso. We chatted about Transformers. I said that I felt it was a cheat for fists to be seperate parts rather than attached to the toy.
Twist that and you have me alone with a boy, teaching him about his body and saying how fists should slide in and out.
I’m no pedophile. All my bizarre sexual desires involve adult women who give their informed consent. But, I am a strange single man who lives alone, never dates and enjoys being around kids. I like to give them balloon animals, tell them stories, answer their science questions, and other wholesome things. All that is enough to convince many people that I am a molester and that they are justified in doing whatever it takes to get me locked up.
Found the Man For All Seasons quote.
Hey, Auntbeast, I sent you an email.
I hope everything is OK with you.
I haven’t cried over an SMDB post for a couple of years. Yours did me in. So much for Stoicism. :rolleyes: 
Bricker, yeah, uh…I chime in with the crowd that expected you to be “Not guilty until proven” and “Due Process” and all that.
Please explain your position, I’m curious.
I fear that in a modern world where people are coming and going in ones house, where friends of friends jump on your computer to check their email while at a party, where hackers can gain control of computers, where any number of scenarios can happen that would allow a perfectly innocent person to be attacked by group mentality is scary.
-Tcat
Which other police departments?
The guy who hides behind an alias from perverted justice is quick to say that their ‘work’ has led to arrests and convictions, but what he’s not quick to say is which of the more than a thousand men members have harassed, stalked and threatened actually account for those convictions, that the convictions aren’t necessarily related to soliciting minors online (for example, a drug conviction), and that even if 54 out of 1000 is true, it’s a horrible record. It means that for every 54 actually, legally guilty men on that site, 946 men who have never been convicted of a damn thing have been harassed, stalked and threatened.
Then judges are dumber than I thought. Shouldn’t there have to be some kind of standard that a piece of ‘evidence’ is actually what it is purported to be before it’s put into a courtroom to try to prove someone guilty?
If that’s the standard, what’s to stop me from creating a chat log right now that implicates you and then sending it to the DA where you live? I can easily make that log say anything I want it to, and give it any kind of timestamp I want it to have. It wouldn’t take much time or effort to create a ‘log’ of you trying to solicit sex from an altar boy on Christmas day. Then I tell you about the log, threaten that I will out you to your family and your boss if you don’t do what I want. And when you confess, I tell the DA about that too.
Anyone accused of hitting on someone pretending to be a kid on the internet automatically loses all their rights?
And that would make you a criminal. Vigilante ‘justice’ is not allowed in this country. What makes it so acceptable for you to not follow the law?
Yeah me too.
It’s because the people from perverted justice are predators. They’re out for blood instead of sex, and they know full well that most people don’t think anyone accused of being (not proven to be, but accused of being) a pedophile shouldn’t have any rights.
Unfortunately the largely computer illiterate public doesn’t know this, and will believe that a log is real and untampered with if someone wearing a uniform merely says so.
What law are the PJ people violating?
Vigilantism usually refers to a mob taking some action - beating or killing a suspected criminal, for example. That’s clearly illegal. Even if someone is suspected of a crime, a random mob doesn’t have the legal right to exert physical harm against the suspect.
But you seem to be expanding the idea of vigilantism here to refer to legal acts. Here, I don’t agree with you. If I encounter a pedophile like this, I have every right to accuse him, publicly, of being the guy that solicited a 12 year old to have sex online. Of course, if I’m wrong, then he has a defemation cause of action against me. But if I’m right, then truth is a defense.
Alexandria, Portsamouth, and Norfolk, at a minimum.
On further research, it seems the claim made by Fairfax was not that the chat logs were worthless as evidence, but:
She apparently believed that because the person typing was not in Fairfax, the crime did not occur in Fairfax, and thus Fairfax County had no jurisdiction.
The log is evidence. Your objections go to the weight of the evidence. I don’t confess under those circumstances. I go into court and deny that it ever happened. If the log is the only piece of evidence against me, I have little to worry about. If the log is supported by other evidence – such as a phone call that I answered, or such as me showing up pysically to a house after the logs show I arranged to meet at that house – then the logs are corroborated.
This is not some single crazy judge. It’s well-settled law.
What rights, specifically, are you talking about?
Count me as a vote for “puzzled at Bricker’s stance”, for I could have sworn there was a recent thread all about what’s known as “getting off on a technicality” and that Bricker had very reasonably pointed out that there is no such thing; no-one’s guilty of anything until the courts have said so according to due process of this, that and the other. But I may be getting confused, in which case ignore me.
To get back to the OP, the peds out there meet up far more often than I think people know or realize. One of my daughter’s friends met not once but twice with men in thier forties for sex. One wasn’t prosecuted, one was.
I saw some of the chat logs, mainly because some of them were on my daughter’s computer. She had an internet relationship with both guys for 6-8 months. In her particular case, the guy took advantage of her extremely low self esteem, screwed up family life (very domineering mom, father died in a car wreck, step dad one of a heart attack, step dad two left), and the fact that she had the old teenage “nobody loves me” complex.
It worked like a charm for him. He constantly told her how beautiful, lovely, smart, and mature she was. She managed to beleive it, skipped out of th house, and met the guy at a local hotel, where she lost her virginity. The cops claimed they did thier best to track him. . .meh. I’m not really impressed with thier tracking abilities.
Despite counseling, she still doesn’t think of the guy as bad, really. If the word pedophile is mentioned in realtion to, well, the pedophile, she becomes very angry. In her view, he’s not / wasn’t a pedo, but someone who showed her a lot of love. Sick, but true.
We’re mixing, if you’ll pardon a cliche, apples and oranges here. I would never support the idea of throwing these people in prison without a trial and a guilty verdict.
But that’s because throwing people in prison represents the power of the state. The state is constrained in how it uses its power to imprison.
In this thread, we’re talking about actions, not illegal ones, I should add, undertaken by individuals. As long as these people conform their conduct to the law, I don’t have any problem with the path they are taking.
But wait, I hear you cry! What if they target someone wrongly?
Well, then the person may avail himself of all sorts of defenses. He may sue them for defamation. Given the seriousness of the crime they accuse him of, he has a slam-dunk win if he’s factually innocent. But I’m not hearing any complaints along those lines. The hue and cry seems to be that these people have not been put on trial and convicted.
Well, that’s not a recognized protection against private citizens accusing you of factually, actually, doing what you did. That’s a protection against the state using its mighty power to imprison you. Your protection against private citizens is the truth. If you don’t have the truth available as a weapon, because you’re factually guilty, then… too bad for you.