Everyone assumes that child pornography, especially the "worst of the worst", consists of pictures of children being forced into sex. We are seldom allowed to see the evidence for ourselves, because of course it is strictly illegal for a member of the public to see it.

However, occasionally failed prosecutions for possession of Jock Sturgis or David Hamilton photos, or best-selling sex education books, gives us an insight into what prosecutors think child pornography is, and when one realizes that even photos of fully clothed children have been successfully prosecuted as child pornography, one has to consider that maybe there are ulterior motives to the campaign against child pornography, and maybe the authorities are lying to us.

Recently, some of the Webe Web child models - now adults - have begun a campaign to tell the truth about their participation in what has been successfully prosecuted as "child pornography". As they tell it, the only time they felt like victims was when the FBI came calling.

Here is one of their videos at YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2xfzmcOPg0

"but if someone uses my stolen credit card number to buy some kiddie porn, then they might get caught?"

No, if someone uses your stolen credit card number to buy some kiddie porn, YOU'LL get caught!

Fortunately, there's no actual market for kiddie porn, but unfortunately that doesn't matter.

Of course, we'll never be able to see it to judge for ourselves. We'll just have to take your word for it, and the word of everyone else who profits from the system.

Nothing to see here. Move along.

There was a wikileaks document that was released last year. One site in Eastern Europe got hits from something like 15 million unique IP addresses. Now, that included other places than the U.S. - mostly the U.S. and Europe, probably, but that was just ONE site.

Actual numbers are probably in the tens of millions.

Actual crimes against children have fallen dramatically in the same period that child pornography has flourished.

Really. The FBI has had the responsibility for counter-intelligence work for a long time. The CiA (CENTRAL Intelligence Agency) only does foreign stuff - counter-intelligence is domestic.

At 30 frames per second, 1 million images is about 10 hours of video.

Don't believe the hype.

Come to think of it, I don't believe your hype - especially after reading about cops eating donuts and joking about the child pornography they were viewing as part of their "job".

The Trojan Horse of Child Protection

Um, there's already been some talk of a few pedophiles joining forces with Al Qaeda.

And the current attempts at genocide may yet have some serious backlash.

Are you sure you want to escalate this war with an unseen enemy in your own backyard?

Just saying.

"If the CIA wants to run a cyber-war, let it. I'd rather my federal police do what it was created to do: Lock up criminals."

Actually, the CIA is only allowed to address foreign threats. The FBI has long been responsible for counterintelligence within the US, and has taken the lead on domestic operations.

In the case of cyberwar, it becomes difficult to determine which responsibility belongs to whom, but securing domestic infrastructure would appear to be the FBI's bailiwick.

In any case, it would seem that securing domestic infrastructure should be a higher priority than prosecuting a victimless crime.

"Possession of nude photos of kids or teens is not a crime"

You don't understand how it works in reality.

Possession of nude photos of kids or teens is not a crime for teleiophiles.

Possession of photos of kids - whether nude or clothed - is considered a crime if the possessor is considered by law enforcement to be attracted to children. I am familiar with too many cases to believe otherwise, including men who were convicted of possessing photos in which the children were wearing clothing, and men who were convicted for possession of photos of adults who looked young for their age. If you look into the facts, some of these cases will not be difficult to find.

Apparently it is the magic pedo eye which makes the difference, and causes the harm to children when the photographs are viewed.

In one case, a man in Florida got a sentence of over 100 years in prison for possessing a photo of a boy's 14 year old butt that he didn't even know he had, because his 14 year old friend had thought it would be funny to moon his camera and leave it to be discovered as a joke - not knowing that the police - upset by this man's publicly held beliefs - would raid his house. He is still in jail, and served over 6 years in solitary confinement. What were this man's publicly held beliefs? That being attracted to children was not a crime, of course. As a pedophile, the law is different for him. In fact, the law is whatever it has to be to assure that child lovers are punished severely.

But don't worry - simple nudes are legal for you possess, as long as the police never come to believe that you might be attracted to kids.

Perhaps they should start posting Help Wanted ads in the pedophile forums.

I can assure you that most pedophiles sympathize with you. Pedophilia is a sexual orientation, not a crime - and like most people, most pedophiles sympathize with the victims of crime.

There have been a number of studies that have shown that the majority of child pornography that is traded is not imagery of children being abused by any reasonable definition. Most are simple nudes, with a minority that are sex acts among children, or sex acts with a child and an adult that the child does not appear to object to. There is an even smaller minority that might be unquestionably considered images of abuse, but just as the famous image of a Vietnamese girl burned by napalm was not a turn-on for most viewers, images of actual abuse is not a turn-on for most pedophiles. If there were any recordings made of your abuse, and if they were ever released on the net, you can be assured that most of the reactions they would garner would be thoughts of sympathy.

There are a number of problems with the present witch hunt. Children have been excluded from society and forced into roles they do not want, and pedophiles have been deliberately confused with child molesters; while the child abuse industry - therapists, politicians, and law enforcement - makes good money from feeding the frenzy. Children and the pedophiles who love them are both victims of this state of affairs, as is society as whole. We have established a sort of intergenerational apartheid in the English-speaking world, and ask the natives in South Africa how well apartheid protected them.

Seriously - this is standard dogma among therapists and progressive feminists. They seriously claim that looking at a photo is equivalent to doing what is in that photo - so you remember that photo of a little Vietnamese girl that was burned with napalm? Everyone who saw that picture - regardless of whether they were moved to sympathy with her by seeing it - is guilty of spraying napalm on a little girl - and probably guilty of a sex crime as well, seeing as the famous photograph showed her naked.

If you accidentally stumble across child pornography, do not report it to the authorities. You can be and likely will be prosecuted if you do so.

Possession is considered a serious crime, and criminal intent is not considered relevant.

If you stumble across child pornography, immediately clear out your browser history, do whatever you can to clean up your hard drive - and hope to ghod that the site wasn't an FBI honey pot that just got your IP address.

There is no defense.

Therapists are a religion of their own, and their beliefs are just as nutty as those of any other religion - and nuttier than most. Their regime is one of torture and intimidation, and anyone who questions their findings they treat as a damned heretic.

If you really want to look at exploitation, follow the money. The big bucks are made by the child abuse industry - the psychologists, psychiatrists, therapists, politicians and cops that prey on the public's concern for children by pretending to protect or help children - for considerable financial gain.

Consider this recent case in which a 12 year old girl flew from New Mexico to Idaho to be with an 18 year old she liked. The girl's mother complained, and the police in Idaho interfered in the girl's affairs.

http://www.idahopress.com/news/article_b577b760-7153-11e0-b128-001cc4c03286.html

"The Nampa Police Department developed the Child Abduction Response Team (CART) plan a few months ago for cases like this, said Chief Bill Augsburger."

Apparently when they called it a Child Abduction Response Team they weren't kidding, because their Response was to Abduct a Child from the locale which she had freely chosen.

There are a multitude of examples where children's rights were not merely not honored but utterly ignored - but we seldom hear of the girls and boys who are driven to guilt and even to suicide at the thought that their older friend is in prison because of them, nor do we hear of the forced examinations to find out whether a child had consensual sex with an adult: essentially, our law enforcement agencies routinely rape children to determine whether there has been a crime.

So I have to ask, who is really exploiting children here? Who is really treating children like chattel? Who is really acting without regard to the harm they do to children?

'Cause it ain't the guys downloading pictures of children enjoying themselves.

Somebody is making all those photos ... and lately it's been the kids themselves, if you're familiar with "sexting".

Besides this, there are many places in the world where nudity is not a big issue. Do children in these countries suffer from the knowledge that people might have seen pictures of them naked?

Perhaps the problem is not with pedophiles, but with a society that attempts to control both children and sexuality, and which denies child sexuality. Does the harm really come from sex, or from an absurdly out-of-control response to child sexuality?

In any case, the idea that looking at a photo is equal to a crime shown in the photo is reminiscent of the religious belief of some Native Americans that photography steals people's souls. Are we sure we want to have laws based on that?

The only good news for national security is that in the event of a cyberwar, the U.S. can call on legions of technically sophisticated pedophiles to come to their aid - if they haven't pissed them off so much that they all decide to help America's enemies instead.

Maybe the FBI or the CIA needs to hire Jon Schillaci. He has experience keeping computer systems running under tremendous difficulties, and on a shoestring budget. And they know where he is.