Skewed justice — using porn laws because they can
Cnet News reports an Alabama photographer has been charged with child pornography. For pictures of kids with clothes on. That didn’t have any sexual contact. From the article:
"I don’t know what the DOJ’s trying," said Lee Tien, an attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a civil liberties group. "The best I can say is that it’s puzzling that they would devote investigative and law enforcement resources to something (like this). This is a far cry from what folks normally think of as child pornography."
I can think of several reasons the move makes sense. Pres. Bush and the DOJ crave headlines to distract and amaze voters. The pursuit of pornography has build a lot of lucrative careers in the US Department of Justice — and those involved have to keep producing. Well, this small portrait photographer in Alabama looks like easy pickings. He lives in the states, isn’t a threat to anyone, few resources — conviction should be a slam dunk given the lawyers, funding, and media spin the DOJ can bring to bear.
Of course, the charges don’t have merit. We routinely see children in catalogs and print and electronic media modeling clothes that are made to look suggestive on adults then cut down to kid size — exactly what the evidence photos show against Jeff Pierson, photographer. JC Penney, New York Times, Vogue, and Seventeen magazines are all in trouble, if the empire builders at the DOJ have their way.
Let me put it this way. Bush has this drive to impose ‘Christian’ values on the country. This white, Anglo-Saxon Protestant President thinks that what his preacher and Sunday School teacher have to say about correct behavior should be applied to the nation. Yes and no. See, the constitution of the US forbids creation of a state church. Using the DOJ to impose Bush’s protestant ethics is specifically prohibited. A community wanting to post the 10 commandments in their courthouse, an official wanting a crucifix or nativity in their private area has nothing to do with this — worship by members of the nation or the government ’shall not be abridged’. What is prohibited is imposing that religious expression on others. This ‘panty raid’ does exactly that.
Put another way, the DOJ empire builders in charge are going to have a tough time proving that the pictures involved are contrary to ‘community values’, since they differ so little in degree from common advertisements and practices.
This is pure greed and ambition, and abuse of office. In my opinion. I mean, really, what can we expect? The ‘war on poverty’ didn’t stop poverty, the efforts stopped. The ‘war on drugs’ didn’t stop drugs, they just stopped issuing ‘bulletins’. The ‘war on illegal immigration’ hasn’t actually accomplished anything. The ‘war on pornography’ seems to have built child pornography into a billion dollar industry. I would like an independent investigator to assure me that the leading figures in the DOJ aren’t involved in and profiting from the growth in child pornography, because they sure don’t seem to be slowing it down any.
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