For Your Consideration

Internet Vigilante Group Hunting Would Be Child Molesters and Sex Offenders

As a former law enforcement officer and prison guard, I know for a fact that sex offenders, who prey on children, are a huge problem.  The numbers are staggering, and those are just the known tip of the iceberg.  I also know that police struggle daily to prevent themselves from falling behind the power curve of both the sheer scope of the problem and rapidly advancing computer technology.

Law enforcement, by its nature, is reactive, and schools or hospitals reported the vast majority of child sex abuse cases to which I responded.  These incidents were reported after the assault took place, after the harm was done and after valuable evidence was lost forever.

I am not damning the police; in fact I applaud them and all their efforts to protect our children from sex offenders.  They are working hard and making advances everyday.  But my close friend made me aware of a group of volunteers who are taking the battle against child molesters a step further, and I want desperately to make you aware of them as well.  I want you to visit their website, to learn about them and to give them your support and pass the word. 

I am going to refer you to their website and will provide a link on the blog, I feel it is important for everyone to be fully aware of this problem.  It would be impossible for anyone to understand the scope of the issue without having to read or view some very ugly stuff.  Stuff made even uglier because it was directed towards what these predators thought was children.  Please understand the Perverted Justice staff is fearless and committed to bringing the true behavior and actions of these predators into the light.  As such, the site contains disturbing and sexually explicit text and one section includes sexual images sent by the profiled individuals, to what they thought were under age children.  A warning statement page is provided before entry into the section where explicit photos are shown. 

www.perverted-justice.com

If you are hesitant to view the real face of the issue, please go to the MSNBC Dateline link listed below the next paragraph.  It provides a decent outline of the issue without the graphic details.

My friend learned of them from an NBC Dateline report.  I am sorry I missed it.  In the report, over a 3 day period Perverted Justice Volunteers and NBC reporters filmed 19 men coming to a home, outside Washington DC, to have sexual contact with what they thought were children.  In fact, when plans for the meetings were made, they had been engaged in Internet chats with Perverted Justice volunteers posing as children.  The men quickly turned the conversations into talk of sexual encounters, despite “knowing” the person they were chatting with was an underage child.  The logs of the chats were kept as potential evidence, as were photos sent over the Internet.  The home was also rigged with multiple hidden cameras to document these potential sex offenders.  I know it sounds like a bad joke, but a doctor, a teacher and a Rabbi were among those filmed in the sting.

For more info on the NBC Dateline report, visit this link;  www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9927253/ 

Perverted Justice makes it a practice to expose these predators.  Their website is devoted to displaying the text of the chats, they also display the person’s photo when available, as well as their true identity, chat room identity, city and state of residence and telephone number.  They turn over information to law enforcement for further investigation and potential prosecution.  They have even played a major roll in the recovery of a 14-year-old girl abducted in Washington State.

Now while some of you may be uncomfortable with my use of the term “Vigilante” I am not.  Perverted Justice seems to fit Merriam-Webster’s definition to a “T”, without the negative connotations and common misperceptions…

Etymology: Spanish, watchman, guard, from vigilante vigilant, from Latin vigilant-, vigilans
: a member of a volunteer committee organized to suppress and punish crime summarily (as when the processes of law appear inadequate); broadly : a self-appointed doer of justice.

Perverted Justice does this merely by removing the veil of secrecy and anonymity these would be child molesters count on to continue unhindered and free of public scrutiny.  They are providing a valuable public service by identifying both the problem and the individuals involved.  Only then, can the problem be addressed.

I fully endorse and support Perverted Justice, their tactics and efforts.  They ask for no money to support their efforts, instead they ask for you to pass the word and if possible for volunteers to be trained to assist them in their efforts.

I challenge you to do what ever you can to help them in exposing these predators.

San Francisco Gun Ban Passes

I am sorry to hear that the citizens of the great city of San Francisco, have choosen to ban the possession of handguns by approving Proposition H.

Bonnie Eslinger of The San Francisco Examiner reports..."True to their left-leaning reputation, San Francisco voters decided by a wide margin to ban the possession of handguns within city limits".

Yet they fail to give a numerical value to "wide margin".

Cecilia Vega of The San Francisco Chronicle reports..."Proposition H, which requires city residents who already own guns to turn them in to police by April 1, was winning 58 percent to 42 percent with 98 percent of precincts counted".

Not exactly what I would call a "wide margin", but that is splitting hairs.

Before any of you vote on a similar ban, ask yourself two questions...

1.  Why would a law-abiding citizen own a gun?

2.  Would removing those guns make me any safer?

The answers, for me at least are...They own the guns for sport and personal protection and no, I have nothing to fear from a law-abiding citizen.

The city has voted and now they must live with their decision.  I just hope the mind set does not spread and that the whole thing does not end up being one of those "becareful what you wish for..." mistakes like in Washington DC and Chicago.

Those of you seeking a bargain on a used handgun, should watch the classifieds or contact any gun dealers within the city limits of San Francisco.  I am certain those inclined to obey the law will try to regain some of the money they spent on these weapons, rather than turn them over to the city for disposal.

San Francisco Gun Ban Vote ( Proposition H )

In politics it has been said that “as California goes, so goes the rest of the country”, Never mind that a large number of us go kicking and screaming.  In the city of San Francisco, one of the issues to be decided by voters in today’s local elections is “Proposition H”, an initiative that would bar the sale of handguns and ammunition and require residents to hand over those they own by April 1st.  A gun ban, in short.

I wish it was an April Fools joke, but it’s not.

Proposition H, has me concerned because even if most of us are never directly effected by violent crime, however the fear of it is very real.  So real in fact, that it has been used as a selling tool to get the issue on the ballot.  At least the citizens of San Francisco are being given a vote about banning guns.

Now we have to wait and see if the very fear of crime will induce voters to give up one of their rights.  I hope not.  I hope the same citizens who protest the “Patriot Act” as a loss of freedoms, will stand up against this as well.  But, I am very concerned regardless.

Of course it won’t be over after the vote.  The special interest groups on both sides are lining up for the fight.  If Proposition H is passed, the NRA has vowed to use whatever legal means they can to block it or have it repealed.  And the Brady campaign and Violence Policy Center will not allow that without a nasty battle.

No matter the outcome of the vote, it will have little effect on the criminals who are responsible for the gun crime; they will continue to ignore the laws.  Only the law-abiding citizens of the city will care about following the law and as a result they will be forced to either turn in their private property or be labeled criminals themselves.  This law will hurt only those who have committed no crime.

Whatever the outcome, it will affect us all.  So I’ll watch the election closely, because if Proposition H passes, law-abiding gun owners will need Preparation H.

“They that can give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty or safety.”
Benjamin Franklin

Our Litigious Society

The other day my 12-year-old son asked me “How old do you have to be to sue someone?”

Unwilling to admit I had not a freaking clue; I attempted to deflect his question.  “Why, did someone threaten to sue you?”

He didn’t fall for it and pressed me further.  I eventually told him I thought that a person would have to be considered an adult to start a lawsuit, unless an adult or attorney brought the suit on a minor’s behalf.

While he considered this, I pressed him to answer my question.  He related that it was not uncommon to hear one child threaten another with being sued for various playground infractions, name-calling or bullying.  He is a deep thinker, as are his few close friends, and they had discussed the matter of age and lawsuits.

At first I thought it was amusing, picturing a school child, trailed on the monkey bars by a immaculately dressed attorney, briefcase in hand, keeping bullies at bay and ensuring the rules of Four Square were obeyed to the letter.

It is funny…but sad as well.  At one time lawsuits were meant to protect us.  To prevent the little guy from being screwed over, to hold companies responsible for needlessly endangering us and to make us hold up our end of a bargain in an agreement or contract.  It was noble and simple.  If you got worked over, you could be heard.  You could present your case and have a judge make an informed, unbiased decision.  Or at least that’s the way it should be.

Somewhere along the line, a mean spirited and unfair practice crept in under the radar.  And were all paying for it.  I am not talking about lawsuits designed to gain redress for a true and real wrong.  I’m referring to hijacking of a noble system to use it to force an agenda down people’s throats and as a means of personal gain.

A significant amount of the process is now either devoted to getting the getting the maximum payoff or forcing businesses you may not like out of business.  I see scores of commercials advertising for class action lawsuits and groups that oppose controversial industries trying to close them, by using the “death by a thousand cuts” tactic.  A good example is the multiple lawsuits brought against gun manufactures for the actions of homicidal lunatics.  If we applied the same tactic to auto manufactures and drunken driving, we’d all be walking.

By our nature, we have a strong sense of what is fair when we are somehow wronged.  And, we should.  We also need to apply that same sense of fair play when we choose to sue someone.  We need to do as well determining who is actually responsible; as we do at determining what agenda we are trying to push or who has the “deep pockets”.

A Little Common Sense

In the state of Idaho, I am considered a “transplant”, a person not born or raised within the borders of the state.  It’s a derogatory term.  It seems when I tell native Idahoans I was raised on the east coast, it is much more acceptable than telling them I was born in California.  Many Idahoans do not care for the influx of former California residents, mostly because of the politics and the lack of common sense they seem to bring with them.

So how in the world did a guy, raised in small town Connecticut and suburban Maryland (just outside the Beltway surrounding Washington DC), end up in Boise Idaho?  I passed through Boise between being in the Army in Germany and moving to Hawaii and fell in love with the place.  Travel 20 minutes in any direction from Boise, and the scenery changes drastically.  It is beautiful, with all the dramatic vistas often used in movies.  But that’s not the reason I love it here, or why I spent years working to get back here.

The real reason is the people.  Good, straight from the shoulder, common sense people.

When I first came through Boise, I was taken to "Table Rock", a flat-topped butte that overlooks the entire city (a large lit cross stands on that Butte, but that is another story).  I stood there in slack jawed amazement.  Not from the amazing view, but because of what WASN’T there.  There was no paid parking, in fact you just drove right up and parked on top.  There was no gift shop, no park ranger, no telescopes you have to feed quarters into and no pay toilets.

Now, all those things I could do without.  But there was also no safety fence.  You can literally walk right up and over the edge.  The drop is significant, 20 to 30 feet in some spots, before you slide down the steep slope.  Survivable?  In some cases sure, but lethal in others and painful at a minimum.  Having grown up swaddled in the mandated safety provided by the order of local, state and federal authorities on the east coast, I turned to my friend and asked “Holy Crap!  Why don’t they have a fence here?”  He treated me to a look that made me feel as if I was some moderate annoyance.  “We figure if you are stupid enough to walk over the edge, we’re probably better off without you”, he remarked flatly.  His usual dark humor was totally absent in his tone.  He meant it.

On the ride back down into the city, I turned this over and over in my head.  I found I liked it.  It just felt right, like a favorite well-worn pair of jeans.  It is all about common sense.

My most recent encounter, with this type of common sense, came from my father in law.  I like him.  When I am an idiot, he tells me so.  When he is an idiot, he lets me tell him, without kicking my ass I might add.  He could do it too, despite heart and back problems and a decade and a half’s age difference.

Anyway, we were attempting to repair the icemaker on his refrigerator.  I wedged myself into a ball between the refrigerator and wall and reached blindly under the back of the damned thing.  It was at that point he recommended that we unplug it, because “If you get your hand caught in the fan you’re going regret it”.  I let my east coast street smarts over ride my common sense and blew him off.  Within seconds, this was followed by a loud WHACK, whack, whack, whack as the aluminum fan blade repeatedly struck my fingers.  I was not cool at all as I cradled my injured hand against my chest, with my eyes watering.  I don’t remember his exact words, but I will NEVER forget his grin, as he leaned against the fridge and said something close to “Hurts, don’t it?”

You just have to love a state that produces people like that.  I'm just glad we weren't up on "Table Rock".

CIA Secret Prisons ( Black Sites )

I am not a “conspiracy guy”.  I don’t think the CIA and Mafia killed Kennedy or that my microwave is a result of reverse engineering of a crashed alien spacecraft at Area 51.  But it comes as no surprise to me, that the CIA has secret prisons. 

Yesterday evening, NBC delved into these “black site” prisons and their potential for additional torture abuses, like those documented at the now infamous Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.  All I could think was “Aw sh*t, here we go again”.  I’m sure the very idea of these prisons sticks in some Americans’ craws.  It does in mine, a little anyway.

I was a Military Policeman in the active Army and while I like to consider myself to be a humane person, I cannot honestly say that if I had been assigned duties at Abu Ghraib prison, I would not have taken part in the abuses.  I am human, and given the circumstances, opportunity and lack of supervisory restraint, I probably would have participated.  Justifying it as some sort of payback for other soldiers killed in action.  Acknowledging you would have jerked another human being around the hallway by a leash around their neck, grinning the whole time is not a very pleasant thing to admit about yourself.

With that out of the way, I am glad we have “black site” secret prisons.  As a nation we are appalled at the abuses and they idea that “torture” is potentially being employed by our nation as a tool to gather intelligence.  We seriously need to re-evaluate our whole thought process in this regard.  With some very notable exceptions, we have been afforded the luxury of staking out what we consider to be the moral high ground.  I agree that when we our given that opportunity by our enemies, we should take the high road.

That option is not being afforded to us.  The terrorists have elected not to grant that option to us.  We have no treaties with the terrorists.  There is no specific terrorist nation.  They never signed onto the Geneva Convention.  They indiscriminately target civilians.  They behead hostages.  They induce young men (children really) to strap explosives to themselves, so they die a martyr killing Americans.  If we are unable or unwilling to do whatever it takes to defeat such an enemy, we are lost.

So if the CIA needs secret prisons, I’ll support it, even if the idea of Soviet style Gulags make me very uneasy and distressed.  Better the prisons are kept secret and leave little opportunity to act as a lightning rod for every protester, anti-US reporter and opposing nation to rally around.

The very fact that I would support anything that so closely resembles the Nazi “Night and Fog” decree both infuriates and scares me.  But given the corner the terrorists have backed us into, I think the secret prisons are a lesser evil.

Before you hammer me for my thoughts, ask yourself how many lost lives it would take before you abandoned the "high road"...1000, 100, 10?  Now imagine just one of those lives belonged to someone you loved, perhaps your spouse or child.  Would your opposition to CIA secret prisons still be as strong?

Alito, the Supreme Court and my Amusement

I had no idea just how amusing President Bush’s nomination of Samuel Alito for the Supreme Court would be.  I actually find I have a hard time suppressing my laughter when I watch the news or surf the web.  Maybe I am seeing things in a little different light than usual.

Usually the inflammatory rhetoric gets me whipped up into a frenzy.  Not this time.  Oh, the usual faces and interest groups are rearing their heads and coming out to either support Alito or bash him, and it’s got me thinking.  Thinking about opposite effects.

For example, if I were running for any kind of political office (not gonna happen), I would be very concerned about who supported me.  If Senator Ted Kennedy (he of blubbery romps on the family yacht and Chappaquiddick fame) or John Ashcroft (he who ordered the exposed breast of the statue “Spirit of Justice” outside the Great Hall of the Dept. of Justice, covered at the cost of thousands of taxpayer dollars) came out and publicly supported me, I’d be mortified.  Hell, the embarrassment alone would be a good reason for me to withdraw from any race.

On the other hand, if the same people violently opposed me, I’d be very complimented indeed.  So this time, I am tickled to hear their idiotic remarks.

These groups are fairly transparent, despite their claims.  One I found highly amusing was www.savethecourt.org .

This site, sponsored by People for the American Way, under their “who we are” section claim they are “a national nonpartisan advocacy organization”, yet in the same paragraph state that they are protecting us from “the radical right” and the home page has a side bar titled “The Right Wing”.  This section’s top link is “Read THE LATEST right-wing outrages”.   No mention is made of similar abuses on the left side of the aisle.  I suppose they must have a unique interpretation of the word “nonpartisan”.

There are many similar deceptive websites, both right and left leaning.  Too bad they don’t recognize they are their own worst enemies.

Roe v. Wade and the Bitter Battle for the Supreme Court?

Do we love making mountains out of molehills or what?  President Bush has had the opportunity to make nominations to fill two vacancies on the Supreme Court, and our political parties are having a field day with the backbiting.

The sitting President (what ever the political affiliation) has been bestowed with the responsibility to nominate a candidate for a position on the Supreme Court.  A majority vote of the Senate is required to confirm a nominee.  It should be simple, but we sit back and make it a media circus.

Constant references are made to nominees’ opinions on a variety of hot button issues and opposing parties demand the release of any scrap of written documentation that would indicate some personal opinion on these issues.  As if merely having a personal opinion, one way or the other, would preclude the nominee from being a good judge and from making a fair decision based on the existing laws of our land.  If you ask me, any nominee who is so ignorant about the issues facing our legal system, that they have not formed some sort of personal opinion, is either totally incompetent or lying.  Whatever the case, it seems those are the nominees some are looking to see appointed.

The most commonly quoted sticking point I hear is Roe v. Wade.  But I believe this reason is merely a smoke screen. 

The vast majority of people I speak with, come fairly close to a consensus on the whole Roe v. Wade issue.  They agree abortion should be a last resort, and that other options need to be fully explored before a decision for an abortion is made.  They agree the Government has no place, forcing a victim of sexual assault or incest to carry a fetus to full term, and that doctors are far more qualified than politicians to determine if a pregnancy would result in unreasonable risk of death to a woman.  They mostly disagree on when exactly it is that life begins.  I hope one day we can resolve this issue, but I doubt it.

But all this is not what the contentious battle for the Supreme Court is about.  It is really about stacking the deck in favor of one political party or the other, and whether collective rights out weigh individual rights.  Or more simply, if I can do as I please despite the potential harm that may come to another person or can I continue to ignore any personal responsibilities?

But our politicians are hiding that fact.  They are trying to bamboozle each other and the public, while concealed behind knee jerk issues.

The far right and far left are busy trying to sell you timeshares in a fictional vacation spot.  If you’ll just take the time to listen to their sales pitch, you may just go home with a toaster, a color TV or wicked cool Ipod, but you’ll pay dearly over time.

The Supreme Court and US Constitution belong to us, not to one political party or the other.  Let the elected Presidents make their nominations, demand the Senate vote in a timely manner and demand they base their decision on choosing the best person for the job.  If they fail to do so, or if they blow smoke and grandstand on some divisive issue, run the pukes, who would steal or twist our Constitution, out of office at the next election.