Dept. of Homeland Security concerned with Child Porn? What were we thinking?

[Armstead]

There was a representative of the Department of Homeland Security on C-Span talking about child pornography and pedophilia.

Correct me if I am wrong. The whole reason for creating the Dept. of Homeland Security was in response to the threat of terrorism after 9-11.

So -- at the suggestion of Joe Lieberman and with the complicity of both parties Congress -- we have created a super department that deals with everything from child porn to gambling to emergency relief.

That seems like a really stupid thing to have done. I don't just say that as a bleeding heart liberal. If this were a sane world, that would also be a conservative and libertarians nightmare.

Don't get me wrong. Child porn is terrible, and pedophiles should be pursued and prosecuted. But it should be handled under the quaint system of constitutional law and checks-and-balances that were created by the founders.

Why did we go along with the frickin bright idea to create a massive, all-powerful Stazzi-like bureaucracy like DHS?

[Bunny]

1. Because 9/11 changed everything, silly.

:sarcasm:

[Ian David]

2. The terrorists hate us for our age of consent. n/t

[Jed Dilligan]

3. Saw one of their cars last night

They always creep me out. What are they doing driving around?

[acmejack]

8. Looking for subversives

As long as you are being a good citizen you have nothing to fear Comrade. You haven't been doing anything that would disappoint the Leader, have you?

[madokie]

4. If my memory serves me, the Dem senators were given the bill in its entirety

only hours before the vote. The bill is so convulted and long there was no way any of them could have read or studied any of it. re:puke:s cramed it down their throats is how the bill, which by the way was pre-written 9/11, is/was passed.

[The2ndWheel]

5. Because we live in a large scale world

Which require large scale insitutions of increasing complexity to deal with ever larger, complex problems, which come as a result of increasing the scale of our society. The loop just kind of keeps going on and on like that.

I like your use of the word sane though. The world clearly is not that. Nor can it be, with the increasing scale. Here we go again.

[Armstead]

11. You've hit a nail on the head

It seems like this cycle of more complication problems leading to more complicated attempts at solutions which create more complicated problems etc. is at the core of a lot of issues these days.

I don't have the answer omn how to break that cycle, but it does seem like the creation of a new layer of bureaucracy is one of those cases where the solution intensifies the problems.

[The2ndWheel]

14. Entropy

On a small scale, it's why we have to eat.

On a bigger scale, it's why civilization started. At this point, there is nothing you can do to break the cycle without causing the deaths of billions. Even the way we eat today is connected to our attempts to create order. Fewer and fewer people are responsible for food. The amount of food we have is artificial anyway, which again, is the result of attemtping to stop entropy.

The only way the cycle stops today is if we run out of the energy required to hold off entropy. We'll increase the complexity of the solutions to the problems, thus creating more complex problems to solve with more complexity until that happens. We basically have to hope something like fusion works, or else it's going to get quite ugly, in all aspects.

We all still die. Entropy always wins.

[Armstead]

28. I don't think the process has to be inevitable

I understasnd the dynamic you are referring to.

But I think it feeds on an unecessary level of intellectual laziness to perpetuate itself.

We could avoid that sad outcoime if we were more thoughtful and discriminating about how we solve problems.

By that I mean there is a point at which an advance becomes a problem. The evolution of computers and the Internet, for example.

Both are great. However,both also have the potential (and already have) to be very problematic. If we wanted to exercise out intelligence more, we could curn the excesses that lead to the spiral, and maintain the benefits.

The problem, I guess, is that it requires setting up arbitrary limits and definitions to determine what would continue and what would be blocked.

[bryant69]

6. That is sort of the point to Homeland Security

One of the explanations for 9/11 was that our departments weren't communicating well with each other - individual turf wars were preventing the kind of unity necessary to take on national problems. Obviously there the possibilty of abuse and overreach, but i'm not sure this qualifies. Child Porn is a problem that a number of federal and local agencies could have a finger on.

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[endarkenment]

13. It has zero to do with national security. nt.

[bryant69]

15. So you think children aren't important?

You think raping and abusing children is not a threat to the American people?

You have an interestingly narrow way of defining national security.

Bryant

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

17. Most. Pathetically. Obvious. Strawman. EVAH. -nt

[bryant69]

18. How is it a strawman?

Homeland Security is investigating Child Porn - you guys are saying they shouldn't be doing that. Why not? I mean you can raise valid concerns over whether we should have this organization at all - but since we do have it, why shouldn't the be going after people who systematically rape and abuse children?

Bryant

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

20. Let me start to explain by making another question.

Do you think reducing the amount of auto accident deaths is important?

[bryant69]

22. Yes but that would not fall under Homeland Securities purview

For a number of reasons - There are no national or regional organizations dedicated to causing auto accident deaths. there's no conspiracy, and the local highway patrols and law enforcement agencies can handle them.

Child Pornographers may include individuals opperating alone - in which case they would be the perview of local law enforcement - but they also include regional and national organizations dedicated to making money off of child pornograpy. Some child porn rings might even be international - they are a pie that is big enough that ATF, The FBI, CIA, Local Law Enforcement - all might have perview over it - and all would need to coordinate to deal with it.

Bryant

[mongo]

24. The only regional and nation organizations dedicated to providing

child pornography in America is law enforcement running sting operations.

[mongo]

23. Well, since most of the child porn that is confiscated

consists of reproduced images from Danish magazines produced over the few years child porn was legal in that country, and that most people indicted are caught by using websites set up by the government for a sting operation, it doesn't seem like the main focus of the effort is going after people who systematically rape and abuse children

[endarkenment]

27. I think you have exhibited a class a pathetic response.

This has nothing at all to do with national security.

"You have an interestingly narrow way of defining national security." Yes my narrow view is restricted to protecting us from bad guys who want to do things like hijack airplanes and fly them into buildings, which I would suspect is what about 99% of people think that the DHS was chartered to do.

But ask me if I am suprised at your inane response.

[Armstead]

29. No the alternative is to deal with the problems as individual issues

Let's assume that the lack of coordination and cooperation did lead to the problem of terrorists going undetected.

If so, then that problem should be dealt with on its own terms.

Homeland Security was sold on the basis of fighting terrorism. It was not sold as being a super law enforcement agency that would go after anyone for anything.

If there are practical and jurisdictional issues regarding other issues, like child porn, those should be dealt with individually because each raises a different set of issues.

To put it another way -- Do you really want the same intrusiveness that might be applied to catching bona-fide terrorists to be used to track you down and lock you up if you have an unpaid parking ticket?

[acmejack]

7. Possibly because we were never consulted?

We were told it was being implemented, but there was never any discussion that I was aware of. Certainly not at our peon level. No room for comment, questions, discussion. So many of us were very uncomfortable with the concept of the "Homeland" from the onset, not liking the Jingoistic feeling it evoked.

[MadHound]

9. The Homeland Security Dept. was created in order to get around

Those pesky, quaint legal notions like the Constitution. Obstensibly HSD was created to prevent further attacks, either from within or without. To this end it was given extraordinary legal powers, doing away with many basic Constitutional rights. Then, by bringing all sorts of agencies and departments under the HSD rubric, they also gain the power to ignore the Consitution. I forsee that this trend will continue, until even local law enforcement is part of homeland security, and you can have your door kicked in for no reason at all, other than "it's Homeland Security"

Somewhere in Afghanistan, Osama is laughing his ass off. He no longer "hates us for our freedoms" because we have few freedoms left, and they are disappearing rapidly.

[mom cat]

10. Child Porn is the cover for being Big Brother and spying on us all!

[itsmesgd]

16. exactly, they are looking for any cover they can exploit

DHS = Big Brother.
They act the same, but you didn't think that they would actually call themselves "Big Brother". Department of Homeland Security has a Deutchland Uber Alles - kinda ring to it.

[endarkenment]

12. We were thinking that the FBI had too many quaint restrictions.

So we did away with essentially all of them when we created our own little Stasi.

Child porn is just a starting point. Safe area to explore their new powers.

[Zodiak]

19. Exactly.

The next demon will be drugs because they have Americans conditioned to respond to that issue with emotions rather than reason, too.

Child predators can be caught effectively on a TV show. We do not need Homeland security prying into all of our lives, making databases, to chase down criminals that are too compulsive and too stupid to not get caught by a stupid TV show.

I am VERY tired of child porn being used to tear apart the Bill of Rights and stomp all over the idea of limited powers in the Fed government.

I learned recently that there has never been a real "snuff film"....that was a real eye-opener to me because I was taught that it was a scourge to humanity that must be stamped out. I was imagingin children, girls in Southern Asian countries, etc. being raped and killed for the pleasure of reclusive sickos. Well, it turns out that "snuff films" are an urban legend...never happened. Interesting how much we rely on what we hear rather than what we know. We are a hearsay society, but I digress.

[mongo]

25. Yeah

Go post "there are no real snuff films" in women's rights or the feminst group on DU and watch folks hang onto the urban legdends.

[Zodiak]

26. Well, it surprised me

But I evidence I saw was rather compelling, including a list of films that were thought to be snuff, but really were clever fakes (clever in that they made it look very real).

Fear is something sold on our side, as well, just not in high doses, and few of us are prone to swallowing it without thought. Thankfuly only a few. Funny how fear always has a price, and the price is always liberty for all.

As an aside, I've been slapped in the face for holding a door open for a woman in New York City (I'm from the South...just raised to do that without thinking out of respect). Since then, I have learned to let empassioned feminists well-enough alone if they leave me alone.

[treestar]

21. The scariest thing about it is that the "Department of Justice"

used to handle all of this.

Thinking of it as "security" rather than justice smacks of a police state.

The term has always bugged me - Homeland sounds like Fatherland and the word security is included in the German and Russian names for the Gestapo and the KGB.

And naturally they would extend "security" to include however much they can include in it. That is human nature with power, and the founders had done such a good job of reining it in.

[madmusic]

30. 9/11 was an atomic moral panic...

And it got an atomic knee jerk reaction. Same story, just epic.