Heritage Foundation Favors Lax Penalties For Child Porn And Child Sex Trafficking

[Old and In the Way]

Whatever happened to those "Family Values" conservatives? Given the number of sexual exposes of many Republicans over the past decade, I guess it's no surprise that the Heritage Foundation would be quite conservative in their views about kiddy porn and child sex trafficking.

http://mediamattersaction.org/blog/200908120001

[valerief]

1. Friggin' Horrortage Foundation. nt

[Faryn Balyncd]

2. Actually, it's a pleasant surprise to see anyone on the right concerned about Civil Liberties:

Ever since Paul Craig Roberts and Bruce Fein became pariahs on the right (for their criticism of right wing abuses of civil liberties, constitutional principles, and the pursuit of unjustified war), the right (with the exception of Ron Paul) has been almost devoid of any concern for Civil Liberties.


I was unaware of Overcriminalized.com.


Here's an interesting case of gross prosecutorial abuse from their site:


When Art Becomes Crime: A Case Study in Overcriminalization (This particular case, by the way, has nothing to do with sex or child porn, but is related to performance art protest against genetically modified crops and germ warfare.)
http://www.heritage.org/Research/LegalIssues/lm0039.cfm


I think DUers may find some some pleasant surprises there.

[mzmolly]

5. Huh? Civil liberties are not about expanding the rights

of those who wish to victimize others. Especially in regard to the abuse of children, who can't defend themselves.

[Faryn Balyncd]

7. You are correct, but it appears that there is a misinterpretation of their position :

Re: this particular piece of proposed legislation.




(see Comment 6)

In reality, they posted short summaries of all 157 pieces of proposed legislation that would expand the definition of criminal conduct.


They do not appear to have taken a position on this particular piece of legislation.


I think looking at the website, and the "Legislative Update" page will show this to be the case.

[mzmolly]

8. Ah, I think I understand the confusion. Read this for clarification:

"Overcriminalized.com sends out legislative update alerts to "e-mail subscribers interested in legislation pending in Congress that could perpetuate the dangerous trend of criminalizing more and more social and economic activity."

One of the issues they raised in recent emails was the issue in question:

The group's legislative update alert on August 12, 2009, included the "Prevention and Deterrence of Crimes Against Children Act of 2009, which was introduced on July 31, 2009 by Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA) to increase criminal penalties for child pornography, child sex trafficking and prostitution, child rape and sex crimes, and sex tourism.

Members of Congress should debate this bill on its merits, weighing the pros and cons of such legislation. But by implying stricter penalties on child sex offenders is an example of Big Government overreaching its authority in order to punish "trivial conduct," the Heritage Foundation reveals just how much the conservative movement has lost touch with American families.

The legislation that is linked via overcriminalized.com to strengthen penalties for the offenders in question, is oddly legislation that they feel is over the top? BTW I searched for "patriot act" on their website and this is the response I got: "This search did not return any results. Consider expanding your search criteria."

Hope that helps clarify their position? Frightening set of priorities I'd say.

:hi:

[Uzybone]

3. Free market. After all there is a market for it.

[lpbk2713]

4. A plea for leniency for all the arrested rethuglicans.

Link: http://www.republicansexoffenders.com/

[Festivito]

10. Repubs can no longer warn fellow Repubs about investigations.

Or slow or stop those investigations of people they know.

Repubs centralized all investigations across the whole country when in office (offering the Feds as "help") so even a small investigation in a single state would go through Repub operatives that still might be in place for a while.

[Faryn Balyncd]

6. In reality, the page posts EVERY proposed modification of criminal law-& TOOK NO POSITION on this..

.....particular piece of legislation.


When I looked to see what comments they made, they made NONE.... This seemed strange.....


Then, upon further inspection, it turns out that this is a link from their "Legislative Update" page, which attempts to post a comprehensive list of ALL proposed expansions to criminal law affecting non-violent crimes They make no claim to oppose each expansion, but post all bills for further examination:


http://www.overcriminalized.com/Legislation.aspx

The Legislative Update provides details, status, and basic commentary on legislation pending in Congress that could perpetuate the dangerous trend of criminalizing more and more conduct that is socially and economically beneficial and of punishing Americans for acts they commit without criminal intent (mens rea). Legislative Update does not cover legislation on “street crime” – i.e., crimes involving violence, drugs, or firearms. Otherwise, Legislative Update attempts to include all bills in Congress that add or modify federal criminal offenses or penalties.

On this time period, they posted short descriptions of each of the 157 bills that had been submitted which would expand the definition of criminal conduct.


To state that they took a position against each bill, or any particular bill, such as the bill relating to porn, is not correct.


To get a picture of what in their opinion constitutes examples of "overcriminalization", it might be better to look some of the specific examples on their "Case Study" page:

http://www.overcriminalized.com/CaseStudy.aspx


Case Studies

* The Unlikely Orchid Smuggler
* When Art Becomes a Crime
* The MySpace Suicide
* The End of the Pocket Knife
* Criminalizing Success: The Political Prosecution of an American Businessman
* Criminalizing Kids I
* Criminalizing Kids II
* A Lobster Tale
* Failure to Prune
* The Doctor's Nightmare
* Hansen v. US



Perhaps Civil Libertarians on the left may be pleasantly surprised to see a too-rare example of some common ground.



I think this is a rare example of Media Matters misinterpreting a position. (Such mis-interpretation is the daily currency of the RW radio & Fox "News" demagogues)

[Old and In the Way]

9. I think Media Matters is only focused on the child sex trafficking and kiddie porn.

While I might agree with some of their other positions, I find their support for the perps in these cases rather odd.

[Echo In Light]

11. Oh, you mean those that CSPIN constantly parades for 'expert' opinion

Shocker