Child Porn Arrest For Cameron Aide Who Helped Plan UK Net Filters 205
An anonymous reader writes "A senior aide to David Cameron resigned from Downing Street last month the day before being arrested on allegations relating to child abuse images. Patrick Rock, who was involved in drawing up the government's policy for the large internet firms on online pornography filters, resigned after No 10 was alerted to the allegations. Rock was arrested at his west London flat the next morning. Officers from the National Crime Agency subsequently examined computers and offices used in Downing Street by Rock, the deputy director of No 10's policy unit, according to the Daily Mail, which disclosed news of his arrest."
Re: victimless crime (Score:4, Interesting)
Here in the UK, drawings classify (which is not something I agree with), so I defy you to find the victim in that.
That said, Cameron has one hell of a time destinguishing fiction from reality.
Re:victimless crime (Score:4, Interesting)
Its different. I never did coke but a friend had a habit for a short time. He described it as having the biggest set of balls on the planet without the drunken haze and motor impairment along with a shit load of energy.
Re: victimless crime (Score:3, Interesting)
Oh, I also remembered this.
They want to make textual depictions illegal. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-19574487 [bbc.co.uk]
So, "It'll be our little secret." whispered Daddy, would be illegal.
Re:The world is more complex than that. (Score:2, Interesting)
People who act based purely on emotion are dangerous.
A while back, there was a guy who was dragged from his house, beaten to death and his body set fire to because he was accused of being a pedophile. (Once again, the British need to learn the differences between a pedophile and a child molester, and that the former isn't a crime, anyway...)
Thankfully the people who beat the guy to death got long sentences.
However, the Daily Mail (the voice of reason for the braindead) demanded these two people be acquitted for what they did, because what they were did was "in the nations best interests."
Re:victimless crime (Score:4, Interesting)
Citation needed on pot consumption rising. Could easily be an artifact: if it's legal, it no longer is hidden.
Citation also needed on the pedophilia rising. "Seems to be nearing the state of homosexuality" sounds like it was taken straight from some televangelist shithead's rantings.
Re:The world is more complex than that. (Score:4, Interesting)
If that is the argument we had better ban violent films too, because seeing someone murdered on screen makes you more likely to murder them in real life.
I've written on this very topic, and been in contact with top researchers in the field: Huesmann, Bushman, Anderson, and Strasburger. If you are interested in an erudite argument on why moral panic over violent media is overblown, then please see: Pinker "The blank slate", Trend "The myth of media violence", and Freedman "Media violence and its effects on aggression". I, of course, read extensively on both sides of the issue, and contacted the aforementioned, along with Trend, to find out their perspective on what is true, and how you know it. My personal opinion is that if media violence has any effect on real violence, then the effect is tiny, non-obvious, and non-linear. (Violence is a threshold behaviour.)
Extrapolating from that to sexual crime is another matter -- and that should be obvious.
People don't generally wrestle small furry animals while watching graphic violence of the day. If you were to press me for an opinion, I'd say that I really don't know, and further that moralizing about the issue is itself going to be counter-productive if you believe that action should be grounded in understanding.
Re:The world is more complex than that. (Score:4, Interesting)
"I defy you to find the victim in that".
Easy: with a strong probability, the viewer itself has been a victim (or witness) of sexual abuse in his past.
In fact, the inner mechanisms are very simple:
1) thinking about something reinforces it. As long as I think about something, I reinforce it. Some people tend to be obsessed because they think about traumatic events for a long time.
2) expressing something attenuates it. For example, if I had an happy moment in my life, sharing it will reduce its impact.
Similarly, if I had a traumatic experience, expressing it will reduce the pain.
Expression can be done orally, manually or any indirect way you can imagine (even pottery !).
These 2 points are the basis for psychoanalysis and confession.
The real question is: since expressing something tends to attenuate it, why do some people act ?
Well, it really depends on your tendency to believe in your thoughts.
If you fantasize your thoughts (or give them some credit), then you'll probably act. Collectors are in this category (even though their behavior seem safe).
It's really difficult to find a pattern, but it's detectable in real people.
And one last useful trick:
people who feel guilty about their perversion tend to moralize others against their own obsession.
For example, this is why J. Edgar Hoover was against homosexuals and black people, or why the most vocal people for fidelity tend to be unfaithful.
This is also why the strongest promoters of anti-child porn are probably the most obsessed by that.
It's a clever way to detect obsessions in other people: check what moral values they promote, and realize that they feel guilty about their own thoughts.