Internet predator law
Internet is a real promised land for sexual perverts. Under the guise of anonymity, they can slowly and stealthy single out a potential victim, lure this victim into a form of interaction and at a later time also instigate a personal encounter. For the predators this is a dream come true, they can scout the victim without fear of being seen, they can approach the victim anonymously, they can speak electronically to the victim and in safe distance organise to meet the victim.
The law enforcement agencies quickly figured this transformation out, but most of the time they were powerless until the predator had victimized someone. This lead to the new Internet Predator Law, where police agents and officers are permitted to go online and pose as a child or a teenager in order to hunt down Internet sexual predators. In a remarkable turn, the Louisiana Supreme Court ruled that this behaviour by the police and task forces is not deemed entrapment and declared such behaviour constitutional.
To openly inform the public about this new law, several unusual measures were taken. In one case, the former Miss World was employed to pose as an underage girl and engage in chat rooms that were frequented by such predators. Any of such paedophiles, who instigated a personal encounter, were lured to a safe house, where the police and TV cameras were waiting. The whole case was then nationally broadcast in a reality show, publicly displaying the predators name, likeness and actions.
Another interesting case is the application of the Internet predator law in the virtual world of the “Second Life” Internet community, where virtual predators were scouting for virtual kids in order to befriend them and have virtual sex with them and later instigate the move to do it for real. Police officers posing as underage individuals cruised the relevant rooms where predator behaviour has been spotted. Interestingly enough, not only did they encounter and apprehend predators looking for children, but also predators posing as children and have sex with virtual adults in order to attract other kids to do the same. The only remaining question is who programmed the possibility for such behaviour and is this person liable as well?
The first Internet predator who was jailed under the new law provisions was an Australian 55 year old male, who used chat rooms and mobile messages to lure and single out an underage girl, localizing her whereabouts and attempting to assault her.
The case which got the most publicity was the Louisiana case where the officer posing as a 14 year old girl got invited to oral sex by a 52 year old. Sentence is still pending.

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This entry was posted on Friday, July 10th, 2009 at 5:11 pm and is filed under internet. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
















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