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. . .You can't repeat what you put 'round ,
all the things that made me cry, you kicked me when I was down
and they hurt me all those lies, Lies La La La La La La Lies
-- Pete Townshend, The Who Sings My Generation (1965) La La La
Lies
Judge
Discards F.B.I. Evidence in Internet Case of Child Smut | Michael
Jackson | Childporn witch
hunt by OPP | Don Smith
(this case is now under appeal in Ontario. Brian Greenspan is
representing Smith)
Pete Townshend
& the porn police
A website
has been established to tell the full story of the Pete Townshend
case. They are also circulating a petition to have Townshend
removed from the dangerous offender's list. This is an educational
website and contributes greatly to understanding how the childporn
industry works. The suggestion that internet service providers
and credit card companies be assigned to police this industry
poses some problems. Childporn must be controlled at the source.
Those who use actual children to create the images or artifacts
must be charged and prosecuted to the full extent of the law.
We are in a time when technology allows artists to create images
that are breathtakingly realistic. Nabakov created a nymphette
from his imagination and many courts have fought to establish
the legitimacy of Lolita. The Canadian case of Eli
Langer is also very much to the point. The right of artists
and intellectuals to choose the subjects they wish to explore
must not in any way be restricted.
Townshend Charge Dropped
No child porn downloads found on seized
computer
Augustin Sedgewick, Rolling
Stone, May 7, 2003
After an investigation that lasted nearly four
months, police in London cleared Pete Townshend yesterday on
charges that he downloaded child porn from the Internet. Computer
equipment seized by officials from Scotland Yard at the time
the Who guitarist's arrest in January failed to turn up any illicit
downloads, police said. Investigators did confirm that Townshend
had accessed a site containing such images in 1999; as a result,
he was listed on a national register of sex offenders.
"From the very beginning,"
Townshend said in a statement, "I acknowledged that I did
access this site and that I had given the police full access
to my computers. As I made clear at the outset, I accessed the
site because of my concerns at the shocking material available
on the Internet to children as well as adults, and as part of
my research toward the campaign I had been putting together since
1995 to counter damage done by all kinds of pornography on the
Internet, but especially any involving child abuse."
Just after his arrest -- part
of an international Internet porn sting called Operation Ore
-- Townshend had maintained he accessed the site to research
for his autobigraphy, since he suspected he was abused as a child.
In February, Massive Attack's
Robert Del Naja was also arrested as part of Operation Ore. He
was also cleared without charge in March.
Don't believe lies!
 If
you believe Pete Townshend is a pedophile you'll believe everything.
His arrest underscores the zealous and dangerous nature of the
internet witchhunt which has scooped up far more innocents than
guilty parties.
The warning that anyone who
downloads material from a child porn site will be subject to
the same kind of public humiliation Townshend has endured with
his very public arrest should scare the bejeebers out of artists
and intellectuals.
I am forced everyday to look
at images of things I would never dream of supporting or participating
in -- human bodies blown apart or starving or displayed in ways
I find unseemly; car crashes, despoiled natural settings, McDonald's
commercials, etc. Having seen the images my opinion is informed.
I develop my own filters to ignore what is truly intolerable.
We all do this. Otherwise we would go mad.
For years I am being asked
to believe that there are thousands and thousands of people partipating
in the proliferation of millions of images of children being
subjected to sexual acts. It strains credulity. Yet if I were
to go looking for such images to see what is actually out there,
so I coud report back to people who prefer not to view for themselves
but who trust me as a reporter, I could be picked up by the police
and branded as a pedophile in the media.
I guess I would have had a
hard time believing what the Nazis did to the victims of the
holocaust were it not for the documentation: Those piles of handbags
and buckets of teeth are still pretty hard to take. I read in
an interview
with Ward Churchill that Andrew Jackson had horses' bridles
made of Indian skin. His face is on the U.S. twenty dollar bill.
I also recently saw some people interviewed who collect memorobilia
including trading cards featuring serial killers. I'm glad I
know about these people. Knowing these people exist and seeing
the stuff that turns them on does not tempt me to become one
of them.
If there really is the amount
of child porn out there which the detectives assure us there
is, let's have a look at it. Knock the shock value out of it.
Desensitize it. Maybe Britney Spears could make a video. But
please don't ask me to trust porn police who have already demonstrated
that they La La La Lie.--Sheila Steele, Jan. 13, 2003
See also The
Persecution of Pee-wee Herman in Village Voice
Pete Townshend
Is Arrested in Porn Case
By ED JOHNSON Associated
Press Writer, Jam. 13, 2002
LONDON (AP)--Pete Townshend,
the legendary rock guitarist and co-founder of The Who, was arrested
Monday on suspicion of possessing indecent images of children,
police said.
Townshend has acknowledged
using an Internet Web site advertising child pornography, but
said he was not a pedophile and was only doing research for an
autobiography dealing with his own suspected childhood sexual
abuse.
Police said they arrested Townshend,
57, under the Protection of Children Act after executing two
searches at a business and a home in Richmond, Surrey, the town
outside London where he lives. They said they took computers
from the home and were examining them.
Townshend was not charged with
a crime. Under British law, suspects are not charged immediately
upon arrest and some people who are arrested are eventually released
without charge.
Townshend was being held at
a southwest London police station.
In a statement on Saturday,
Townshend said that on one occasion he used a credit card to
download pornographic images as part of his research and that
he reported what he saw to police.
Townshend, who helped form
The Who in the early 1960s, said he believed he was ``sexually
abused between the age of five and six and a half.''
``I cannot remember clearly
what happened, but my creative work tends to throw up nasty shadows--particularly
in 'Tommy.' Some of the things I have seen on the Internet have
informed my book, which I hope will be published later this year,''
he added.
The title character in Townshend's
rock opera ``Tommy''--a deaf, dumb and blind pinball wizard--is
sexually abused by an uncle.
Earlier Monday, a group of
police officers arrived at Townshend's Richmond home, one carrying
a plastic crate containing packaging to store potential evidence.
His lawyer John Cohen told
reporters the meeting with police was by ``mutual agreement.''
``We approached the police
this morning and said that we should meet,'' he said.
Townshend, unshaven and wearing
a black jacket, left his house by a side entrance at 7:20 p.m.,
about four hours after police arrived, and was driven away.
Scotland Yard later announced
that a 57-year-old man was in custody on suspicion of making
and possessing indecent images of children and of incitement
to distribute them. A police spokesman, speaking on condition
of anonymity, confirmed that the suspect was Townshend.
The arrest came as part of
Operation Ore, a crackdown on people who view child pornography
on the Internet.
British police have arrested
1,300 suspects as part of the sweep, including a judge, magistrates,
dentists, doctors and a deputy school headmaster. Fifty police
officers also have been arrested, and eight have been charged
with offenses.
Operation Ore is the British
arm of an FBI-led operation which traced 250,000 suspected pedophiles
around the world through credit card details they used to pay
for downloading child pornography. The names of British suspects
were passed on to police here by U.S. investigators.
Townshend's friend, the model
Jerry Hall, said Sunday he was an ``avid supporter'' of child
welfare groups and had spoken at length about the dangers of
child pornography on the Internet.
Daltrey, Townshend's bandmate
from The Who, said: ``My gut instinct is that he is not a pedophile
and I know him better than most.''
But Internet watchdogs have
dismissed Townshend's explanation for entering an Internet site
dealing with child pornography.
Mark Stephens, a lawyer and
vice chairman of the Internet Watch Foundation said: ``It is
wrong-headed, misguided and illegal to look at or download or
even to pay to download pedophiliac material and if you do so,
you are likely to go to prison.''
Townshend was one of The Who's
four founding members, along with bassist John Entwistle, singer
Daltrey and drummer Keith Moon. Moon died in 1978 and Entwistle
died last year.
The group, founded in London
in the early 1960s, was part of the British rock invasion along
with the Rolling Stones and the Beatles. Their parade of hits
included ``I Can See For Miles,'' ``Pinball Wizard,'' and ``Won't
Get Fooled Again.''
The Who has been known for
explosive shows that often culminated in the smashing of their
musical instruments on stage.
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Truth can never be
told so as to be understood, and not be believ'd.