Column for Tuesday, August 7
Here is today’s column.
PERVERTED JUSTICE
The Criminalization of Thought
NEW YORK–“This is not a crime about thought,” says the assistant U.S. attorney. Then what is it?
Mahmud Faruq Brent, a 30-year-old D.C. taxi driver, is about to spend the next 15 years behind bars for “conspiring to support a terrorist organization.” No one, not even prosecutors, believes that the Ohio-born Brent planned to attack the United States. Brent was convicted of supporting Lakshar-e-Taiba, an Islamist group in Pakistan, and of attending one of its training camps.
“This defendant took action and he offered himself to a terrorist organization,” explains the prosecutor. But all the “action” took place in the would-be jihadi’s brain. There was no terrorist act. There was no crime.
Based in Pakistan, Lakshar-e-Taiba has attacked India, which it seeks to drive out of Kashmir. It has also carried out terrorist acts in Pakistan as part of its campaign to oust the military junta of General Pervez Musharraf. It’s easy to see why Musharraf is afraid of the group. One could understand why the U.S., as Musharraf’s ally, might honor Pakistan’s request to extradite one of its members. But Lakshar-e-Taiba has never attacked a target in the United States, the West–anywhere outside the Asian subcontinent. Why are American taxpayers footing the bill to lock this man up for 15 years?
Abdulrahman Farhane, a Brooklyn bookstore owner accused with Mahmud Brent of supporting the Pakistani group Lakshar-e-Taiba, received 13 years in federal prison. Two others charged in the case are awaiting sentencing.
As the government breaks up one alleged “plot” after another (Columbine-type massacre narrowly avoided as high school kid nabbed with “hit list” of fellow students! Crazy Muslim radicals caught with camera full of digital photos of tourist attractions!) it’s easy to see that anyone–yes, even you–can get swept up by hysterical grand inquisitors wielding dubious legal logic as naïve journalists dutifully report the latest victory against imminent danger.
“The government is arresting individuals on terrorism charges based on what individuals have said or thought–not on actual, concrete plans,” editorialized the Daytona Beach News-Journal- about Hamid Hayat, one of countless Muslims nabbed after 9/11 for “providing material support or resources to terrorists.” The feds “only proved that he did things that sometimes precede acts of terrorism. It was pre-emptive justice, but was also speculative justice.”
Most people have indulged in theoretical discussions about how to rob a bank or even how to get away with murder. They obviously don’t intend to carry out their “plots.” Yet any of us could fall victim to the recent tendency to equate crimes of intent to crimes of action.
Jack McClellan, 45, is a self-described pedophile who runs a blog that advocates sex with children. “If you look at things he has posted, he clearly is a pedophile,” says Lt. Thomas Sirkel of the Sheriff’s Department in Los Angeles, where McClellan lives. As far as we know, however, he has never acted on it. His record is clean.
Local mothers are plotting–er, organizing–to “to push lawmakers in Sacramento to legislate Mr. McClellan out of business,” reports The New York Times. “Just the idea that this person could get away with what he was doing and no one could press charges has made me angry,” Jane Thompson of East Los Angeles told the paper. Of course, what really angers her is that he’s getting away with what he’s thinking.
I don’t blame her. But McClellan hasn’t done anything. Do we really want to live in a culture that penalizes violent and impure thoughts?
Thoughtcrime pours big bucks into CBS Television, broadcaster of the take-a-bath-after-viewing program “To Catch a Predator.” No one cares about entrapped suckers like the guy “in a SpongeBob SquarePants jacket, armed with a bottle of K-Y Jelly.” Like dozens of other would-be pervs, the 21-year-old man thinks he’s going to meet a 14-year-old girl for sex, only to find Dateline’s Chris Hansen and a passel of cops waiting to arrest him.
Run your neighborhood through your state’s Megan’s Law database and you’ll likely conclude that sex offenders are all over the place. One is too many, but the problem isn’t as widespread as we’ve been led to believe. Many of the registrants are statutory rapists like the 17-year-old Georgia boy doing hard time for consensual sex with a 15-year-old girl.
“Anti-predator stings involving decoys may actually outnumber crimes involving real victims,” reports Rolling Stone. “To Catch a Predator” claims there are 50,000 child molesters online. But “a study conducted by the University of New Hampshire estimated that there were fewer than 2900 arrests for online sexual offenses against minors in a single year. What’s more, only 1152 involved victims who were approached by strangers on the Internet–and more than half this number were actually cops posing as kids.”
In other words, most men who fantasize about sex with children don’t actually do it. Judeo-Christian tradition rewards those who deny temptation; we throw them in jail. Perverted Justice, the group that trolls chat rooms to set up stings for “To Catch a Predator,” has a fitting name.
Ari Fleischer warned us to watch what we say. Now we’d better watch what we think.
COPYRIGHT 2007 TED RALL
17 Comments.
Brilliant article.
I hope that as people start to comment, that they can save themselves and us alot of time, and understand that just repeating cultural dogma does not make for an interesting or illuminating discussion. We all grew up in the same society. We all have the same picture of the proverbial pervert in our head. He is one of many quasi-mythical creatures:
-the welfare queen
-the hippie who spits on soldiers
-the illegal alien rapist who does not pay taxes and sucks off the system while driving recklessly with no license
-the speeder who kills you
It's not that they do not exist(they do exist), it's just that they do not occur in great enough numbers to warrant serious consideration in lieu of more serious contributors. More importantly, the myths take our minds off of those real causes.
In the case of the child predator, it turns out that a child is way more likely to be sexually assaulted by someone they know.
http://www.rainn.org/statistics/index.html
Most of the sexual assault cases go un-reported. It is not difficult to imagine that most of the un-reported cases are family members.
Our thoughts are our own, that much we can all agree on. But when someone takes those thoughts and publishes them in a book, website, or other media for all to see, and then wonders why they're being hassled… As much as I believe in everyone's right to free expression, I don't completely blame people (especially people with children) to go nuclear with scum bags like this running around.
To Catch a Predator is on NBC.
minor correction: Dateline is on NBC.
Ted, I agree with you that merely thinking or saying something about sex with minors is not grounds for entrapment, but actually going to meet with a minor to have sex is.
Saying and doing are two different things.
I completely agree with you on the thought crimes "committed" by Muslims – it's yet another blot on our "justice" system. It took me a little while to decide if I agreed with you or not about the pervs. The easy, initial reaction is that when a man has a conversation with someone he thinks is underage, then gets in the car, drives for two hours, and walks in wearing his birthday suit, carrying a 6-pack, condoms and cool whip, it's time to lock him up. To say that he's not dangerous, well, that's like watching a man walk into a bank with a mask and a gun, and saying he's probably just there to cash a check.
Upon further review, however, this kind of entrapment is awfully close to what the FBI is doing to gin up "terrorism cases". They put an agent into a harmless group, egg them on, give them weapons and a plan to use them, and then swoop in to stop the "terrorist cell".
Most of these guys would get online, get all tingly with some dirty talk, jerk off and go to bed. Now, they get enticed into a meeting that would never take place in real life, and end up in jail. So I do agree with you – this is entrapment, and bullshit, just like the poor homeless guys they "caught" plotting an attack.
It would be nice if the police and FBI would spend more time on real crimes, and real criminals, but it's no surprise that Gonzo actually brags about how he's protecting children like this. It's all about the show. This is as effective for stopping pedophiles as abstinence-only is for stopping pregnancy and disease.
Don't even think about speeding, either.
That Rolling Stone article is really good. It shows how Perverted Justice operatives practically beg people to come to the house – selling them on the idea AFTER they've stated they don't want to do it and aren't coming (usually b/c they're paranoid it's a sting).
The PJ guys are civilians, so entrapment doesn't apply, but at the same time, unless Hansen gets the perv to confess on camera, they can't be prosecuted, either. The behind-the-scenes details actually make the show more interesting….
Ted said, "2900 arrests for online sexual offenses against minors in a single year. What's more, only 1152 involved victims who were approached by strangers on the Internet–and more than half this number were actually cops posing as kids."
Where does perverted justice fit into this count? They are neither real victims nor are they cops.
That whole dateline thing is set up so that the "transcripts" can't be verified and that the people providing the evidence don't have deep pockets and are judgement proof.
TV doesn't get much worse than Dateline
Anyone can tell how little people want to be in jail by the amount of money and influence corporate and political criminals utilize to stay free. Why would an average citizen want less to remain free? So, this may explain, in part, why average citizens, without the big guns, big money, political connections, are reluctant to speak out in criticism of the Bush administration and all the crap that has come with it. A good citizen, a Veteran of the military and combat, can be arbitrarily tossed in detention forEVER by the scum that infects our White House and Department of Injustice. America now, for sure, for VERY sure, has political prisons and political prisoners. How could anyone with a basic knowledge of the Nazi system before and during World War II NOT compare the beginnings of a similar system in America under the Bush administration? I said this in 2000, when George W. Bush was smirking so confidently, because he KNEW his people were about to hijack the Presidency, that George W. Bush is a raging sadist. Military officers in the SS and Wermacht, members of the Gestapo, and citizens who helped the German 'Final Solution,' have been classified by the depth and action out of their sadism. Bush loves torture, confinement and erasing of people he will never know or care to know. As long as someone is suffering somewhere by way of Bush's being in the White House, he's getting his rocks off every single day. Bush believes he will escape scott free when his second illegal term in the White House ends. He will have many lofty things to say (out of his earpiece), but none of them, in the tradition of all Bushes, will be true. America has only one legal option: bend over and kiss our butts goodbye. Natural disasters have turned into National Tragedies due to the Bush administration milking every decent government program in order to fund Bush and Cheney's criminal wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Our Representatives and Senators are supposed to listen to the citizenry, but they don't seem to give a rat's ass. If our formerly great Nation does down the tubes, I have an announcement to those who think their money and connections will keep them isolated from National Disaster. We're all in this shit together. We can all live and prosper together, or we can DEMAND that George W. Bush and his entire illegal and corrupt administration RESIGN post haste! Bush is not capable of connecting dots. He never HAD to. GEEZ! One if by land, Two if by sea, the Taliban is right here, born and bred in Texas, stealing from you and me.
Should I feel hesitant to discuss possible terror threats on web boards? Will anyone actually read them?
Some time after the planes hit, I remember visiting a friend in Brooklyn. As f-16s symbolically darted about above us, I remember thinking two things:
1) Alot of arabs are about to die for no reason.
2) How un-imaginative of both the hijackers, and whoever was in charge of forseeing obvious, un-original attacks?
I would not have guessed that we would still be killing arabs and still have unimaginative people in charge of stopping terrorists. Of course, I'm putting this all very lightly.
Anyways, everyone I know started making up terror plots. I had some real…WHOOOAH, just had an earthquake……aha!! Thats it! I just thought of a good one:
Put a mole into the government who gets promoted to FEMA director. Then, next time Southern California is seizmically decimated, he can just sit and do nothing!!! BWAHAHAHAHA
isn't jack mcclellan guilty of hate speech, which is illegal? i say yes. book im, dano.
But..but..but…HE'S BROWN!
Isn't that enough?!
I'm not sure about your Judeo-Christian thing there. Jesus (see, Matthew, Sermon on the Mount) is all like, don't even think it. As in:
You have heard that it was said, "You shall not commit adultery." But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.
If your right eye makes you stumble, tear it out and throw it from you; for it is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body, than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. If your right hand makes you stumble, cut it off and throw it from you; for it is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body, than for your whole body to go into hell.
Yah, I think Judaism lets you think bad thoughts and says it's ok if you just don't act on them, but the Christianity not so much.
Christianity as presented in the New Testament is much stranger than we sometimes expect.
Wow, Angelo, deducting points from the hijackers for unoriginality . . . that takes balls.
anonymous, thanks for the insight! still, biblical "adultery" only applies to married people. If jesus/matthew was talking about thoughts of all people, there were words for that as well. In the new testament, there are fewer victimless sins. Someone needs to at least get dissed. In the case of adultery, you will burn in hell becaused you presumably dissed your spouse.
But even committing adultery is not punishable in the new testament. Fantasizing about sex, in any capacity, is not punishable by society at all. That's what hell is for.
The New Testament is strange, but US culture is downright bizzarro.
Just saw a news report on another set of pedopile stings. They coupled the report with a report of this lady who's 15-year-old daughter killed herself. The story on the news was that the 27-year-old guy "seduced" her daughter on myspace. Basically, They had sex, the parents found out and the girl killed herself.
The mother blames the predator. I blame the mother. She clearly did not do enough to comfort her child, and probably made the girl feel like shit. My guess is that it would have been best if the parents never found out. See what you think:
http://www.topix.net/content/trb/2007/06/a-web-relationship-a-teen-suicide-a-warning