Need Help - Re: The Porn Kid At The Congressional Hearing Today

[matcom]

i'm not saying this ISN'T a problem but let me get this straight....

the kid had basically NO parental supervision at home, takes off his clothes in front of a web cam for $$.

moves down to Mexico with his dad who BUYS him COKE and HOOKERS and exploits him (what the HELL am I missing here?)

now he sits in front of Congress touting the EVIL of Internet PORN?

:wtf:

ok. it is late for me i'll admit but :wtf: is he doing in front of Paula Zahn and Katie Couric's teary eyed gaze?

why isn't the "system" blaming (and frankly throwing in JAIL his mother and father)?????

HOW is this relevant to the Internet Porn "problem"?

sorry if I missed anything. didn't see the hearings, just the 20 second sound bites

[boobooday]

1. Maybe it's just a trade

One form of exploitation for another?

Even steven?

[skooooo]

2. The kid was 13 to 16 years old.

That's the problem.

[snacker]

3. That was quite a story, wasn't it?

The more he talked, the weirder the whole thing got....

[Vickers]

4. Dude, it's EVIL because he was BUSTED.

:crazy:

You can bet your ass he'd still be cranking it in front of his webcam if he wouldn't have been caught.

[sundog]

20. .

:spray:

[OzarkDem]

37. I read an in-depth article about this

a few months ago, can't recall but one of the major newspapers did a long story about it.

The kid was manipulated, his father exploited him, which had to go a long way towards making him think it was ok in his own mind. His mom wasn't aware because he was a very bright kid who was very good at hiding what he was doing. Once it started, he went to great lengths to hide it from his mother. I don't blame her in this situation.

It took psychologists quite a while to "de-program" the kid and help him deal with his feelings. Much like any child who has been manipulated by adults, he was immature and his sense of right and wrong had been distorted by the adults who manipulated him. He's not to blame here.

I just can't fathom why more people haven't been arrested in connection with this investigation. Are there influential GOP'ers at risk here?

[JanMichael]

5. What the hell are you talking about?

"Porn Kid"???

[karlrschneider]

10. Google "Justin Berry"

he's making the talk show rounds (and congress)

[JanMichael]

18. Will that make me a pedophile?

What's gonna show up?

[Starbucks Anarchist]

31. Here's a news article from Yahoo:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060405/ap_on_re_us/child_pornography

[Viva_La_Revolution]

26. EVERY damn talk show too!

did they wait and pull him out cause of Delay wimping out? :eviltinfoilgrin:

[Cornus]

6. He's on Larry King now nmi

[DRoseDARs]

7. If the Internets and webcams didn't exist, there would be no porn...

...and thus no reason or opportunity for the kid to get naked in front of a camera, move to Mexico, having his dad buy him coke and hookers, and be exploited.


...


Yeah, that sounded a little Pollyannish to me too, but Lord knows Zahn and Couric lap it up. :shrug:

[Jigarotta]

17. the internets invented porn...

and web cams are Evil. we must protect the children!

that is certainly the background general message I'm getting from this story.

there's always a background noise underbelly story to that crap on CNN - they could give a poop about 'the children'.

[Tsiyu]

8. Because the media and Congress are full of shit

and they are trying to demonize the Internets.


Are these parents in prison yet?

[spanone]

9. Something about it had a certain smell to it to me.

[RamboLiberal]

24. Same here - Something bothers me about this story

Not saying it isn't true. But the kid seems too damn smooth to me and seems to be lapping all of this up. How the hell can a mother miss all these packages coming to the house - I know he said he rushed home to get packages before mother came home - but come on - where was he hiding all this stuff. And 1500 men sending him money and gifts! Good gawd!

I want proof more than this kid's story on this one.

[AX10]

11. Something is wrong here.

1. Where were the parents?
2. The kid made a shit load of money of this scam: he doesn't seem to be too "hurt".
3. When I was 13, I knew what was right and what was wrong. Had anyone assaulted me in any way, my parents would have known about it immediatly.

[bridgit]

12. a fresh faced, used to be innocent youth offering a personalized...

salacious story of low self esteem and usury adult behavior is my guess; i did think i heard that his dad was involved (maybe misheard it) and if that is correct then you are correct... daddy does some time big time :thumbsup:

[cali]

13. It was a huge

story in the NYT several months ago- pages and pages long. I thought the same thing re lack of parental supervision, but the story itself was pretty fascinating aside from that. You should really read the article.

[sproutster]

14. It is VERY relevant.

I saw Oprah when he was on. He has had to be locked down while waiting for this hearing, because of death threats.

He wasn't left to ruin by his mother. She or his stepfather brought home a webcam for him - he was very good with computers. He of course didn't show her these sites

He went trolling for girls, and the ring posed as girls. They worked in concert... They enticed him with "gifts"

His friends at school found his porno site on the web so he ran away to his father... This is years BTW I think he ran at 16 or 17.

He opened up to his father about what all happened - his father is like, well how can I help you make more money?

He got hooked on drugs and a reporter came across one of his sites and thought something was very wrong.

He met with the boy, convinced him to stop taking drugs, then convinced him to go to the feds.

Some of the others that were on his "circle" are DEAD.

It's a fucking huge problem if you allow your child alone for 15 minutes a night with a computer and webcam. Think about it. Most don't, because it is a cute way to talk to your "friends"

[sproutster]

15. ALSO it's important to note -- NOT ONCE WAS THE KID BUSTED.

He knew others who died, and told the feds about others... AND THEY DID NOTHING - which is how a couple died.

[LisaL]

16. He is a child. As is being abused due to his tender age.

I am not sure what is it that you think you are missing?
Do you think 13 year old is old enough to know better and thus can not be a victim?

[wakeme2008]

19. the kid made money jacking off on camera before moving to Mex

I do not feel sorry for him.

[OzarkDem]

38. He's a kid

who was exploited by other adults, including his own father, making him think this was ok. He's not mature enough to understand or avoid being manipulated by others.

[wakeme2008]

21. They bought him gifts and paid him hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Repeat "They bought him gifts and paid him hundreds of thousands of dollars."


http://wusa9.com/news/news_article.aspx?storyid=48180

[sproutster]

22. So 13 year olds are allowed to be exploited if you pay enough?

Is that what you are saying? If you pay them enough, they should accept the consequences - the death of others in the same situation is nothing.

[wakeme2008]

23. The boy started making money on his OWN... He liked the Money

and now he is trying for book and movie deals... Nobody exploted him, IMHO...

[KT2000]

25. It is really an interesting story

It convinced me there is a problem with kids communicating with strangers on the internet. Some of those strangers are pretty good at manipulating and sensing what these kids need. They exploit that to get to the kids.
I'm not going to pass judgement on the boy because I was not raped by a man at 13 and he was, I didn't have a father who is a total ass.
His father is definately a loser and his mother tried to help her messed up kid without knowing what was going on. She thought he had become depressed.

The reporter offered him an out and he took it. He also risked his own safety because he had concerns about other kids caught up in it. The DOJ released his name to the public and is very slow in acting on the information he has given them - names of perpetrators. He sat there giving testimony with one of his rapists sitting directly behind him. When it came time for that guy to testify, he took the 5th.

Visibility (tv shows) may be the only way he can protect himself from the thugs that are in that business. He does not trust the DOJ to provide protection for him after they have screwed up as much as they have already.

He's a messed up kid and he knows it. Sad.

[AnnInLa]

27. Raising teen-age boys

Is one of the most difficult jobs around. They demand their privacy, and no matter how hard you try to monitor all activities, you just can't. I heard that the working mom tried to monitor, for example, she put the latest kid-protection software on the computer, but he was just smarter than she was. Add that to the impossibility of a parent to even imagine that their child is engaged in abhorent activities...the parent's mind just does not go there.

I know.

The "sniff test" some of you are applying sounds suspiciously like the "sniff test" the RW has applied to Jill Carroll and others.

[Puglover]

28. The pedophiles are beyond disgust...BUT

this kids has culpability here, as does his parents. Why does everyone who screams "the children, the children!" forget what it's like to be 15 years old? I would have screwed a 3 headed slug when I was 15. My hormones were raging nonstop. Take my shirt off for money? Hell yeah! And the rest sounds as if it steamrolled, which with an immature kid could easily happen.

The perverts who sit and jack off to a 13 year old on a web cam (or 15 year old for that matter) deserve what they get but for him to sit across from those two talking heads touting the evil of internet porn is baloney. But then again that is what passes for infotainment in America these days.

[underpants]

29. One headline I saw yesterday SHOULD have been from the Onion

Something about "Teen tells of porn luring him on the internet"

[DrGonzoLives]

30. It's not about porn, it's about sexual predators

Instead of hanging around schools, no these sickos go online to find their prey.

It's attached to pr0n, simply because that's a nice taboo thing that "everybody" hates and can get outraged about.

You're right, the parents should be the ones being media horsewhipped right now, specifically dad.

[Heidi]

32. Someone's gotta say it: if he were female, the predators in that case

would have been in prison by now.

Further, I say, donning my tinfoil hat :tinfoilhat:, I believe the outrage about myspace and other "friends" venues is a red-to-the-core attack on technology, and by extension, science. There were predators long before the internet existed; the internet actually makes investigators' jobs easier, in my opinion, because they have an IP address trail to follow right to the predators' doorsteps.

[salin]

33. news is ironic, eh - HLS pr guy busted for internet solicitation and

distribution of materials... the same day as the hearing.

[Finder]

36. Something is strange about this story as well...

and labeling him as a pedophile and such makes no sense. First, the supposed girl was 14 and he seems to have given her his true identity. Dirty old man--for sure. Sinister intentions?--not beyond lewdness.

[Finder]

34. I agree it is a problem, but...

a problem which has existed well before there was an internet. He was definitely neglected by his parents, exploited by his own father and was allowed to become a prostitute. Technically his own father enabled him and possibly assisted in pimping him.

The pedophile label thrown around is not only incorrect but totally ridiculous. The media should know better.

[OzarkDem]

35. Why isn't DOJ doing something?

I don't understand why the man who sexually abused him is allowed to testify in Congress, but hasn't even been arrested.

Why is the FBI not investigating or bringing these people to justice?

:wtf: