The Cellar Image of the Day

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Back in early January, a South Florida child abuse prevention group wanted The Who off the Super Bowl halftime show. Pete Townshend was arrested in 2003 on "suspicion of possessing child pornography." He was cleared, saying he was doing research for a project on child abuse. UK police cleared him. Well, evidently that wasn't enough because now this is going around.

WTF is up with the picture? It looks like he's doing a cell phone self portrait in his car. How did these people get a copy of his picture, and why did they chose such a random picture of him when there are thousands of them around the internet to chose from?

Wow. That's unbelievable.

Once again a British band is playing at the SuperBowl. That's just plain wrong!!

Pete doesn't have a leg to stand on to sue uspoc.org

He is a sex offender in the UK. He was caught red-handed paying for child porn with his credit card and downloading on his comp.

If you believe he was doing "research" into child abuse, then you just fell off the turnip truck.

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Originally Posted by Tawny

Excuse me. I didn't create those flyers.

What I said is that, in civil court, Pete would not win a defamation suit against uspoc.org

Pete admitted downloading child porn. He was allowed to get away with it because of WHO he is.

Uspoc.org has something called Freedom of Speech rights. That is the law.

Wait a minute. The cops gave Pete a pass because he's famous? When the charge was related to child pornography? Come on.

Cops *love* to nail famous people. It shows they mean business, especially when it has to do with a huge hotbutton issue like child porn. I do not see anyone letting him walk. If the charges were dropped, it was for a good reason. Either way, it has been determined that he is not guilty of the crime. That makes him i-n-n-o-c-e-n-t. That being the case, he would be within his rights to sue.

If Pete had intended to get kiddie porn and fap to it, and used his credit card to pay for it, that would pretty much make him catastrophically stupid. Somehow, I don't think he is.

Bruce,

What the flyer said was technically true. However, he was not convicted (given a caution) after a four month investigation. What is left is that hazy special area where unconvicted suspects are still required to register. Also, Townshend was only required to register through 2008. So the U.S. is using part of the UK judgment and throwing out the bits that we don't like.

If someone is convicted of theft in Britain, serves his time, and travels to Saudi Arabia, can they cut his hand off?

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Operation Ore investigation and police caution

Townshend was cautioned by the British police in 2003 as part of Operation Ore. Following a news leak that Townshend was among the subjects of the investigation,[27] he publicly stated that on one occasion he had used a credit card to access a website advertising child pornography.[28] Townshend, who had posted essays on his personal website in 2002 as part of his campaign against the widespread availability of child pornography on the internet,[29][30][31][32][33] said that he had entered the site for research purposes and had not downloaded any images.[28][34] A four-month police investigation, including forensic examination of all of his computers, established that Townshend was not in possession of any illegal downloaded images.[35] Instead of pressing charges, the police elected to caution him, stating, "It is not a defence to access these images for research or out of curiosity."[36] In a statement issued by his lawyer, Townshend said, "I accept that I was wrong to access this site, and that by doing so, I broke the law, and I have accepted the caution that the police have given me."[36][37]

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A caution is not a criminal conviction, but it does result in a criminal record.[4] It is recorded on the police database and may be considered in court in the event of the offender being tried for another offence. The record will remain on the police database for five years along with photographs, fingerprints and any other samples taken at the time.

I dunno. If I am arrested but later the charges are dropped, can another country hold that against me?

Yep. Canada can. And does. I was once arrested on felony charges in Florida. Charges dropped and the record says so. Never convicted of more than a parking ticket EVER. Canada still says, and I quote, "We don't want your kind here." End quote.

So yes, some countries will hold your record OF ANY KIND against you.

I'm boycotting Canada forever.

Child pron is one of those areas where we, the public, are being asked to forgo the normal protections of the law (burden of proof, etc) in order to make double super sure that nothing bad happens. This is a bad thing to do because it sets precedent. In twenty years, we'll be registered parking offenders if we let this shit go on.

Convicted of a crime? Then it's on your record. Sort of kinda mighta been maybe guilty of something that we can't quite put our finger on, let alone prove beyond a reasonable doubt, but find the possibility distasteful? Let's not register those people, m'kay?

Sunday a friend of mine told me, his 30/40 year old daughter called him in the middle of the night, last week. She was drunk as a skunk, accusing him of putting his hand down the front of her shirt, when she was three-ish.

If she stopped and thought about it, it makes no sense, unless he was tickling her, or straightening her undershirt. But with a lawyer, she could stir up a world of shit with stupid accusations, because of the world we live in.