Banning privacy: A radical proposal

[Anonymous]

This came from Yahoo/ZDNet. Mr. Pappas suggests that we just ban anonymity
and privacy to "protect the children." Now where have I heard that before?
And yet again, the "Ethical Hackers Against Pedophilia" raise their heads,
no pun intended.

>Banning privacy: A radical proposal 
>
>By Charles Pappas 
>June 22, 1998 
>Yahoo! Internet Life 
>
>Copyright (c) 1998 ZDNet
>
>Privacy and anonymity are our most cherished tenets of online life. A
>need so immense that Marc Rotenberg of the Electronic Privacy
>Information Center declared that we might need a kind of Department of
>Privacy. He's not alone: 72 percent of surfers think there should be new
>laws to protect their privacy. 
>
>It's a radical, 180-degree turn to take, but...what if we're all wrong?
>What if this belief that privacy + anonymity = social good has become as
>self-destructive and delusional as a drunk who thinks one more scotch
>will make him feel better? 
>
>Like Marley's ghost, privacy may be coming back to haunt us. And that
>ghost's name is pedophilia. How bad is it? Disguised as a 13-year-old, I
>was directly propositioned on AOL in fewer than 10 minutes on each of
>six separate attempts. I entered a chat room--usually called something
>like "x9x10x11" or even "JonBenet Ramsey" (code words that alert
>pedophiles where to swarm)--and waited for the assaults to start. 
>
>Even when I didn't enter a chat room, the offers kept coming in from
>pedophiles prowling for victims. One wanted to send me pictures of
>himself. Another asked for a phone number. "I want to do my daughter,"
>one confessed to me. Later, when I searched for their screen names, they
>had all disappeared into the anonymous electronic mist. 
>
>AOL monitors kids' chat rooms continuously. (Parents can also set the
>AOL software so their children can't use chat rooms.) "We have a
>zero-tolerance policy when it comes to anything illegal," assures AOL
>spokeswoman Tricia Primrose. "We have about 8,000 monitors scanning up
>to 19,000 chat rooms, message boards, member profiles, and other areas.
>When we get any kind of complaint, we immediately check it out. And
>we're working with the FBI, customs, and other officials." 
>
>It's not just AOL, of course. Child molesters "operate on every avenue
>of the Net," says PhotonRain (not his real name) of Ethical Hackers
>Against Pedophilia, a group that aids law enforcement in combating child
>pornography. "WWW, newsgroups, IRC, ICQ, FTP servers..." 
>
>We already know it's widespread and easy to encounter. But how often
>have we heard--and parroted--the party line that problems on the Net
>just reflect real-world problems, no more and no less? Holland slays
>that sacred lamb: "The amount of pedophilia on the Net is extremely
>disproportional to...society as a whole. They hide behind the anonymity
>the Net offers. And they are aware of the small odds against being
>caught." 
>
>Ruben Rodriguez, director of the Exploited Child unit for the National
>Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC), concurs: "The Net is so
>anonymous that molesters are very comfortable on it. They can go in and
>hunt kids down, and attempt five or six seductions at the same time." 
>
>"Let's face it," says a New York State investigator who requests
>anonymity, "the Net's anonymity enables the sickness. In a couple of
>hours I could easily get 2,000 pictures if I wanted, including the Baby
>Rape series," a popular collection of pedophilia photos whose name is
>horrifyingly self-explanatory. 
>
>In recent weeks, U.S. authorities have helped nab 60 online molesters,
>while the FBI reports that its 3-year-old Innocent Images
>investigation--an online task force identifying predators--has resulted
>in 184 convictions. An impressive stat, but less than confidence
>inspiring when research suggests the average child molester will have
>more than 70 victims throughout his lifetime. 
>
>At the same time we splash sex offenders' names online, our lawmakers
>weigh in with proposed privacy law after privacy law. "No one wants to
>give up privacy," says NCMEC's Rodriguez, whose organization now runs a
>CyberTipline for leads on the sexual exploitation of children. "But what
>do you do when your laws and protections are turned against you?
>Something's got to give." 
>
>But what? Our conventional wisdom that privacy is worth any risks? Just
>touching this petrified opinion will get me slapped with a swastika--but
>as philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer said, "All truth passes through three
>stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third,
>it is accepted as being self-evident." 
>
>To be continued--that's for certain. 
>
>Copyright (c) 1998 ZDNet. All rights reserved.