Pete Townshend-child porn researcher

[sbp]

Just another of his many talents.

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=638&ncid=762&e=1&u=/nm/20030111/en_nm/people_townshend_dc

LONDON-British rock star Pete Townshend, guitarist with legendary band The Who, on Saturday admitted paying to view Internet child pornography but denied he was a pedophile and said it was for research purposes.

The guitarist took the unusual step of issuing a public statement after a newspaper said police were investigating an unnamed music star as part of Britain's largest-ever operation against Internet pedophilia.

In the lengthy statement, Townshend said he had paid to enter an Internet site advertising child pornography "purely to see what was there" as research to fight the crime.

"I am not a pedophile. I think pedophilia is appalling," he said in the statement which was distributed by a woman to reporters outside his home in Richmond, south London.

"On one occasion I used a credit card to enter a site advertising child porn. I did this purely to see what was there," he said.

Townshend, 57, said he felt "anger and vengeance" toward those who found child pornography attractive, and said he believed he was sexually abused as a child but could not remember clearly what happened.

"To fight against pedophilia, you have to know what's out there," he said, adding that he was involved in an anti-pedophilia campaign that had fizzled out.

Townshend, who is married with children, had earlier left the house in a Mercedes car.

A spokesman for London police refused to comment on the matter, saying it did not talk about individual cases and was not able to confirm that police were investigating a rock star.

http://www.lemonizer.com/uploads/townshend.jpg
"Hello kiddies."

[DaveW]

He and Gary Glitter would make good cell mates. :cool:

I assume they are checking airline records to see if he took any trips to the philippines recently. I guess those trips were all for "research" too. :rolleyes:

[PsychoSy]

There's only one way to find the truth here - talk to Pete's kids.

Artists often times get inspiration for a project from some of the most strangest and downright morbid of places. For example, Stephen King often times walked graveyards, perused phone books, visited mental wards, etc. So, it's very possible that Pete is telling the truth here and personally, I'm reserving judgement until...Well...that's not quiet right...there is room to pass some degree of judgement on him.



If he wanted to view child porn for "research purposes", he technically didn't have to pay a website for it. He could've darned well found some on Usenet for free.

But Pete-Meister, your encounter wasn't chance, it was deliberate! You better watch your ass, pal, as you might find yourself riding the "Magic Bus" to the nearest Crowbar Hilton...and you really won't stop watching your ass then! :eek:



Here's a strange admittance from me - there's a segment in one of my own manuscripts where, believe it or not, was inspired by a chance encounter of child porn about 7 years ago that made me furious. I was tinkering around on UseNet, saw a spam header from what appeared to be from Hustler that said, "Hot Teen Blonde" and I checked it out. Afterall, 95% of the time, when you see "teen" in the header, the chick is over 18 and you know darned well Larry Flynt doesn't want the FBI to come a knocking on his door.

This picture was outrageous and it burned in my brain like a firebrand. The girl couldn't have been past 12, let's just put it at that. Right off the bat, I knew it wasn't from Hustler but from some spamming sicko. The cool thing was alot of people that patronized this newsgroup bandied together, forwarded these pics to Hustler's legal department and the ISP of the poster. Turns out that the spammer used an American based ISP and ceased to have internet access!!

Fast forward to recently where I was developing characters for a manuscript and I recalled that incident and it made sense to put one of the characters into something simular as it's a very dark and morbid story (I posted a portion of it one time here back in the UBB5 days, if I recall correctly). Needless to say, that part of the novel was really tough to hammer down.

[styles-T]

Talk about teenage wasteland..

Good point Psy..But I still find it kinda fishy that this guy is doing
research on child porn..I dont think hes a pedophile but I think he was just curious and got killed just like the cat..

If I was personally doing research the last thing I would do is pay for a disgusting picture of a child having sex..IMO

[Blakhart]

You could always find a copy of The Franklin Coverup by Decamp.
If you're not too scared to read it.

[DaveW]

Like plonk said,

If I were doing research on child abuse, I would contact one of those groups like the NSPCC that looks after exploited and abused children, not an porn site.

[Kruno]

Edit: Dude that was sick:rolleyes:

Bad kiler bad!!!

[stncttr908]

Originally posted by sbp
http://www.lemonizer.com/uploads/townshend.jpg
"Hello kiddies."
Bahahahahahahahahaha... :D

[wb22gprix]

I love the article on CNN about this, which quoted him as saying that he just wanted to "see what was on the site." (Not sure if that was in the article posted here, as I didn't take the time to read it)

What exactly did he EXPECT to find on a child porn site?

[Kruno]

What exactly did he EXPECT to find on a child porn site?
Candy?:confused:

[Mod]

But, technically (I am saying technically), if he was making such research on child porn, he would really have to use the credit card.

Looking for them in the usenet, it would be like researching an alternative place of where the pics are, and not where the big crimes happen, that is, when you have profit by asking the use of money.

Look, I am just being logical.

[Mod]

Originally posted by wb22gprix
What exactly did he EXPECT to find on a child porn site?

Maybe he wanted to know to what extent they abused children. If they were naked ( :mad: ), or not ( worst things :mad: ). If they used or not very yong children ( :mad: )

[Quinn1981]

I think all he needs to know is that Child Porn is..... uh..... Child Porn. :rolleyes:

He paid for it, a service, to view Child Porn. It's an easy concept. You don't buy drugs to study why they should be illegal (which most shouldn't), or you'll become a junky. He was curious obviously, or he wouldn't have PURCHASED the stuff. I think he's a sicky, but that's just my opinion.

I guess he didn't inhale ether.

[DaveW]

By paying for the stuff, he also creates a demand for it.

[PsychoSy]

Amen DaveW.

It's been said that the proof is in the pudding. Seeing as Pete here admits to viewing child porn, could it be any coincidence that there's a Who song entitled, "The Kids Are Alright"? :eek: :eek: :eek:

[Quinn1981]

Nice catch. Starting to make sense now. :|

[Kapp]

Here is something I never understood.

Don't the webservers run the server that child porn websites are on????

WHy doesnt the FBI get the people who are taking the pictures and stuff like this? I dont understand how hard it is. Obviously the person who owns the child porn site needed to register with his name and stuff so wtf gives? why cant they get rid of these sick bastards? is it really that hard????

[Quinn1981]

Well, it is illegal. It's just hard to stop as it has steadily been growing like a wild fire. As they put up more laws and make more examples of ISPs and such, it should become so underground that no one knows about it... kind of like it was before.

And they're getting caught. According to U.S. Customs Service records, 204 individuals were arrested on child pornography charges in 1999. That's a significant increase from five years ago, when 48 arrests were made. And customs has a pretty good track record on obtaining convictions in these cases. Records show that nearly all of the individuals arrested were later convicted.

The FBI, which also investigates child pornography cases, has made a total of 580 arrests and 525 convictions since the 1995 introduction of its "Innocent Images" program, an initiative that coordinates investigations at each FBI field office to avoid duplicate efforts.

The U.S. Postal Inspection Service is also charged with investigating child pornography cases. And though the cases it investigates concern kid porn sent through the physical mail, officers say numbers are up due to the Internet.

Postal Inspection Service statistics show that in 1999, 160 individuals were served with search warrants, and 147 of the suspects were convicted on child pornography charges. Esposito said 48 of those convicted were child molesters, and as a result of the investigations, 84 children were identified and rescued.

http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,38393,00.html

http://media.guardian.co.uk/newmedia/story/0,7496,876191,00.html

http://www.asacp.org/

There are also tons of normal citizens who search for child porn and find the "King Pins" so they can report them.

Unfortunately, I don't think it's ever going to die down. "Sickies" are going to continue to multiply as life becomes more and more impersonal. Less people are "being normal" and that is making for lots of sickies and head cases.