Child Porn As a Weapon 774
VoiceOfDoom writes "Want to get rid of your boss and move up to his position? Put kiddie porn on his computer then call the cops! This was the cunning plan envisaged by handyman Neil Weiner of east London after falling out with school caretaker Edward Thompson too many times. Thankfully, Weiner didn't cover his tracks quite well enough to avoid being found out — earlier boasts about his plan to friends at a BBQ provided the police with enough evidence to arrest him for trying to pervert the course of justice. Frighteningly, however, between being charged with possession of indecent images and being exonerated, innocent (if 'grumpy') Thompson was abused and ostracized for eight months by neighbors and colleagues. With computer forensics for police work often being performed by 'point 'n click'-trained, nearly-retired cops, or languishing in a 6-month queue for private sector firms to attend to it, the uncomfortable question is raised: how easily might this trick have succeeded if Weiner had been a little more intelligent about it?"
First off... (Score:5, Insightful)
...the obligatory Weiner name.
Moving on.
The idea of this is sick...it's no different than accusing a teacher you don't like of rape. Even if you are found innocent, there is still a stigma attached to you that will never fully dissipate within your community. People around you will always have this accusation in the back of their minds.
Whatever happend to using a whoopie cusion, or putting a flaming bag of poo on someone's doorstep?
Devious (Score:5, Insightful)
The weapon of the future. The more things we make illegal, the more things we can use as legal weapons. marijuana, kiddie porn, anything that they can outlaw they can also plant it in your house and stick you for it.
I wonder (Score:4, Insightful)
how many governments get rid of "undesirables" by planting child porn on their computers.
Throwing a baggie of pot behind your toaster is just so passé these days...
8 months? (Score:5, Insightful)
As for "how easily might this trick have succeeded if Weiner had been a little more intelligent about it?", I'd bet it has succeeded in the past, repeatedly.
Re:Devious (Score:3, Insightful)
The weapon of the future. The more things we make illegal, the more things we can use as legal weapons. marijuana, kiddie porn, anything that they can outlaw they can also plant it in your house and stick you for it.
Frylock: "All right...just don't be suprised if I call the cops on your ass."
Ignignokt: "Fryman, we have hidden four kilos of cocaine in your room."
Frylock: "..."
how to stop this from happening? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:First off... (Score:5, Insightful)
People around you will always have this accusation in the back of their minds.
Not only that, but quite often while the initial coverage of the case is headline news, by the time the wheels of justice have ground out a verdict of "not guilty" and the false accusation has been proven, coverage is much less prominent.
dont get caught (Score:5, Insightful)
In most states, you'll be a registered sex offender for taking a leak in public -- i.e. down a dark alley after a few too many pints. Should it be illegal? Yeah probably. Should it be ambiguous whether you raped a kid or couldn't hold your bladder? I dunno, I don't write laws so I shouldn't have an opinion. Maybe the slashlawer can opine on why these are similar things.
well... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's scary to think about, but it wouldn't be all that difficult to frame someone like this. You wouldn't even have to get access to their computer. I imagine it would be as easy as getting an anonymous pay-per-use cell phone, texting someone illegal pictures for a few days, and then reporting them to the police. Maybe they wouldn't get convicted, but their life would still be ruined by the allegations.
Something like this could even happen by accident. God forbid someone rummage through your cache after you spend an hour browsing
Re: very (Score:3, Insightful)
very very easy... every time I here about someones brother or uncle got caught with it on their computer I always try and explain how easy something like this would be and we shouldn't jump to conclusions.
Given how many compromised computers there are out there, I'm surprised it's possible to convict anyone on the basis of anything on the computer.
How many of us know what's on our computer? Yours might be serving up kiddie porn, stolen credit card numbers, or trade secrets right now.
Re:How do you know... (Score:3, Insightful)
I can guarantee people are pulling this off successfully. I know of a case where it wasn't until the 2nd appeal that they figured out that the computer was infected with a rootkit that was downloading/uploading the stuff.
My only thought is that, generally speaking, most people can cause 'probable doubt'.
A benefit is that 'most' people don't know how to get the CP in the first place without leaving tracks. It takes more effort than simply crying 'rape', that most people don't think of it.
Re:First off... (Score:3, Insightful)
The idea of this is sick
Yes, but it's nothing new. Anyone could more easily put an ounce of cocaine in his desk and call the cops, no computer expertise needed. What's sickest is someone willing to download, let alone look at, child porn just to get someone in trouble.
Do not..... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:how to stop this from happening? (Score:3, Insightful)
What if they put it on an unencrypted partition? Maybe just toss a thumbdrive into your stuff, then report it to police?
Heck, the case that resulted in conviction that I know of was the result of a rootkit - it was mere luck that somebody finally noticed that the machine was making requests it shouldn't. Even then it was something of an uphill battle.
Re:dont get caught (Score:4, Insightful)
Public urination involves a level of "indecent exposure." It's more like flashing, but without the same intent (probably). Should being a flasher get you a "sex offender" rap? I guess, if we're going to have the term "sex offender," a flasher would be one.
Basically, I think that if there is no intent to commit a crime, then that should be taken into consideration in sentencing, if the jury doesn't realize what an asinine state of affairs they've been roped into and acquit. Peeing down an alley beyond a dumpster, making a good-faith effort not to be seen and having the un-luck of a cop coming down just before you zip up is completely different from exposing yourself to kids on the playground humming 'aqua lung' to yourself.
Re:How easy? (Score:5, Insightful)
I posit your friend WASNT an idiot, just a normal teenager. I dare to generalize that even most 19 year olds are not monsters for sleeping with 17 year olds.
Re:First off... (Score:3, Insightful)
You ever been to a picture board?
I avoid them like the plague now for the easy "accidental felonies" available when someone posts child porn as a joke, which will then put the illegal material in your browser cache, history, and in the server logs downloading it. Trolls on 4chan do this all the time, and moderators can never be fast enough to catch all of them.
Re:Devious (Score:2, Insightful)
You have a point though. Instead of using child porn, he could have planed drugs, an illegal weapon, a bomb etc.. Of those examples, child porn seems to raise the most concern and the authorities seem to get more leeway with questionable evidence and forensics and the public seems to go along with it. My god man, think of the children! Let's fail safe and assume he is guilty. Anyone trying to defend this guy or look further into the real evidence might be considered one of them!
Here come the kiddie bombs. (Score:3, Insightful)
Remember email bombing? Thousands of anonymous emails with gibberish. How about spam? Now we have kiddie bombing.
It's time we treat child porn as an internet virus and create antivirus scanners which detect child porn and automatically delete, wipe, and report any image saved in the backround with limited user interaction. I don't want to and should not have to risk being prosecuted for possession of something which was sent to me by mistake, uploaded to me, or otherwise infiltrated by trickery, hacking, or anything of that sort.
If we treated child porn as a virus then the only people left who would have large collections of child porn would be the individuals who actually like child porn.
Re:dont get caught (Score:2, Insightful)
Do you have ANY idea how much public urination happens ? Hell, at Roskilde Festival this year, I saw literally THOUSANDS of men pissing in the bushes or anything stationary. And not a single fuck was given. Its pretty much guaranteed to be on the news at 6pm prime time, full frontal nudity shot. Dont be so god damn prude. Its a Penis, half of us got one. Geez.
Re:First off... (Score:5, Insightful)
This is exactly why "possession" (of *anything*) shouldn't be a crime.
It's all bits and bytes... (Score:5, Insightful)
This is primarily why it should not be illegal just to possess a certain set of bits and bytes on your machine. You can make it so you can fool the best of forensics experts. And most law enforcement who does the analysis simply use lame-brain software to scan for the kiddie porn files.
It would be easy, for instance, to write a virus that would spread to your machine, download kiddie porn, create fake tracks that would fool forensics, and then delete itself without a trace. Can you imagine if something like that got out and infected millions of computers with kiddie porn?
Well, for one, it would probably end this nonsense of destroying people's lives simply because they had the "wrong" files on their computer!
Not to mention nailing people for files on their computer does NOTHING to stop the production of kiddie porn. As always, law enforcement is focusing on the wrong end of the problem. They should be going after the guys who pervert children in making the kiddie porn. Why don't they do this? Oh, I get it -- too much work. Poor kids. Too much bother for Law Enforcement to go after the REAL perverts. Sorry, kiddies.
Guilty 'till proven innocent (Score:2, Insightful)
As someone who has worked in child protective services. I can tell you, as mentioned in the article; the mere accusation of being involved in child sex will ruin your life. I'm not commenting on his guilt or innocence, but look how many people were willing to believe the worst about Michael Jackson before any facts got out. I mean "the guy's successful and weird, so he must like little boys”!
Re:Just. Encrypt. Everything. (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't think the idea of encrypting is to prevent the police from looking as much as it is to prevent someone getting the data on there in the first place.
Re:Don't f* with the IT guy like at restaurant you (Score:2, Insightful)
I smell old 4chan copypasta.
Bloody USians. (Score:1, Insightful)
Here in UKia (not the most sexually liberated country in Europe I have to say) whenever I participate in an organized race they have men urinals in the open, any passerby can see what is going on.
In Barcelona women that sunbathe topless in the beach are as many as the ones that don't, and it is not uncommon that both men and women use the showers in the beach (no curtains, so you are in full view of everybody) fully naked.
And so on and so forth.
When did you guys lost all sense of proportion?
Re:How easy? (Score:2, Insightful)
This stems from the completely broken Christian concept that children are innocent and therefore must be protected at all costs from anything and everything. Many laws are predicated from this concept. And yet, many laws now allow for the prosecution of minors as adults. Accordingly, this means the laws are specifically built to both protect and brutally punish "innocent" children.
So which is it? Are they innocent or so evil we must prosecute them as bad adults? The fact these conflicting laws exist is more or less proof a legal system is broken. Fix the legal system and you won't have need for completely contradictory laws.
Just food for thought... according to current laws, as little as 100 years ago, some 30% of the world industrialized population were pedophiles. I would bet that some half the population would be criminals in one way or another if the laws were retroactively applied.
Its easy to see why prisons are the fastest growing government service in the US and why the US has more prisoners than many industrialized nations have citizens.
And then there is zero tolerance which is a fancy way of saying, "I'm so dumb, I can't be trusted to perform my job correctly yet I have a gavel or a gun and badge with ultimate control over everyone else's life." Again, zero tolerance is a fancy way of saying the the system is completely broken.
Interesting that you mention teachers (Score:5, Insightful)
A friend of mine is a high school teacher, and has been accused of abuse 3 times in 10 years. No truth to the charges, just vindictive kids trying to get revenge for imagined injuries, but each time was extremely stressful for him.
It's amazing how many people will believe the worst of someone they don't know just because some a-hole has laid false charges.
Re:very (Score:3, Insightful)
One difference is, as pointed out in the summary, physical investigations tend to be much faster than computer investigations. Most of the time, whether the case is "real world" or digital, these frame ups get caught. People who do these things tend to do them on the spur of moment and often aren't very smart about it. Unfortunately, while the finger prints on those photos found in your desk might come back in a couple days. Thus showing that your cube-mate was the only person to actually touch them. The forensic analysis of your hard drive might take months, even assuming the person doing it is vaguely competent and likely to notice any red flags.
Possession should never be illegal (Score:5, Insightful)
Not for drugs, not for explosives, not for child porn. Sorry, but it's just too easy to exploit (and there's the slight moral problem that possession is technically harmless). Distribution, sure. That would actually have a slight chance of working, and it's a lot harder to frame someone for it. But not possession.
Re:Because of that (Score:5, Insightful)
The news of a person being found not guilty needs to be even bigger than the news that a person was accused.
O.J.?
Re:First off... (Score:3, Insightful)
Isn't it a lot easier to get child pornography than to get cocaine? If I recall correctly, it doesn't have to be an actual photo to be child pornography: drawings count, and perhaps doctored photos? Never mind the aforementioned 4chan source.
This is true. Lolicon now counts as "child porn" despite the fact no actual child was ever involved. It's just cartoons. Don't ever sketch kiddie porn on a napkin in a restaurant. You could go to jail for a long time for making naughty with your pencil.
Re:Don't f* with the IT guy like at restaurant you (Score:3, Insightful)
Thousands upon thousands of crimes go unsolved every day. If you do it correctly, no one ever even thinks to investigate it in the first place. The number of crimes that are solved are definitely in the minority, and usually only come about byway of accident. Shows like CSI are little more than propaganda, fooling the masses into believing that the police will find you no matter what.
Re:How easy? (Score:1, Insightful)
No, it stems from our distorted 20th century concept of who is a child. Hint: Teenagers are not children.
Re:Don't f* with the IT guy like at restaurant you (Score:5, Insightful)
I seriously need an editor.
Don't hire the ones that work for Slashdot.
Re:How easy? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:First off... (Score:2, Insightful)
This is just a variation on retribution through false rape claims. There have been a number of very public incidents of that recently. Substitute women with children and you've eradicated even the smallest chance there might have otherwise been that anyone would ever have questioned the accusation's veracity and destroyed someone's life.
Also, for what it's worth, I heard a discussion with John Dvorak recently about this where he states that the current interpretation of most US law makes everything "child porn" even if there is nothing sexual about it. For example, the recent uproar over juveniles having to go through background x-ray machines at the airport, because a photograph of a seventeen year old girl through an x-ray machine just standing there is clearly pornographic.
It really wouldn't and doesn't take much to damage someone's reputation forever. All it takes is one upset person with no scruples who has access to the internet. Frankly, they wouldn't even need to involve the police or make such drastic claims. Say a few horrible things about them. Use their real name. Get it out there on the web so that Google indexes it and it appears every time the person's name is searched (so the more rare the name, the better the results of this action) and you have instant permanent revenge.
Re:How easy? (Score:1, Insightful)
This stems from the completely broken Christian concept that children are innocent and therefore must be protected at all costs from anything and everything.
This is no true Christian concept. The Bible is pretty clear everyone is evil.
I'd say it is more of the helicopter moms thinking their kid is an angel and can do no wrong.
Re:dont get caught (Score:3, Insightful)
Idiot and "normal teenager" not mutually exclusive (Score:2, Insightful)
I would say the overlap is higher in the years starting with "1" than almost any other decade in a person's life.
Re:Don't f* with the IT guy like at restaurant you (Score:5, Insightful)
I disagree. I've worked in both industries. As an IT admin, I have yet to be slapped or had a plateful of food thrown my face. I've never been punched in the junk by a child while leaning over a table to deliver food, then yelled at by the parents for almost dropping the food without a word to the giggling child who's winding up to do it again. You really want to compare having to go into work at 2am for a downed server once in a while or putting up with an idiot PHB to working 16hr shifts on your feet with no break and a screeching boss?
I also make at least 4-5 times more than I did in the restaurant business. In an air conditioned office. With actual benefits like health insurance and vacation days (not that I get to use my vacation days much, but at least I *have* them...) Generally sitting on my butt too. At my busiest I'm still just sitting on my butt. I might be busy tapping away at a computer and having users calling me and whining about their slow connections or stupid problems, but it's still heavenly compared to working in a restaurant.
I dare you to quit your IT job and go work in a restaurant for a few months. Then feel free to come back and say that again with a straight face.
Re:NOT the most disgusting form of human imaginabl (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Don't f* with the IT guy like at restaurant you (Score:2, Insightful)
Despite creepiness, it does raise an interesting question: To what extent and in what ways is a child harmed by "pedophilia" (in quotes so as to include pubescent minors) in which they are honestly a voluntary participant? How much of that harm is due to either reaction of others towards the scenario or treatment for it?
Re:Don't f* with the IT guy like at restaurant you (Score:5, Insightful)
About a decade ago, before the peak of current paedophile hysteria, I had a pen pal from Poland. A real pen pal. A girl, too. Yes, I know it sounds incredible, but there you go.
Anyway, we joked around about nude photos, so she sent me one of herself. When she was about four.
Nowadays, that kind of letter could land me in prison, given a hysterical enough judge.
Yet I don’t see the big deal anyway. I grew up in a nudist family. I am certain a number of people own my nude photos. Nude child photos, at that. I am even well aware of the risk that some paedophile, somewhere, wanks looking at my picture. And I cannot see any evil in it. In fact, if that helped that person defuse their urges, thus making them less prone to actually molest a child, good for them. And for the children left unmolested.
Re:Don't f* with the IT guy like at restaurant you (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, you need to know who is guilty first, then gather the evidence that proves it.
Re:First off... (Score:4, Insightful)
What is it about you that makes people escalate what seem to be incredibly mundane disputes into the scenes you describe, I wonder? It seems absurd to me that someone who manages a cheap motel, a person who likely has disagreements with customers on a daily basis about discounts etc., a person who has been trained to resolve those disputes in a way that does the least harm to the chain's reputation, is going to go from "No, you can't have $4 a night off of this room" to "He was trying to have sex with my employees and was screaming at maids." Your tale doesn't make sense.
All it takes is one maladjusted loser (that would be you) getting it in his head that he needs to ruin people he imagines did him harm, and poof - someone's life is wrecked. That's why this kind of thing is so scary, because it's so easy for sick people (again, that would be you) to ruin the lives of anyone they like very easily.
Revenge is a dish best not served at all.
Re:dont get caught (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't write laws so I shouldn't have an opinion.
Are you kidding me! This is where we need better civics lessons - you should absolutely have an opinion and voice it to your elected representatives - and encouraging other too as well! It's called democracy.
Re:Interesting that you mention teachers (Score:2, Insightful)
A friend of mine is a high school teacher, and has been accused of abuse 3 times in 10 years. No truth to the charges, just vindictive kids trying to get revenge for imagined injuries, but each time was extremely stressful for him.
Said friend isn't a quick learner, is he? Here are some things that a smart male high school teacher does/doesn't do that you might want to pass on to your friend:
1. Never meet with a single student in a classroom with the door closed. In fact, it's probably a good idea to never meet with even a couple of students with the door closed.
2. Don't initiate hugs or other body contact. Be careful about returning hugs, and never do this alone.
3. Maintain personal boundaries. High school students often don't recognize personal boundaries. It's up to the teacher to do so. Make it clear to your students that you have a "large" personal bubble, and would prefer that it be kept intact.
4. Don't fraternize with students outside of school (i.e., party with them, hang out with them, etc.).
5. Female students often have "crushes" on male teachers. Keep your head on your shoulders and in your pants. There is nothing more public than a secret between a teacher and a student.
I've been teaching over 10 years now, and haven't receive a single sexual harrassment complaint. True, these steps won't make you the most popular teacher. But the teachers that try to "befriend" their students are usually the ones who get in trouble.
Re:Don't f* with the IT guy like at restaurant you (Score:3, Insightful)
Those questions can be answered once the pedo apologists can provide a legitimate case of a child completely on their own seeking out to have a sexual relationship with an adult (cases of a 14 year old having sex with say a 16 or 17 year old don't count). The problem is that they can never provide such an example and thus always make up these bullshit "No true scotsman" cop outs.
Re:Don't f* with the IT guy like at restaurant you (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Don't f* with the IT guy like at restaurant you (Score:5, Insightful)
How did you go from reading "Janitor" to equating that with the time you worked at a restaraunt, presumably as a waiter?
Yeah, food service sucks. That's why you got a degree and a better job. All us IT guys are just making jokes, not personally attacking your history.
Re:well... (Score:3, Insightful)
The problem here is that the cops and the media have created a mad child porn frenzy completely out of proportion to the problem
Actually, it's the government that did it. Terrorism and kiddie porn are the two best persuaders to get questionable laws through.
Re:First off... (Score:3, Insightful)
Absolutely. The fact that you were so bothered by my single comment that you were compelled to respond no less than 4 times to it indicates to me that you are very likely to overreact to other things as well. Further, your repeated posts in which you keep on trying to add more and more "evidence" of your victimhood here when it's a more or less anonymous internet disagreement about something makes me think you lack a sense of proportion. It absolutely makes sense to me that if there is any disagreement you're party to that you would cause it to escalate to the point of absurdity, without question.
I'd seek professional help; that kind of dramatic response to minor provocation is something that *will* cause you to get into real trouble someday.
Re:Don't f* with the IT guy like at restaurant you (Score:5, Insightful)
Everywhere in the US, the minimum age to model or act in pornographic material is 18. Below that and it is considered child porn, and to make matters more ridiculous there’s no legal distinction between “child” porn where the girl is 17 and child porn where she’s 7.
Only a dozen states set the age of consent at 18, however. Most of them have the age of consent set at 16, and in the rest it is 17 [list] [wikipedia.org]. Additionally, many states have Romeo-and-Juliet-type laws so that if the two people were close in age they aren’t guilty of a crime, or might be guilty of a misdemeanor instead of a felony. However, all of the states in which you can legally sleep with your 16- or 17-year-old girlfriend will still charge you with possession of child pornography if you get caught with a nude picture of her (and possibly charge her with production of it, and – absurd as it sounds – teens have actually been charged with distributing child porn on the mere rationale that they could be hacked and the hacker might gain access to the photos!).
It makes absolutely no rational sense and needs to be fixed, but politicians aren’t about to make child porn laws less strict. That would be political suicide when their enemies use that to claim that they are soft on pedophiles.
Re:First off... (Score:4, Insightful)
How that got modded insightful I have no idea.
You don't know what happened, You have no reason to flame the guy.
It's time for anonymity for sex-crime suspects! (Score:3, Insightful)
This is exactly why sex-crime suspects need to have their identities shielded until convicted. Even if exonerated tons of damage can and usually does get inflicted by public perception, of which the lingering effects can be extremely destructive.
Glenn Sacks talked about this subject just this morning:
http://glennsacks.com/blog/?p=4954 [glennsacks.com]
Re:First off... (Score:5, Insightful)
Limits on gun ownership don't stop violent crime. A culture opposed to violent crime stops violent crime.
Canada has lots of firearms legally owned, and has a fraction of gun crime per capita. Switzerland has one of the highest rates of ownership per household (if not the highest), and has almost zero firearm violence. US gun violence is a symptom of culture, not the accessibility of firearms.
Re:dont get caught (Score:1, Insightful)
The whole concept of nudity=sex is fucked up anyway, public urination is a public health concern, it has nothing to do with sex. Urinating has as much to do with sex as breast feeding.
Re:First off... (Score:5, Insightful)
I have a friend who's always complaining about rude drivers who cut her off, honk at her, curse at her, and so on.
Later on, I had the occasion to ride with her as a passenger in her car... and found out why "everyone else" was so rude. She parked herself in the fast lane and backed up traffic for miles, her driving was distracted at best, she didn't signal, and she constantly made sudden, unpredictable lane changes.
Had another acquaintance who was constantly getting fired from jobs. Everyone he every worked for was a lousy boss. Always yelling and screaming and making unreasonable expectations. Like actually wanting work done.
Stopped by a restaurant where he was employed once, and found him zoned out in the bathroom, still half drunk from a party the night before. Was fired about a week later, "Because the manager hated me!"
Yep. Funny how the problem is always about all of those "other" people....
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Don't f* with the IT guy like at restaurant you (Score:3, Insightful)
There are actually a whole load of reasons for the distinction.
1. When an underaged person consents to non-televised sex with someone, that person usually does it because he or she enjoys the act. When an underaged person does porn, there are usually one of two reasons for it: either to make money or because that person wants to make his or her partner happy, but with the expressed condition that the porn be kept private. Either way, creating and distributing such porn is considered more degrading to the person than simply having sex with that person.
2. In a number of jurisdictions, it's not legal for everyone to have sex with an underaged person. In some places, for example, you're only allowed to have sex with a 16-year-old if you're under 19. But pornography can be viewed by anyone once it's out in the open, which makes your "if it's legal to do one then it should be legal to do the other" argument moot.
3. Pornography is an international concern due to the ease of distribution, so most countries have the same laws about child pornography, much like how most countries have accepted the Berne Convention. Age of consent is always considered an internal concern, on the other hand. Therefore, there are many different sets of laws concerning sexual consent but only one concerning consent to taking part in pornography. It should come as no surprise that these don't always agree, and in fact they do agree in some cases.
That said, some prosecutors go too far and completely ignore the spirit of the laws. There have been cases where a young man has been charged for having porn of his underaged girlfriend even though he's never shown it to anyone. Then they charge the girl for making and distributing child porn. Of herself. That sort of thing is completely absurd, but has nothing to do with the general validity of the laws.
Rob
Re:First off... (Score:1, Insightful)
Don't feed the trolls. He misread your original post and thought you were bragging about having revenge on the people you were talking about, and trying to make you look a villain. It's just a strawman argument, don't let him get you flustered.
Re:First off... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Don't f* with the IT guy like at restaurant you (Score:3, Insightful)
Except this has nothing whatsoever to do with "protecting" children but with fucked up Christo-Islamist (that is why they hate each other so much - too alike for comfort) religious bigotry where children are seen as "innocent" victims ready to be corrupted by the evils of "sin", sex being chief amongst them. If they had their way, the religious retards (and all those politicos and "law enforcement" opportunists who see power and money in it) would have the legal age of consent at 50, legal age for alcohol consumption at 60 but would gladly see the legal age to enlist in the armed forces lowered to 10, for fighting religious wars in foreign lands for fun and profit is a sure way to heaven...
That is the insane mentality that is driving the draconian and inflexible laws (in the US the legal age for having sex with a girl is already higher than that for tossing grenades into houses and then perusing the naked dismembered bodies of the said foreign girls).
This insane mentality can be further exposed by looking at what happens when children themselves violate the laws meant to ostensibly "protect" them: they are punished, in most draconian ways, for life. That is because instead of "protection" the real, thinly veiled, point of these laws is, and always was, fighting "sin".