John Couey, a formally convicted sex offender who abducted a 9 year old girl in Florida in 2005 was sentenced to death today. Couey raped Jessica Lunsford over several days and then buried her alive.
Jessica was found bound by speaker wire and with evidence of a desperate attempt to save her life as two holes were poked in the plastic bags he put her in. Blood from the continous raping was found in Couey’s home — she was buried in his his yard. It has been reported that Couey asked the child to get into the grave he dug for her and that all she asked was if she could take her stuffed animal dolphin with her.

So, I must ask, how can anyone oppose the death penalty in a cases such as these? How??

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Being hailed as a saint on one side and a “punisher of thought crimes” on the other, a California judge recently issued a restraining order against self-proclaimed pedophile Jack McClellen ordering him to keep at least 30 feet away from any child or be arrested.

This article names a few people who believe the restraining order violated McClellen’s first amendment rights and assert that until he actually molests a child (or is caught — it wouldn’t surprise me if he already has), that his taking pictures of toddler girls, posting them on his website, and explaining to other pedophiles where to find them and observe little girls (which they refer to as “LGs”) for sexual gratification is all perfectly legal.

As a result, his case has stirred debate, particularly since his arrest on Monday, over whether attempting to restrict unseemly behavior that isn’t criminal violates a person’s constitutional rights.

“There is no law against someone making you feel uncomfortable,” said Laurie Levenson, a former federal prosecutor and a Loyola Law School professor. “There’s a line to cross and I don’t think he has yet. He’s tiptoeing around the law.”

My question is…what about the rights of a toddler or a child? Don’t they have any privacy rights? Don’t they deserve to be protected from sexual depravity and exploitation?

Why isn’t this behavior illegal??

Why do pedophiles have more rights than small children? What makes a pedophile more important than a baby or child? I just don’t get it.

I mean, why should a 3 year old, or a 4, 5, 6 year old, or any child be aware that there are creepy men that lust after them and if they want to take their picture, put it up on the internet and/or sit next to them and sexually fantasize about them, then they just have to deal. If a man wants to sit underneath a playground set and look up a small child’s skirt, is society obligated to protect that right???

That should be unacceptable to any human being with any decency.

We need law makers to act. Unfortunately, our laws are not adequate for this new internet threat. Our founding fathers could not have had the foresight to imagine a loophole would exist to make the exploitation of children legal.

This is not okay. It should never be okay.

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If you weren’t already convinced that the internet is fraught with perils for our kids, maybe this will convince you — North Carolina’s Attorney General is reporting that there are over 29,000 known sex offenders with pages on MySpace:

North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper’s office said in a statement that based on MySpace’s own estimates, the number of registered sex offenders with MySpace pages under their own names was four times more than the company’s previous estimate.

Cooper is proposing that North Carolina pass legislation to ban registered sex offenders from using social networking sites that allow minors, and strengthening other anti-child pornography and criminal penalties for Internet solicitation of minors and children for sex. The proposal also suggests that social networking sites’ underage users be required to get parental permission before registering and posting personal information.

Young people have been the early adopters and most avid users of social networking sites, making them targets for sexual predators.

And this only includes the geniuses that used their real names, who knows what the real count is. If you only have a vague awareness of what your kid is doing on sites like MySpace, you need to get more involved — they have the ability to post tons of personal information such as hometown, age, school, as well as uploading personal photos. And unless they have their accounts set to private, any registered MySpace user can view their profiles.

This concludes The Imperfect Parent’s “Give You More Things to Worry About” moment of the week.

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Today, The Imperfect Parent presents the first of a three part series about online predators and their reach into the mainstream. This is specifically geared towards parents who belong to parenting websites and blogs, as you may be surprised at the way pedophiles online think, their various antics, and how they use the internet to support their criminal behavior and provide information on our very own children.

Makes me wonder if technology has presented a danger that provides the venue for child predators to bring child exploitation to an unprecedented level:

Most parents certainly have an awareness of the threats of children being online, where they can easily fall victim of their own naiveté. We may even feel fully informed of the dangers that lurk within the bandwidth, as shows like “To Catch a Predator” gain popularity and stories of internet predators become common place within the news wires. But these stories only scratch the surface — parents might be surprised to learn that pedophiles, in their desperate attempts to be close to children and prey on their vulnerability, are using the anonymity of the internet to organize themselves in a united front and are now attempting to infiltrate parenting sites and blogs. They cloak and misrepresent themselves in order to gain trust so that they can plead their cases in effort to influence society’s reaction to child molestation; their goal is to normalize and mainstream pedophilia.

Read the rest….

UPDATE: The other 2 parts of the series are now online:

Cyber Warriors - A new breed of superheroes battle online child predators.

Chris Hansen - The famous face of the To Catch a Predator series talks about his motivation, his new book, and the most disturbing thing he’s witnessed during production.

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