Puritanism runs deep
• Sex Crime
Victoria A. Brownworth in Sunspot:
It happens daily: Men (and even occasionally women) arrested for dealing in child pornography on the Internet. Their tricks are many, their ploys despicably agile, the police and FBI busts seemingly inevitable. Only those who deal in and seek out this form of smut understand the need. Once all it took to protect children from such invasions was to lock the front door; now pornographers are as near as the ubiquitous home computer.
Fear has spawned ever more intensive laws to combat child porn. Attorney General John Ashcroft has made the capture of such pornographers a priority, and control over the Internet a goal. Not since Attorney General Edwin Meese lashed out against pornography decades ago has there been such public agitation over pornography versus the First Amendment with its free-speech protections.