News Bloggers
Ada Calhoun

Ada Calhoun

Reports

Ada Calhoun is the editor-in-chief of Babble, a consulting editor at Nerve.com and a frequent contributor to the New York Times Book Review.... read more

Blogging Pedophile Taunts Parents

Posted Jul 30th 2007 9:59AM by Ada Calhoun
Filed under: Children

The New York Times recently reported on the online activities of a California pedophile named Jack McClellan. He has blogged about how and where he trolls for children, but because he has no record, he can't be barred from places where children congregate. The article describes the understandable rage of one stay-at-home mother in East Los Angeles who recently read a post of McClellan's that seemed to be describing her daughter at a neighborhood festival.

(Photo: New York Times)

Obviously, even if he's not acting on his fantasies, this guy is a predator, and he's clearly tormenting the parents whose kids he's writing about and of whom he's sometimes posting (clothed, snapshot) photos. As a mother, we consider guys like this our worst nightmare.

And yet, that East L.A. mother is part of a movement to make posting any photos of minors on any sex-themed website illegal, which we fear would make it so, say, the online sex-and-culture magazine Nerve.com, where we've worked for a couple of years, would be subject to prosecution if a non-sexual YouTube video of a silly tween music video was linked to by one of the blogs.

Nerve's publisher testified (details here) in the March 2007 hearings related to the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, which required indecent sites (potentially even one that had just a photo of breasts) from access by minors. The ultimate decision: the judge who struck down COPA enforcement said, "perhaps we do the minors of this country harm if First Amendment protections, which they will with age inherit fully, are chipped away in the name of their protection."

We agree. There have to be better ways to protect the community from the pedophile blogger. Suggestions?

Reader Comments ( Page 1 of 1)

Babble.com Check out Babble.com, the revolutionary online parenting magazine.

Featured Galleries

Geeks Who Got Paid
Ms. New Jersey
Paris Grub
Love Objects
Arctic Ocean Species
The Queen's Visit
Strange Photos
War in Iraq
Photo of the Day
 



MORE ON AOL Mail | Search | Music | Movies | MapQuest | Travel | Sports | Entertainment | Games
Site Map | Help

Ada Calhoun Blog

Check out Ada Calhoun's latest blog posts on the hottest news topics at News Bloggers.

© 2008 AOL LLC. All Rights Reserved.
AOL@News © 2008 AOL LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Blogsmith
BACK TO TOP