[Lawtonfogle]

Thank you. This has always been one of my biggest issue with sting operations. For most such operations, there is little to no collateral damage, but in this particular case, they support the same damage that makes the action a crime to begin with. Yet somehow most people seem to not care. I have my own theory on why, based not on just this, but on looking at how people treat all sorts of issues related to this subject, especially when dealing with someone who hasn't offended in any way (including not having viewed such material as mentioned here).

I think that, while people do care for the victims, their main driving force behind their interactions is hatred of the entire group (both those who commit crimes and those who don't). Hatred they justify by the damage some do, but hatred that does not originate there. It is almost like there is some need to have a group painted as evil beyond any consideration, some group you can openly hate regardless of anything else which fuels it. This is one reason why I think support for treatment of non-offenders is so lacking (other than 'lock them up and throw away the key') and why people tolerate the police engaging in abuse of the very same kind to catch them.

And then, the small piece of my mind which loves a good conspiracy begins to wonder if this wasn't engineered as an constant backdoor into digital rights/freedoms. One only needs to look at laws greater than 60 to 100 years ago to see how vastly different society reacted (often there wasn't much care even when a victim was being directly victimized, especially if they weren't the child of someone white and well off).