"...'To Catch a Predator,' a segment of NBC's "Dateline" newsmagazine program, lures men to a house with hidden cameras in the belief that they are about to have sexual relations with underage girls or boys. There, they are confronted by the program's host and promptly arrested. In Conradt's case, he was expecting to meet up with a 13-year-old boy.
Critics of the show say it is a form of entrapment, and they have questioned NBC's partnership on the series with an online vigilante group called Perverted-Justice..."
See the Yahoo story: Judge approves "Predator" lawsuit against NBC
At last someone agrees with me. I been saying that I think this is clearly entrapment. I also question the idea of a vigilante group having a part in all of this and on top of that I do not like the idea of NBC broadcasting the sting operation.
I also do not think it is legal to have someone pretend to be a child and then arrest them for showing up to contact the adult pretending to be a child.
I never had anyone agree with me before on all of this. We all hate child predators and no one wants to even give the suspected predators a real hearing. They want to hang them on the spot. If your not guilty and you get arrested or charged with child porn or something like that you might as well commit suicide.
Now the question is how do you protect children on the Internet? I don't know. The Internet is filled with predators of all sorts.
I guess I will return to what I been saying for years and years and that is that everyone should have an ID that can be traced to them. Start working on a system where if you use the Internet you have to have an ID that we know who you are. I know I must be the only person in the world that wants such a system. But it seems to me that most all of the problems on the Internet is because the people using it know that they can say or do anything and no one will know who they are in real life.
But back to this lawsuit claiming NBC prompted the suicide of Texas man...
I do not think that some private group and I guess from the story it is a grope called "Perverted-Justice" should be taking part in this...I suspect they do not follow any legal rules since they are a private group trying to make a name for them self.
I also do not think that NBC or any "news" group should making something like this into a weekly entertainment program. They act like they are trying to do a public service of getting bad guys off the street but they are trying to have a popular TV show that gets high ratings and that gets advertisers.
I think NBC will win the lawsuit however.. I do not think anyone is going to get $100 million in a lawsuit. Again because no one cares about anyone that shows up to have sex with a 13 year old boy or girl.
