There are so many things I want to say lately, but I just can't. It's ridiculous cause I created this section to vent my steam. As the original rants section said, "This is where I will be venting my steam when I don't feel like talking to anyone or don't have anyone to talk to." I created the rants section back when I felt alienated from my friends. Well I was alienated from my friends, and it was my own fault. That's another story. The point is I want to talk about some things, but I can't. The main thing is something that I just don't want to be associated with. It's nothing bad on my part. I just don't want to have anything to do with it. And as much as I don't want to, I feel that I should. I feel like it is something I need to talk about. I want to try and make sure other people don't have to go through the same thing. Not what I'm going through, but what my friend is going through.

Well, here it goes. My friend, who shall remain nameless, committed a crime. He committed a very controversial crime. Something many people have done, but nobody wants to admit it. A lot of people disagree on if it should be legal or not. I won't discuss my opinion here. I'll just stick to the facts and discuss the consequences of the action. The fact is my friend had an obsession with pornography. He had told me before about how easy it was to find porn on the newsgroups. Any type of porn. I knew he had started storing the porn on disk cause he filled up his hard drive, but I didn't think anything about it.

The real problem came when he decided to buy a subscription to a porn site. He told me three different stories about this subscription. First he said that he didn't know the site had child pornography on it until afterwards. Then he told me he knew, but he didn't download any of it. More recently he told me "there wasn't really any child porn on the site." I don't know if there was any on there or not. I never saw the site. I never even knew about it until after it was too late. He called me and told me about it after the Feds paid him a visit. He let them in, took them upstairs to his computer and showed them his illegal picture collection. I know I said I wouldn't discuss my opinion here, but that was really stupid. It was dumb enough putting his credit card number into a kitty porn site in the first place. Leading the FBI right to his computer and handing them the evidence was really stupid. I'm not recommending that anyone commit this (or any other) crime, but don't hand them the evidence if you get caught. That's what search warrants are for. He really thought that they were going to help him. He thought they had his best interest in mind. He was completely oblivious to the fact that he was a criminal.

I know that he knew it was wrong cause we had discussed the subject before. I don't remember why, but we were talking about it one day when he told me how most child porn was made in the seventies cause it was legal back then. I made a joke about how people think they are jacking off to a picture of a thirteen year old, but they are actually whacking it to a thirty year old.

Back to the point of this post, these pictures have ruined my friend's life. He plead guilty to five counts of possession of child pornography. He was lucky though. Because he was from another country where the laws are different, the judge only sentenced him to four months in prison. The judge said that since he didn't distribute the pictures, he wasn't going to make him register as a sex offender either. He still has three years of probation and a big fine to pay. The judge also ordered him to seek therapy.

Those four months didn't seem long to me, but it was an eternity to him. Me and another friend went with his mom to visit him several times. He lost his job that he had for almost ten years, and it took him two months to find a new job when he got out. His probation officer made him tell people about his crime when he applied for a job. The probation officer said he would need to call to verify his employment so they would find out anyways.

Even though the judge specifically said that he did not have to register as a sex offender, the state has forced him to register. He also has to attend a weekly sex offender therapy group as well as individual therapy. All he did was download some pictures, and he is getting the same treatment as a rapist. He says the group leader berates him and the other members. The pictures are referred to as his "victims." He is told that he is just as bad as the people who took these pictures. All the group therapy does is make him upset and depressed.

If all this wasn't bad enough, he now has to report in person to the local law enforcement four times a year. If he wants to leave town, he has to get advance permission from his probation officer. If he wants to leave the state he also has to get permission from the state he is visiting as well as any state he will be passing through. This is just for visiting another state. He can't move out of the state until his probation is over. He can't leave the country at all, and he can't vote anymore. Oh yeah, he can't access the internet or look at any type of porn. He can't participate in any type of dating or pen pal service either. He also can't get drunk. Obviously, he can't be around any children or any places where children frequent without supervision by an adult who is aware of his crime. That last one doesn't bother him cause he is never around any children. It bothers me though, cause I don't want him around when I visit my nephew. He also has to submit to a periodic polygraph test.

While most of these restrictions will end in three years when his probation is up, he will be on the sex offender registry for the rest of his life. He will always need permission to visit or move to another state. He will never be allowed to go to a public park or recreation area without an adult who knows he is a sex offender. Any time a sex crime is committed in his area, he will immediately be a suspect. There are all kinds of other things that I just can't think of right now. I keep remembering more and more as I type this out. Also, all these things affect his friends. The mere thought of being associated with a sex offender bothers me. His friends have to be careful around him. He can't be around any illegal activity. I can honestly say that I am clean, but we have a mutual friend who smokes weed. He can't hang out at this friends house because of that.

After saying all this, I want to make one thing clear; I am not trying to get any sympathy for him. What he did was illegal. It may be debatable as to if it was morally wrong or not, but it was definitely illegal. He was caught and now he is suffering the consequences. The reason for this post is to make people know about what can happen for doing this. I know that many people who have uncensored access to the internet have looked at porn. Almost everybody who has looked at porn has seen child porn. Sometimes by accident. Some people may not have even known they were pictures of underage children. There is a lot of "questionable material" out there. According to the FBI agents who arrested my friend, many sites claim the pictures are of eighteen and nineteen year olds when they are actually sixteen and seventeen or younger. Even though you thought they were over the legal age, you can still get arrested for looking at them. This has fucked me up cause when I was twenty-one, people always told me I looked sixteen. At twenty-five, I still hear it, just not as much. I've known a lot of people between the ages of eighteen and twenty-six who looked between twelve and sixteen. I've also known a lot of people who looked like they were in their twenties when they were between twelve and sixteen years old. Knowing this, it is hard to determine if a "questionable" picture is of a minor or not. The fucked up part is that I like younger guys. No, not that young. The youngest guy I dated was five years younger than me. I generally like guys who are a year or two younger. Anyways, with all this in mind, I have decided that it would be in my best interest to never look at any porn ever again. I don't want to go through all the shit my friend is going through just cause a fucking web site lied and said the guy was twenty-three when he was actually sixteen. And don't give me this "you can tell" shit. The FBI agreed with my friend that the pictures in question looked legal. Apparently the web site said they were legal too. But since the FBI knew different, they arrested my friend for possession. He was convicted of sexual exploitation of a minor without ever knowing or having contact with any of these minors. And if you are a minor, don't think that you can't get in trouble. The FBI has arrested a few teenagers for distributing pornographic pictures of themselves. I think it is absolutely absurd, but they are arresting minors for possessing and distributing illegal pictures of minors.

Keep this in mind the next time you are looking at porn. Ask yourself "could he/she possibly be under age?" Then think about what could happen just for looking at that picture. Also if you get caught, consult an attorney before you talk to any law enforcement agency. It doesn't matter what they say, they are not your friends. If you are a criminal, the FBI and the police are not going to be on your side. You don't have to let them in your house unless they have a warrant. You don't even have to talk to them unless they arrest you. Even then, you can request legal counsel be present while they question you. The safest thing to do is to delete any questionable pictures you already have, and don't look at or download any more. It's just not worth it.