Re:

[nobody@REPLAY.COM (Anonymous)]

>I am a bit confused. A post to the list claimed that the fifteen year
>old who raped and murdered the eleven year old (both boys) had not
>met his victim on the internet, as initial media sources indicated,
>but on an 800 number phone-chat line.
>I vaguely recall doing a web search to find out the facts for myself
>and confirming the claim. Now I am watching Sixty Minutes on tv and
>they keep repeating the mantra, "met on the internet, met on the 
>internet..."
>Does anyone have the so called real scoop on this?
>
>Thank You
>

Does it really matter now where they met? They could have met at school,
in the park, at a christian day camp, in the back room of a gay bar,
wherever. As long as they both had a passing interest in computers or
even had access to a computer they met on the internet. 

"people are hitting on kids"
"people are sending kiddie porn"
"terrorists and criminals are using it to hatch schemes to kill kids"
"kids are using it to meet criminals and terrorists"
"kids are hitting on terrorists who send kiddie porn"

If I were someone who wanted to make the internet look like a place 
that needed STRONG governmental controls I would put the words 
terrorists,criminals,pornographers,drug dealers/addicts,
hate groups, or any other words that the american public has 
been trained to associate with fear and hatred in a story about 
the internet and pepper it with lines like " 10,000,000 children 
have home computers" and "its the children that lose out" and 
"no longer safe in the dangerous urban streets, children must turn to
the internet" and a few things about losing their innocence at a tender
age. Then I would call the peice "the secret war against our children"

The same people who rushed to associate crime with rock and roll 
music then later rap music, and the same people that rushed to 
associate bizzare murders with dungeons and dragons and then later vampire
role playing games, and the same people who belive that someone
who has unprotected sex with someone to get drugs is not at all 
responsible when they get aids, the same people that endorse cerfews
"to protect children" and agree that high school students should be
sujected to mandatory drug tests and locker searches will all run to
endorse any laws that the government wishes to place regarding "protecting
children on the internet"