<nettime> Paedophiles and the Police State

[Luther Blissett <tom9351@iperbole.bologna.it>]

A Luther Blissett press release
Bologna, September 4th, 1998

PAEDOPHILES AND THE POLICE STATE
or: the ignominious end of liberal-democratic lies

It is difficult to speak when you're surrounded by hysteria,
superficiality and ignorance, criticisms are published in invisible
paragraphs, and District Attorneys choose psychological terrorism and
seize the computers of the suspects (often preventing these people from
doing their jobs) though they know that a back-up of the hard-discs would
be enough. 

The mega-raid against the 'Internet paedophiles' is the umpteenth,
tragical farce. "Paedophilia" is a mere excuse for slandering the Internet
as a horizontal, easy-accessible medium. As Franco Carlini writes on
today's edition of *Il Manifesto* daily paper: 'The ignorance of the media
people (especially the Italian ones) magnifies anything that happens on
the Internet (mostly good things, sometimes very bad ones, just like in
real life), as though journalists stirred up a scandal because drug
dealers call each other on the phone'. 

Naples' deputy DA Diego Marmo says that paedophilia is 'today's principal
emergency', parallels paedophilia to the Mob and talks about a sort of
international 'Paedophile Party'. 
 
Well, we presume that the situation in most of the raided towns and
countries is similar to that here in Emilia-Romagna, where the 'suspects'
are: - Two 20-year-olds who visited 'dodgy' pornographic websites. Their
computers and 'dodgy' diskettes have been seized by the DA office. - A
retailer who brought some rolls of film to a photography shop. The
photographer developed the films and called the police. The police seized
some photographs of the retailer's 3-year-old daughter in the nude, and
pressed charges against the man. The local papers don't say much else. It
is more than just to be suspicious, because the investigating magistrate
is Lucia Musti. 

It is absolutely normal [especially in latin countries] that parents take
photographs of their little sons and daughters playing on the beach or
taking a bath! Do you really think that child porn traffickers develop
their films at common photography shops? 

These are some devastating consequences of the new, absurd act on child
pornography, whose text could not be more ambiguous. Is the innocent
photograph of a child in the nude illegal? And what about a naked adult
besides the naked child, in a chaste, non-sexual situation? And the
picture of a father carrying his naked baby in his arms? 

It is a stupid emergency act that was written and passed on the wave of
moral panic. Far from solving the problem of child abuse, the act is going
to create further moral panic. It is also a liberticide law that violates
privacy. We're shooting ahead towards becoming a police state. 

We expect the police to seize our computers for having written this
release. We even expect to be arrested for having written *Lasciate che i
bimbi*. 

The Luther Blissett Project - Bologna

The Luther Blissett Mythopoetic On-line Guide:
http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Rampart/6812

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