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 When the news first broke a month ago that London was cracking down on pedophiles supposedly within their own undercover ranks, I have to admit that I was surprised. I couldn't help but wonder what the damning evidence was. An undercover officer has to portray the part of the criminal he is trying to investigate, doesn't he? Therefore, what protocol did these officers break? What codes did they have to adhere to and what did they possess outside of said codes that would cause their arrest?  I can't help but picture undercover narcotics officers being arrested for possession of narcotics. (And in the dictionary under "redundant," it says "see redundant.") Don't get me wrong, pedophiles are not to be tolerated in any way, shape or form. As far as I'm concerned, they can just fall right off the planet. But what worries me is the somewhat ambiguous criterion currently labeling someone a "pedophile."This particular investigation in London is called "Operation Ore." So far, 50 British officers have been arrested and 8 have been charged with offenses. They were originally targeted for investigation because their jobs afforded them special privileges or access to children, but that is all we have been told. To date, more than 1,300 homes have been searched, countless computers have been seized and many arrests have been made. The 50 police officers in custody were among 7,000 UK suspects. There are quite a few other operations being run world wide, such as Operation Avalanche, Operation Starburst, Operation Magenta and Operation Cathedral. Operation Avalanche is being run by the FBI, who recently raided the Fort Worth home of Thomas and Janice Reedy. The Reedys' porn empire came to an abrupt halt when the FBI found 300,000 credit card details of people paying a monthly fee to view underage sexually explicit material. Now the Reedys are doing time, and that's fine by me. However, when it was revealed last week that Pete Townshend, legendary guitarist of The Who, is under investigation for the possession of underage sexually explicit material, a number of troubling issues came to mind.  Townshend, who headed off reports in The Guardian of an investigation into an unnamed rock star with a missive on his own website, was later arrested at his home in London for "possessing indecent images of children, suspicion of making indecent images of children and suspicion of incitement to distribute indecent images of children," said Scotland Yard. As of press time, he has not been charged and was subsequently released from custody after five hours of questioning.Townshend's response to the allegations was that he was not a pedophile and was simply doing research for an autobiography dealing with his own suspected childhood sexual abuse. He added that he never downloaded any material and entered a site only once. He never entered chat rooms and never conversed with children. Townshend is quoted as saying, "I have, to the contrary, been shocked, angry and vocal (especially on my Web site) about the explosion of advertised pedophilic images on the Internet." This is the part that bothers me. This is where I see it turning into a witch hunt. Our occupations as editors of adult material open our email addresses up to a virtual flood of unsolicited and, frankly, really irritating spam. What if an HTML advertisement for a website featuring sexually explicit pictures of young boys finds its way into one of our inboxes? All we've done is receive the email and delete it, yet the pictures and cookies in the webpage advertisement will be left somewhere in our temporary internet files until we take the time to look for them and delete them. Is this evidence? And God forbid someone follow the link to the actual website out of morbid curiosity and shock, or a desire to report it to someone… anyone. If Townshend was simply doing research as he claims, how can he possibly prove his innocence? If as a high school student I choose to write a history report about Hitler, will collecting pictures of Hitler, watching endless History Channel documentaries, and reading Mein Kampf brand me a Nazi? Even actor/comedian Paul Reubens of Pee Wee Herman fame can't seem to escape scrutiny as a potential pedophile. He was recently charged in Los Angeles, California with one misdemeanor count of possessing material of children engaged in sexual conduct.  Blair Berk, Reubens' lawyer, gave the following statement, "Mr. Reubens has never at any time knowingly possessed any artwork from his extensive vintage and antique art collection even remotely related to anything improper. When all the facts come out, it will be clear he did not commit any crime." Reubens' publicist described the material in question as photographs.And here again, I have to ask, "They're joking, right?" He has "vintage photographs." This wouldn't have anything to do with sensationalism, would it? I mean, come on. Remember Paul's "incident" in 1991? Did the police have nothing better to do than ruin the life of a well-known entertainer because he was (gasp) masturbating to porn in a dark theater 12 years ago? A man masturbating in a porn theater? That never happens. What a completely asinine waste of time. Reubens turned himself in and bail was set at $20,000. If convicted, he could face up to a year in jail and a fine of $2,500. For the possession of antique photographs.
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