Pee Wee & child porn
2003-01-26 20:33:48+00 by Dan Lyke 2 comments
Weird Ass Shit had a link to Richard Goldstein: Persecuting Pee-wee: A Child-Porn Case That Threatens Us All. Once again we run into the situation that mere posession of child pornography causes all sorts of potential problems to archivists, and leads to questions about intent:
One California dealer of vintage magazines, who has sold to Reubens, says "there's no way" he could have known the content of each page in the publications he bought. As for the incriminating films, "Most people don't watch videos before they buy them—especially the compilations," says this dealer. He recalls Reubens asking for "physique magazines, vintage '60s material, but not things featuring kids."
Essentially, a few years ago Paul Rubens got raided, his house searched with a fine-toothed comb, and after a year the D.A. decided there was no case. Then a new D.A. gets elected, decides to be high profile, and rather than looking at intent thinks he's got an easy target based on a few grainy images from old magazines, and Rubens is front page news again.