Honolulu Lite
I hesitate (but not very long) to add to the tons of verbiage being shoveled down the collective public maw regarding the high school massacre in Colorado. But unlike others trying to assess blame, I actually have an idea that might head off future incidents. Time to take a
byte out of crimeThe one undeniable aspect of these kind of horror shows is the fact that information about how to build bombs and commit other illegal acts is readily available on the Internet.
The public inevitably begins to view the Internet as evil. How can the government allow the Internet to teach our kids how to make bombs? How can the government allow the Internet to expose our children to sexual predators? They are angry at the Internet.
This is something like getting mad at your telephone after receiving an obscene phone call.
The problem is not the Internet, but the crap on the Internet. Think of the Internet as nothing more than a collection of those old community bulletin boards that hang on the walls of the public libraries or supermarkets.
In the old days, people used the community bulletin boards to sell bicycles, announce meetings and generally post things of interest to people going in and out of the particular building housing the bulletin board. If someone tried to post pictures of naked people or instructions on how to build a pipe bomb, they would be stopped. Not by the government, but by the people in charge of the bulletin board. The weirdo who wanted to post the offending material then would slink back into the shadows and try to find some other way to distribute his hateful commodity.
The Internet has given these creeps the ability to own their own bulletin boards. These Internet sites have become gathering grounds for creeps, law breakers and psychos of all stripes.
In the real 3-D world, when creeps, law breakers and psychos become a problem for a community and law enforcement seems unable to deal with them, citizens take action. They form Neighborhood Watches and, as residents are doing in Waikiki now, actually patrol the streets in order to force the bad element away.
WHAT we need now are Internet Neighborhood Watch groups. It behooves society to know who is interested in building a bomb or trafficking in child pornography. It seems the best way to do that would be to set up an Internet site that attracts these kind of people and then keep track of the people who download the information. It would be like having an undercover police officer pose as a prostitute and then busting her customers.
Except, in the Internet model, the point would be not to arrest everyone who accesses a dangerous site, but to keep track and possibly publicize the names of those with an interest in the offensive material.
Some will say this is a violation of privacy. Baloney. When creeps use public utilities to spread their diseases, the public has a right to know who they are. If a kid is dumb enough to visit a Web site called "How To Blow Up Your School," set up by an Internet Neighborhood Watch group, then they deserve to be exposed.
The kids who shot up that high school and blew up bombs in Colorado obviously had been accessing Internet bomb-making sites. Perhaps if someone had notified their parents or school officials of their unnatural interest in bomb-making, their plan would never have gotten past the "dumb idea" stage.
Charles Memminger, winner of
National Society of Newspaper Columnists
awards in 1994 and 1992, writes "Honolulu Lite"
Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
Write to him at the Honolulu Star-Bulletin,
P.O. Box 3080, Honolulu, 96802
or send E-mail to charley@nomayo.com or
71224.113@compuserve.com.
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