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4 February 2006 Chatmag News Editorial.

Dateline NBC aired a two hour special program focusing on online predators.

Dateline NBC teamed up with Perverted-Justice.com an online vigilante web organization, to lure alleged child predators to a rented house.

Perverted Justice is an online vigilante organization, which trolls Internet chat rooms using volunteer operators, to lure suspected predators into a private conversation. Chatmag and other organizations have taken Perverted Justice to task for their deceptive and less than legal methods.

Since the inception of Perverted Justice, at no time have they provided complete and accurate chat room conversations leading up to the private conversations.  It is not known if the Perverted Justice operator initiated conversation, which constitutes entrapment. Several previous busts on the Perverted Justice site suggest that the operator, not the alleged predator, initiated the conversation.

Each Perverted Justice operator does not secure their computer following a conversation, but continues using the same system for further conversations, leaving open the potential for tampering with the saved log files.

Perverted Justice posts personal information regarding each bust, encouraging harassment of persons only alleged to be predators, not convicted in a court of law. Perverted Justice portrays alleged predators as already convicted persons, without benefit of a trial in a bona fide court of law.

In posing as an underage person, the Perverted Justice operators violate both AOL and Yahoo! Chat Terms of Service.

Chatmag will continue to oppose any and all vigilante organization which usurps the function of legitimate law enforcement, violates a persons rights under the law, and acts as Judge, Jury and Executioner.

Other news organizations have been taken to task for their involvement with Perverted Justice, and Dateline NBC obviously did not do their homework regarding vigilante organizations, or simply do not care.  By airing the special, Dateline NBC plays into the hands of a group which presumes to take over a task best left to law enforcement and the legal system.

Peter J. Carr
Owner Chatmag.com

External Links:

Chatmag Special Report: Vigilante Web Site Perverted-Justice.com

Chatmag Safety Section.