Hardcore Crime, in Soft Copy

Yes, it may seem like a trite and outdated issue; but quoting Elle Woods in Legally Blonde, “I have a point, I promise!”

It’s not every day that the otherwise bland and grayscale world of politicians is made interesting by celebrities like Katrina and certain shamed doctors, who, whether intentional or not, have made spectacles of themselves in front of the entire country. Sure, forget the swine flu and the Iran unrest. After all, this IS the kind of news that keeps people interested in anything the Senate ever does. Not only are celebrities involved, but even more interesting are the scandalous circumstances surrounding the parties.

As Paris Hilton can attest to, those voyeur videos taken in confidence and released to the public, definitely gets people’s interests. Indeed the problem of these extremely passionate videos, shot in secret, shown indiscriminately to any person out there with internet access (and lots of free time) and spread thru the internet, has reached a new level. And it’s a new level of low for sure.

Before you dismiss this as mundane and get your highlighter to (pretend to) study, think about this. Why should we, as people who are supposedly well-versed with the law, and at times with a good sense of justice, be concerned with this issue? The cyberspace is a world entirely distinct from this world we find ourselves in. In at are all the kinds of criminals roaming freely, from child pornographers to credit card fraud artists to swindling Kenyan princes (I don’t mean to be racist but that’s the identity they always assume in their e-mails). The internet is being abused by those with ill will intent to perpetuate their crimes. The spread of these videos for instance proves this point. One thing that legislators don’t seem to get is that once videos (or any damaging thing that can have its own soft copy) of this nature have leaked to the internet, it’s available for everyone. Some blame this on the lack of laws to regulate the cyberspace; but the thing is, can you? Identities, evidence, and probably even damage caused: how do you establish these when the crime occurs in the internet?

Sure the whole video spectacle was amusing while it lasted, but it’s probably more productive to think of it as a symptom of the worsening disease of uncontrollable crime with the internet as medium.

Fine, so it’s probably just trite and outdated.