Privacy for everybody means privacy for pedophiles

Pedophiles have the same right to privacy as everyone else.

That is almost surely a losing political argument. But privacy advocates contend that if it is not a winning legal argument, then everybody’s privacy will be in jeopardy.

It is an argument that is especially intense now, regarding the so-called Playpen cases. The US Department of Justice (DoJ) is prosecuting a reported 137 people who they allege visited a now-defunct child porn website called Playpen in 2015, while it was under the control of the FBI.

And while privacy advocates hasten to say they are not defending the sexual abuse of children, and don’t oppose lawful investigations of such crimes, they contend that the government surveillance of Playpen visitors violated the defendants’ Fourth Amendment privacy rights.

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