Senate votes down child protection law...

[fireheart17]

http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/s...-1226456067854

Yes, there was an attempt to pass a law in AUstralia that would've prevented adults from lying about their age to children (well, made it illegal).

The ONLY issue I can see with this is "what about the cops who pretend to be 11-year-olds to lure out predators?" And I can answer that: loopholes.

[TheHuckster]

Words fail me.

How on earth could passing this law have prevented that, and other, child predator cases? Hell, I know of cases where someone was 20 and preyed on young teenagers.

I used to ask my grandmother her age when I was little and she'd always say 39. I guess that made her a sexual deviant out to get me.

This is another one of those proposed laws that are well-intentioned but would have had the side-effect of either doing nothing to protect children or arrest innocent people who simply pose as 11 year olds to troll on forums and accuse them of being sexual predators.

[radiocerk]

Sometimes these weird laws only do good in a list. Another thing you can charge a child predator with that will potentially keep them in prison longer, or make their sentencing harsher.

[bara]

I truly wish these crackpots would read up on the law of 'unintended consequences'

[HYHYBT]

…or something you can charge them with, period, whether because you can't yet prove they've done anything worse than creating a fictional online persona or because they *haven't* done anything worse and you're more interested in touting how many people you've jailed than in whether doing so is beneficial to anybody.

Especially remembering that kids, too, can lie about who and how old they are. I can easily see a law like this being abused.