An Arizona radio station has been caught running a “public-service announcement” doling out advice for pedophiles in possession of child pornography on how best to evade the law.
According to KAVV 97.7 FM, “southeast Arizona’s most powerful radio station,” there is nothing wrong with pedophiles possessing pornographic images and video of children.
An activist captured the audio regularly broadcast on the Arizona radio station and posted it to YouTube, bringing it to wider attention.
BYPASS THE CENSORS
Sign up to get unfiltered news delivered straight to your inbox.
You can unsubscribe any time. By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use
“In many cases the penalties for possession of pictures is worse than the penalty for murder,” the PSA states. “You should understand your Internet service provider could report you to the police if they catch you looking at a website featuring naked juveniles. The police then enter your house and seize your computer.”
“If you have such material, you can save yourself and your family a ton of grief and save the taxpayers of Arizona a lot of money by never storing such pictures on the hard drive of your computer. Always use an external drive and hide it where no one will ever find it. Likewise, never keep paper pictures, tapes or films of naked juveniles where anyone else can find them. A public service message from the CAVE 97.7 FM.”
Listen to the sickening “public service announcement” for pedophiles here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3Xw1-459Fs&feature=youtu.be
An online petition has been launched by residents of the town of Benson, Arizona against KAVV 97.7 FM, accusing the radio station of broadcasting a “sickening message” and “protecting pedophiles.”
“It (the PSA) took me by surprise right off the bat,” Benson resident Will Edington told KVOA News. “We actually had to stop and listen to the whole thing. Trying to get a grasp on what he’s really saying.”
The PSA has since been taken off the air, following public comments that ran “99.9 percent” negative and some advertisers receiving threats, the station owner said.
“It’s very disturbing to have that type of message go out from a media organization that in essence is providing instruction on how to break a law, specifically something as heinous as any type of child porn,” Carol Capas, a Cochise County Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman, told the Arizona Republic. “You shouldn’t have someone advising you, ‘If you’re gonna do this, this is how to get away with it.’”
WND reports: The sheriff’s office has launched an investigation to determine if Arizona law has been violated, saying station owner Paul Lotsof “advised that possession of child pornography should not be illegal.”
“Freedom of speech does not include telling people to commit crimes and continuing to pass on this information could lead to judicial action being taken,” a statement said.
“We are now seeking legal advice on actions that can be taken for the content that has already been released and to ensure this kind of information is not released again.”
Lotsof accused the sheriff’s office of promoting prior restraint.
“To do that would infringe on the precious freedom of speech, which includes the right to advocate against the enforcement of laws that are excessively severe,” Lotsof said, publicly stated he disagrees with Arizona’s laws on child pornography.
He told KVOA News 4 Tucson that he had performed a public service by broadcasting the advice, arguing that possession of child pornography should not be a crime and that sentences for it are draconian.
Mr Lotsof maintains there is a distinction between viewing paedophile images and committing paedophile acts.
“The difference is [that in] one case, you’re molesting children and abusing them, causing children to do things that are not natural for children to do, and [in] the other case, they’re just possessing pictures,” he told News 4 Tucson.
That’s not how the Cochise County sheriff sees it.
“It’s so sickening to hear people say, ‘A picture isn’t a crime,’” Capas said. “It is a crime. Those children are victims of a crime.”
There’s “no such thing as ‘just viewing child porn,’” Capas said. Viewers of child pornography are supporting an abusive, exploitative and illegal industry.
Outraged Benson residents have launched a Change.org petition calling for the Federal Communications Commission to revoke KAVV’s broadcast license.
The petition reads:
A member of our community has brought to light a serious issue with our local radio station, CAVE FM 97.7. Once the community heard of this we were outraged. Regardless of how you have felt about this radio station in the past, this has crossed a huge line!
CAVE broadcasted a sickening message (apparently many times over more than one year) about a huge issue that plagues this country, child pornography, There is no excuse for this and they need to be shut down.
Below you will see a link to the recorded broadcast as well as a link to the online complaint form for the FCC. We as a community may not be able to fix the world, but we can keep this garbage out of our community.
We are mothers, fathers, children. We are families that do not have to put up with this garbage. Let’s stand together and make sure this never happens again!
You can sign and FCC Complaint form here and the petition here.
