The fact is these things are acceptable in many parts of the world. Are they good – personally, not or your nelly.

I can see the argument for eschewing practicality over idealism, which is often an unfortunate but necessary reality. But that doesn’t mean that the ideal should still not be pursued, even in those other parts of the world.

This instinct to protect our offspring is not very high, we are quite happy as a society to ensure that a women can terminate a pregnancy as she wishes. I am not making a judgement here, just stating a simple fact. This instinct is not strong.

True, instinct is a bit of a catchall phrase encompassing a variety of impulses that can hardly be considered an absolute. Perhaps a more accurate definition would be contextual and emotional logic. A woman who becomes pregnant through rape logically may not want the child because of the constant emotional reminder and association with a deeply traumatic experience it would present (basically PTSD on speed dial), but even in our society the topic of abortion is still hotly debated (one of the reasons politicions do not want to talk about it is because of the shit show it causes). But as a matter of practicality, any faetus that cannot survive outside of its host (less than 5 months) is grudgingly accepted by most.

Read your history of Rome and even Greece. It was the right of a father in Rome to choose whether or not a child (by his loins) was to be accepted as his or not. If found to be not acceptable (for whatever reason), it suffered the consequences of that. such children could well find themselves being placed in brothels and if male, could easily face the prospect of castration for the pleasure of the brothel customers.

I’m familiar with the histories of Rome, and its fairly safe to assume that the children (and slaves) in question did not enjoy said lifestyle. As with all such power dynamics it calls into question the definition of “acceptable”, acceptable for the minority in power? Yes. Acceptable for the majority subject to their whims? No. Its not uncommon for people to favor practicality over idealism in oppressive situations, which leads to them favoring the more familiar (abusive) system over unknown freedom (stockholm syndrome), a dynamic we can see in play even today in places like Syria up to the Arab Spring uprising (and its tragic results). If such an abusive culture was acceptable in Syria all along for all those involved, surely the uprising wouldn’t have happened?

Nothing to be fair about, they were wrong. It shouldn’t have happened in the first place. They are as culpable as those they are prosecuting. But, they will not face any lasting consequences, will they?

Curious, first you talk of the mercurial nature of moral relativism, then discuss the moral absolutism as to their culpability and lack of any justification for their actions? I’m to assume perhaps that we are talking in the context of our own societal values and subjective views. And no, I’m doubtful they’ll be held accountable by government or law enforcement in the manner we expect either, but the public majority holding them accountable is a different matter.

In these days, why, oh, why would they personally comb through this garbage?

It is required by law to catalog all material obtained in an investigation, both for cataloging into digital databases for future reference and for building cases to effectively and accurately show the scope of the crime in its entirety, as well as to separate cases of possesion and manufacture. Pattern Matching also will not help determine the whereabouts of the victim’s or their abusers, something that can only be (currently) done manually through forsensic analysis in an attempt to isolate with whom, or where such events took place. They do infact use Pattern Matching algorithm’s however (provided by the likes of Microsoft), but such software can be known for degree’s of mismatches and inaccuracies. In order to ensure a complete match either they need to search only for existing hashes of cataloged images (which they need to comb through for those that don’t match and add them), or use a general pattern matching algorithm and comb through all the results manually for mismatches.

However, many of these consequences are created by the LEO’s themselves. Who will actively trust a LEO with anything because they “know” that the LEO will turn on them for being cooperative, this includes the victims?

If they make a deal to allow a perpetrator to walk it corrodes the publics trust in them as they may very well be putting others at future risk as a result, and the public in general expects some form of punishment for such behavior (or vigilantism may occur). If they don’t make/honor deals, then nobody will trust them anyway. This can be especially difficult if their faced with a victim who is themselves an abuser. How we approach and deal with such abuse is one of the things that requires re-evaluation, its not enough to simply throw them in a dark cell and call it a day, as emotionally satisfying as that may be. As horrifying as it is, such abuse isn’t (typically) murder and would benefit from a far greater level of psychological treatment and analysis. As to whether the public would accept that is a different question.

Treat it like blackberry or brambles. You can try an poison it, but the most effective means is to just destroy it wholesale. Mow it, burn it, rip it out and burn it. This could probably be a good use of NSA resources to seek out and destroy all such sites.

Automated pattern matching isn’t 100% accurate unless your using a pre-vetted database which can otherwise result in collateral damage (assuming the target in question has been cataloged), and not all sites/databases are online 100% of the time. You can see the results of that kind of thinking with software piracy, it boils down to a game of whack a mole where sites are put up faster than the time it takes to find and take them down, let alone prosecute them. Then you get into obfustication, where they alter their content to bypass filters and pattern recognition software, or the use of Steganography to encrypt and embed images and files into other media compounding the possibility of collateral damage and increasing the difficulty of revealing them. The NSA aren’t wizards anymore than Apple are, and these groups are running some very sophisticated redundant networks in a variety of form’s. Not only that but their budgets and manpower are also many times greater than that of law enforcement and aren’t hindered by legalities.

But to continue running a site on the off-chance that they may, perhaps, might possibly find a child to set free while more are being enslaved is the sheerest of stupidities.

No, they should never have run that site. But it may speak in part to the emotional and logisticial strain and desperation they endure that they would even think something like that would be anywhere near acceptable. Its that strain I think that needs to be included in the wider discussion, as technology and fear from terrorism has grown over the years both the public and government have passively assumed law enforcement can maintain the peace with no thought as to whether they (or anyone) can handle the burden of that task.