13
The publicity around the operation brought the issue of online
pornography to the attention of the public—many of whom were
venturing online for the first time using online services such as
CompuServe. That publicity was in part generated by the Justice
Department itself, which believed it was important to alert the
growing number of computer users to the dangers of pedophiles
operating online, especially since children were being encouraged
to use computers. The
Los Angeles Times
reported that the head of
Operation Long Arm, George Burgasser, “described the computer
distribution of pornography as ‘more invidious’ [more dangerous]
than that distributed through more traditional means because it
enables ‘pedophiles to reach into the homes of at-risk children’
through computers and lure them into lewd activities.”
4
Thus,
online pornography—even if it was adult-oriented and otherwise
legal—began to be viewed not just as inappropriate but as intrin-
sically dangerous to children, making them vulnerable to pedo-
philes who might use that pornography to bait their victims.
Computer hobbyists
of the 1970s and
1980s used computers
like this one to
trade pornographic
images over electronic
bulletin boards. One
such bulletin board
boasted of having
forty-thousand
adult-oriented
images available for
download.
