An individual who routinely uses the internet as a tool of intimidation is not likely to take measures to protect the public from other types of internet predators, even where the safety of children is concerned.
Anti-religious extremist Jeff Jacobsen has stated that he manages the computer systems for his father’s two video stores in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Harlan Jacobsen makes his living from enterprises that exploit sex. He owns a string of “Singles” newspapers that advertise “escort services” amongst the personal ads. His Video Mania store alone includes a section that carries 2,000 to 3,000 pornographic films. Part of that store is a cyber café consisting of 7 computers that are presumably among those Jeff Jacobsen claims to “manage.”
How well he manages them is a matter of debate since April 17th of 2005 when it was revealed that a 41 year-old male customer repeatedly used those computers to view child pornography, and make threats against children, in the weeks prior to kidnapping, raping and murdering an 8 year-old girl.
Jon Walker of the Argus Leader reports:
“[Murray James] Jones, 41, was a customer in a Sioux Falls business March 23 when he used a computer to send a note to a Hill City woman logged onto the same Internet chat room. “We had a lot of fun raping your granddaughter,” Jones’ note said, according to Harlan Jacobsen, owner of Video Mania, 2019 S. Minnesota Ave., where the message originated.
“Within 2 1/4 weeks, Jones would be charged with raping and killing the granddaughter of Norma Carver, the woman with whom he lived.
“But the night of the original message, he could not have known to whom he was writing. He joined the chat room only because the computer’s previous user had neglected to log off. He returned on other occasions to the Video Mania computer section – a corner of the store called a cybercafé – and twice was recorded looking at child pornography. The second time, April 8, was the evening before Jessica DeLaTorre disappeared and Jones led police to her body.”
According to Walker’s report, Jones had no history of sex crimes. Carver and Jones had lived together for two years and Jessica and her brothers had visited and stayed overnight on many occasions, apparently without incident.
“The sequence appears to show a predictable progression of pornography,” said David Miller, vice president of Citizens for Community Values, a Cincinnati-based organization. “Exposure leads to addiction, then escalation, desensitization and then an increasing tendency to act out the behaviors exhibited…”
“Not everyone who looks at pornography becomes a Ted Bundy,” Miller said. “Not everybody who takes a drink becomes an alcoholic. But some people are very negatively affected by these influences.”
While the use of common internet controls could have prevented Jones from accessing pornography on the store’s computers, apparently neither Jeff nor Harlan Jacobsen feel any responsibility for taking any such steps to protect the public; profit comes first.
“Call it what you want,” [Harlan] Jacobsen said. “What you called pornography 10 to 15 years ago, they’re showing in the theaters now. It’s not the big, bad thing churchgoers make it out to be….”
“We have a sign that says if you do porn, we’ll bounce you,” Jacobsen said. “But it’s like a phone booth. You can make nasty calls and the phone company can’t stop you. You can’t have a $10-an-hour employee watch a $2-an-hour customer.”
At two dollars an hour it is safe to assume that the cybercafé is not the main profit center of Jacobsen’s business. Perhaps the value in allowing customers to access pornographic sites in his cybercafé is that it increases the likelihood that they will rent Jacobsen’s far more profitable stock of adult videos.
In any case, the mere suggestion of internet controls is anathema to extremists like Jeff Jacobsen whose ability to propagate anti-religious hatred is largely dependent upon an unrestricted, unmonitored internet. Jacobsen and his cohorts have long histories of intimidating parishioners via email and using newsgroups and chat rooms to encourage the harassment of parishioners at their churches, businesses and schools. Jacobsen’s close associates include supporters of white supremacists, copyright anarchists (who specialize in committing intellectual property theft via the internet) and have within their ranks an extremist who was having cybersex with a minor, Joe Lynn.
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