A radio station in a small Arizona town has been broadcasting public service announcements for the past two years that advise users of child pornography on how to avoid police detection, CNN reported.
The announcement tells listeners with child porn to store it on a specific type of computer hardware to “hide it where nobody will ever find it,” CNN reported. The PSA then gives more details about avoiding arrest before signing off with "A public service message from the CAVE 97.7 FM."
KAVV in Benson has a small coverage area. The announcement, created by station owner-operator Paul Lotsof — initially aired after midnight and the early morning hours, KVOA reported.
According to KVOA, an excerpt from the PSA states “Never keep paper pictures, tapes or films of naked juveniles where anyone else can find them.”
"It's wrong, it should be taken down. It's sickening," Benson resident Jeanne Dyer told KVOA.
The ads have been taken off the air, but questions about free speech and Arizona’s tough penalties for possession of child porn have been raised, CNN reported.
"I've discussed it with the sheriff. Based on what is in the PSA, even though it's incredibly disturbing and personally offensive and professionally offensive to me, the reality is the comments he made are rather firmly protected by the First Amendment," Cochise County Attorney Brian McIntyre told CNN.
Lotsof disagrees with Arizona’s laws on child pornography. It’s a Class 2 felony and carries a prison sentence of 10 to 24 years, KVOA reported. Sentences are longer if the child is younger than 15 years old.
“There's no picture in the world that's that dangerous,” Lotsof told KVOA.
Lotsof said there is a difference between distribution and creation of child porn and possession.
"The difference is one case, you're molesting children and abusing them, causing children to do things that are not natural for children to do and the other case, they're just possessing pictures. There's no connection between those two,” he told KVOA.
Lotsof told CNN he recorded the PSA "mostly to call attention to Arizona's extreme laws for child pornography and to try and keep people out of life in prison just for possessing pictures.
"It (the PSA) does not advocate possession of child pornography or reproduction of child pornography,” he said. “And I know the question you're going to ask — no, I don't have any of that stuff. I don't have any use for it.
"I am not an advocate for (child pornography). I'm not interested in it and I am against the production of it ... but I feel sorry for the people caught with it who are in life in prison as a result. Those people are the real victims and their families," Lotsof told CNN. "If all of this prevented one person from spending life in prison, then it's worth it."
McIntyre had sharp words in rebuttal.
"Regardless of the feelings Mr. Lotsof has, the reality is that if there wasn't a market for this, if people didn't make the choice to consume it, then we would see an end to it. And when he talks about the real victims, the real victims are the girl who has to spend the rest of her life wondering every time she walks through the grocery store and someone takes a second look at her, ‘Has he seen my pictures?’”
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