I lean towards agreement with you. The older one (not even Jessica's age) only plays off-line computer games.
Cochise experiences some anxiety over this as well; he wants wireless internet, but is afraid the teenager will press for connectivity in her room. He prefers to be able to supervise her on the comp in his room.

"She'd recently taken a computer safety class about the danger of meeting strangers in Internet chat rooms."

Note it didn't say she hangs out in them, just that she had taken a class. My daughter is in third grade and she got the same instruction, and has never in her life even seen an internet chatroom.

I have login passwords set, no browser shortcuts, no chat room bookmarks, basically no way at all for my daughter to use/abuse the internet, but I feel quite certain that they'd study my computers heavily. I'd think they were doing a shoddy job if they didn't.

I think it is way too early to be passing any kind of judgement. This isn't the Cleaver family, by any means, but honestly it's gotten too easy to start picking at the family. Elizabeth Smart should have been a damn good example of that.

Note it didn't say she hangs out in them, just that she had taken a class.

Note that it does say they are searching her computer for leads which they would be done with in about 2 seconds if she wasn't using it for just such activity. It takes very little time to search through email and chat logs or trails when she wasn't chatting or emailing. Takes a ton of time if she was. Since they had time to report it several times over 2 days I think we can safely assume that she did in fact have the aformentioned access.

As for making judgements? I think we can safely say that whoever was responsible for this child screwed the pooch miserably.

"I think we can safely say that whoever was responsible for this child screwed the pooch miserably.

I usually agree with you grey, but that is an insensitive, asinine statement unworthy of you. You know *dick* about these people and their situation. You have just heard a bunch of stuff that may or may not even be true. The police often on purpose or by accident release false information.

Richard Jewell was screwed hard by the police. The Smart family had to put up with the police leaking that the screen in their daughter's window was cut to make it look like an intruder, etc. Read into it all you like, but after watching people online grill the Smart family for weeks, I tend to be a bit dubious about armchair Columbos...

A complete forensic search of a computer doesn't take 2 seconds, since local law enforcement doesn't usually have the ability. Working in security, I have trolled hard drives for deleted items, and found stuff literally from years before. To look in a couple of folders and call it quits wouldn't be a real investigation.



Give the people a break, they have lost their daughter. What has been released isn't enough to make any determination about their negligence, and even if it was I think it would be crass to play court TV at this point...

Give the people a break

They may in fact deserve a break Baker and if the case bears that out you can certainly count on me topost an article to that effect but everything I have seen reported to date has pointed to a few simple things : the child was taken from an unlocked house and apparently had unsupervised net access which is the point of the article. If she has unsupervised net access then the parents should be held liable even after the return of their daughter. If not then great! Note the IF in both statements.

     All of my posts regarding this have been based on current reporting and inteviews with her father... What else am I supposed to go off of? SHould I wait until 10 months from now to start a discussion fo the matter to make sure I have all the facts? What would be the point of that?

I have a daughter and her access to the Net is carefully monitored by her mother. I think the classes are a good thing if they don't substitute for supervision. I could be ENTIRELY wrong about every thing in this case but I bet that I am not. If I am though I promise a post saying so. Good enough?

"What else am I supposed to go off of? SHould I wait until 10 months from now to start a discussion fo the matter to make sure I have all the facts? What would be the point of that?"

The point would be tact; the point would be a smidgen of personal responsiblity. The point would be not pre-judging people probably suffering the worst possible loss based upon a few scattered details. The point would be rising above the tabloid, court TV bullshit that is S.O.P for cretinous, Jerry Springer America.

the point would be a

The point is that kids in chatrooms is stupid and irresponsible. The case simply provides a backdrop for that issue for me. Apparently it is another issue for you. I can accept that.

The point would be tact;

Well I admit to a lack of that. Like I said, I will retract if it comes out that none of this is true... on my front page unlike the MSM paper policy of burying theirs. Sorry if this offends you Baker but my points stand.

 

The point is that kids in chatrooms is stupid and irresponsible.

True. I think allowing kids to skydive without parachutes would be irresponsible too. From the article you linked, I don't see that they have done either.

Here's all I can find:

"The sheriff says a computer in the girl's home is being examined for possible clues. She'd recently taken a computer safety class about the danger of meeting strangers in Internet chat rooms. "

It says "the girl's home". How you gather from that that she'd been in chat rooms on a computer unsupervised, I have no clue. If there is some other link, please, please post it.

A Google news search of "Jessica Lunsford Chat" brings up nada that says anything about her using chatrooms. The search "Jessica Lunsford unsupervised" doesn't bring up anything either.

I'd just like to know how you know she had unsupervised access to chatrooms.