NBC sued for "Predator" series
This case raises some interesting ethical questions.
If you've missed it, NBC has a TV series spinoff of its Dateline prime-time news show called "To Catch a Predator." It's essentially candid camera for pedophiles. They wire a house up with video cameras and snare online predators who have had explicitly sexual chats with people they believe are kids, when they show up presumably to have sex with them.
In this case, a man accused of having online chats who didn't show up at the appointed place instead found his home surrounded by cops and video cameras, and decided to shoot himself.
I'm really of two minds on this. On the one hand, I think online predators would do the world a favor by collectively doing exactly what this man did. I suspect there's no doubt the man was guilty of what he was accused of, based on his actions.
On the other, I understand his bereaved sister's point: He was trapped and didn't want to see himself become a public spectacle, and if NBC contributed to that, there must be a reckoning.
As voyeuristically entertaining as "To Catch a Predator" may be, I would have thought that we as a nation would have moved beyond the public square shaming that our Pilgrim forebears brought with them so many centuries ago. But maybe not.