[Monday night, KRON aired the first in a two-part "Target 4" investigative report on NAMBLA. Here's a transcript of that report. The reporter is Greg Lyon so, if you followup, please change your attributions accordingly.] An organization dedicated to helping its members meet children and then molest them without getting caught holds its regular monthly meetings in a branch of the San Francisco Public Library. We're talking about children as young as three years old. The Portrero Hill branch of the San Francisco Public Library on a Saturday afternoon: downstairs, children -- some with parents, some by themselves. And upstairs, this scene captured by our Target 4 hidden camera. This is the regular monthly meeting of NAMBLA, the North American Man-Boy Love Association. This is not a counseling session, not an attempt to help NAMBLA members control their lust for children. Quite the opposite. On this day the group discussed putting together a calendar of nude boys as a fundraiser. And then there's this: the "NAMBLA Bulletin", published ten times a year. Now in here you'll find articles telling you where to meet kids, how to avoid getting caught, how to teach children to lie to their parents. Well, is this just talk? Are these people really dangerous? We asked Kathy Baxter, director of the San Francisco Child Abuse Council. "It is a group, in my opinion, of men primarily who get together to network with one another on where to find young boys, how to pick them up, how to get them involved, and how to feel good about what you're doing." That opinion is shared by San Francisco police sergeant Tom Eisenman. He asked us to hide his face so he won't be recognized by the child molesters he investigates. "I don't believe they're harmless at all. I believe that, because of their meetings, children get molested. And, as long as that happens, it's a subject of attention for the San Francisco Police Department." So, the logical question is, how could this happen? Didn't the library know what was going on? And the surprising answer is yes, they have known for more than two years. Target 4 obtained this copy of the application that NAMBLA filled out to use the public meeting room back in August of 1989. And it says right on the face of it, "North American Man-Boy Love Association." So, how could the library allow this use of its public meeting rooms? The library says that, legally, its hands are tied. It's an issue of intellectual freedom protected by court ruling. Assistant chief of branches Gloria Hansen: "No, as long as it's lawful, they fill out the form with the contact people, and it's a First Amendment issue. Anybody who wants to meet in the meeting room, as long as it's lawful activity." That First Amendment argument is a tough one The courts have consistently ruled that the First Amendment was designed to protect not the most hamless speech, but the most noxious speech. But there's another issue here. For more than two years, the library has kept silent about who was meeting in the room upstairs and the danger. We'll have that part of the story tomorrow on NewsCenter 4 at 6. We'll also show you what happened when we told neighborhood parents, and when we confronted that NAMBLA meeting. By the way, we've been asking NAMBLA for nearly two weeks now to come on-camera with us; so far they have not complied. [Anchor Pete Wilson:] Have they published these calendars? Have they published instructions for -- [Greg Lyon:] The calendar -- no, apparently not. That was a plan -- a planning session that they were talking about. The monthly bulletin, with the pictures of young boys, comes out -- [Wilson:] Because then they would be discussing what would be an illegal act. [Lyon:] Yes. One of the questions is, isn't it conspiracy for people to get together to talk about an illegal act? Apparently not, according to San Francisco police. If they merely talk about the illegal act, no crime as occurred. It's not until the act was committed that conspiracy occurs. [Wilson:] Thank you, Greg. More tomorrow. -- Chris Thomas (415) 694-5614 S4/7 b g+ l y+ z+ n+ o+ x-/+ a++ u v-/+ j++ thomas@acuson.com [Here is the second part of KRON's "Target 4" investigative report on NAMBLA. Again, if you followup, please change your attributions.] [Anchor Suzanne Shaw:] It is called NAMBLA, the North American Man-Boy Love Association. It is a group that advocates having sex with children. [Anchor Pete Wilson:] And NAMBLA's appeared now and again in the news over the course of the last decade. Last night, our Target 4 investigative unit broke the story that NAMBLA has been meeting in a San Francisco public library for the past two years. And reporter Greg Lyon joins us now with more on that. Greg? [Greg Lyon:] Well, Pete, it does sound incredible. A group dedicated to having sex with children meeting in the San Francisco library, and with the library's permission. But emotional issues aside, the real question is whether NAMBLA members pose a threat to society. Law enforcement and child-abuse experts are telling Target 4 they're not dangerous at all -- unless you're a child. These are pictures of a NAMBLA meeting at the Portrero branch of the San Francisco Public Library, taken with a hidden camera. It may seem innocuous. But look at the magazine NAMBLA publishes ten times a year, the "NAMBLA Bulletin." Letters to the editor smolder with stories of sex with children, and advice on how to molest youngsters without getting caught. And the fact that such an organization has been meeting in the public library while children play downstairs outrages Kathy Baxter, director of the San Francisco Child Abuse Council. "I'm horrified and I'm truly baffled, and I'm also very angry. I think the library has a responsibility to our children, to protect them as best they can." The library claims that, legally, its hands are tied, that it's an issue of intellectual freedom. Besides, the library says, NAMBLA is not a threat. Gloria Hanson is assistant director of branches: "No, as long as it's lawful, they fill out the form with the contact people, and it's a First Amendment issue. Anybody who wants to meet in the meeting room, as long as it's lawful activity." Target 4 wanted to ask NAMBLA directly whether they pose a threat at this library. So we decided to go to their meeting ourselves, a meeting that both NAMBLA and the library maintained was open to the public. This is what happened when we told them who we were: [Lyon, entering room:] "Excuse me, I'm Greg Lyon of Channel 4. Is this the meeting of NAMBLA? [Members put on jackets and begin to leave the room silently.] If so, I'd like to ask you some questions if I could, if there's anybody that's willing to be a spokesperson." It didn't look to us like these people had nothing to hide. We finally were able to ask this man [not identified] for an interview. [Lyon:] "Well, the question I have is whether it's appropriate for NAMBLA to meet in the public library." He said he would call us back. He never has. This is sergeant Tom Eisenman. He asked us not to show his face so he wouldn't be recognized by the child molesters he investigates. He says NAMBLA is a threat. "I think, in the last five years, I've personally done about 12 people from NAMBLA, or people that I've tied in, that were closely involved." These are some of those people. One of them, Jeff White, who Eisenman says was convicted for his involvement in a child-sex ring. Eisenman says White is a member of NAMBLA and, in fact, in this mug shot you can clearly see a NAMBLA T-shirt. And look at this: Eisenman says it's a list White kept of 139 victims he molested. The youngest, five years old; the average age, nine and a half. One other thing you should know about Jeff White: these medical records indicate he is HIV-positive. And what about those NAMBLA members Target 4 uncovered quietly meeting every month in the San Francisco Public Library? Well, this is a copy of the request form they filed for the meeting room back in August of 1989. One of the names on this form, the name Joe Power. His name and phone number are clearly legible on the request form. These are pictures Target 4 obtained of NAMBLA member and spokesman Joe Power speaking to a gathering on child abuse in the East Bay. "We're not going to change. All the therapy in the world isn't going to change a boy-lover to be something else." Soon after these pictures were taken, a year after the NAMBLA group filed its application with his name on it to meet in the San Francisco Public Library, Joe Power was arrested and convicted of oral copulation with a 14 year old boy, that according to Sunnyvale police. They say he served a year in prison for the crime. Late today, a spokesman from NAMBLA finally agreed to talk to Target 4. He claimed NAMBLA was not a threat, that none of its members had been arrested in San Francisco, and he said Target 4 was engaging in Gestapo tactics by barging into NAMBLA's library meeting. We wanted to know more about the group's philosophy. [Lyon:] Could sex with a five year old conceivably be OK? [Alan Davis, NAMBLA Spokesman:] I'm just here to address the fact of KRON's tactics and an attack on our membership, and that's primarily why I'm here. You know, our right as a public organization to meet in a public place, and the outrage of some of our membership and some of the lesbian and gay community around that issue, and we're just wondering what's next. [Lyon, in studio:] As you'll notice, NAMBLA invoked the lesbian and gay community. It has done so repeatedly, claiming that the right to have sex with children is a gay issue. But is it? That's one of the issues we'll try to explore in future reports. [Wilson:] The lesbian and gay community may have something to say about that. The question is, is membership legal or illegal? [Lyon:] Membership in NAMBLA is completely legal, and we want to hasten to add that we don't mean to imply that every member of NAMBLA is a convicted paedophile. [Shaw:] Thank you. -- Chris Thomas (415) 694-5614 S4/7 b g+ l y+ z+ n+ o+ x-/+ a++ u v-/+ j++ thomas@acuson.com [Wednesday night, KRON unexpectedly continued its "Target 4" investigative series on NAMBLA. Here's a transcript of tonight's report... again, if you followup, please change attributions accordingly.] [Anchor Suzanne Shaw:] Tonight we have more to tell you about NAMBLA, the North American Man-Boy Love Association, a group that advocates having sex with children. It was our own Target 4 investigative unit that broke the story that, for more than two years, NAMBLA has been meeting in the Portrero branch of the San Francisco Public Library, with the library's permission. That story has generated enormous controversy. Greg Lyon is at the Portrero library right now, where another chapter is being played out. Greg? [Greg Lyon:] Yes, Suzanne, between 40 and 50 people are meeting upstairs in this library right now, and the question on everybody's mind is whether NAMBLA should be allowed to use this building. It's a classic First Amendment issue: the freedom of speech of the members of NAMBLA against what is seen by many in this community as a very real threat to their children. These are the pictures that inflamed a community. Members of NAMBLA, the North American Man-Boy Love Association, in a meeting at the Portrero library. While this meeting was going on, parents and children were using the library downstairs. And few, if any, were aware of the nature of the upstairs meeting. When Target 4 told them what was happening, parents were outraged. [Unidentified parent:] "I have a child who is two years old, and I live around the corner. And I felt it was inappropriate for this place to be used by this organization." [Lyon:] But the library says it is not allowed to decide which groups can use a public facility, that it's an issue of free speech. And that position has a lot of support in American law. Dorothy Erlich is with the American Civil Liberties Union: "The notion of the government coming in and telling people what they can or cannot talk about, and telling people with some views, no matter how important those views are, that they can't hold those views in a public place is something that we think is really the wrong policy, and it violates the First Amendment." This man has heard first-hand what NAMBLA talks about in its meetings. His name is Mike Echols, author of this book, called "I Know My First Name is Steven." He writes about child-abuse issues, and he infiltrated NAMBLA. He asked us to conceal his face. Echols says much of what members discuss in the meeting is harmless. But he told Target 4 about a man at a NAMBLA meeting at the Portrero Hill library who said he just got out of prison: "He said at the meeting that he had a 12 year old and a 13 year old boy living with him then, that he was, as he put it, doing minors again, which he then described as having sex with these two boys." Or listen to what NAMBLA spokesperson Alan Davis told Target 4 about the group's philosophy: [Lyon:] "Is there an age below which a child is unable to give consent, and therefore below which there should be no sexual relations?" [Davis:] "I think children at any age know what they like and don't like." That kind of speech is protected by the First Amendment, and by a Supreme Court that has upheld the right of groups as notorious as the American Nazis to meet and march in public. But parents here are asking what about their rights to protect their children? [Robin Acker, parent:] "I was shocked. I was shocked that the library would allow a group like this to meet in the library. And mostly shocked that they would do it -- I understand their issue on First Amendment rights, but that they didn't let the community know that it was going on so that the community could take steps to protect the children in the neighborhood." This is Dale Carlson of the San Francisco Library Commission. Dale, as you heard Robin Acker there say, the parents when we met with them -- the concern they expressed most is, why didn't the library say something? Why didn't the library let people know who was using this room? [Carlson:] Well, Greg, first of all I'm glad that you're beginning to turn the attention on this issue to the substantive issues, not the sleaze and sensational that has driven emotions in this community. I think the issue is not NAMBLA's policies or NAMBLA's aims, as repugnant as those are to most people, including me. The questions really revolve around First Amendment issues and censorship issues and intellectual freedom issues. Why didn't the library know? It is not the part of our current policy to post meeting notices for outside organizations. [Lyon:] Will you change that policy, Dale? [Carlson:] Our policy is under review. It has been under review for about a year and a half. It will be before my committee on Tuesday afternoon at the library, and certainly one of the things we're going to be considering is a requirement that all meetings at a branch library, or any other library, be posted. [Lyon:] I understand, as things stand now, that NAMBLA will have to reapply to the library to use this room again. But assuming they do, and they submit the same paperwork they submitted last time, will they be allowed again to use this building? [Carlson:] Our policy calls for groups to reapply every six months for permission to use our meeting facility. My understanding of the law, and we're still reviewing this with our attorneys, is that if the library community rooms are open to any organization, they must be open to all organizations. The only way that I can conceive of right now of barring NAMBLA from using this facility is to bar all organizations -- neighborhood organizations, community organizations, from using library meeting rooms. That's not something I'm anxious to do. I'm hoping that the attention this story has generated -- the fact that NAMBLA has been driven out from under a rock and into the daylight, the public attention that's been focused on this organization, will cause them to seek another place, and a more appropriate place, to hold their meetings. [Lyon:] OK, Dale, thanks very much. As we said, a group of parents meeting upstairs right now with other library officials to discuss that very issue. Pete and Suzanne, back to you. [Anchor Pete Wilson:] Alright, thanks a lot, Greg. Since Target 4 aired the first of its reports on Monday, phones have been ringing off the hook here. Some members of the gay community are adamant that they, in no way, endorse NAMBLA. Others are not so sure. Many of the callers feel the reports reflect poorly on the gay community, although we should point out the only mention of homosexuality in the report last night came from NAMBLA itself. Target 4, tomorrow, will explore the growing controversy among gays themselves over NAMBLA. -- Chris Thomas (415) 694-5614 S4/7 b g+ l y+ z+ n+ o+ x-/+ a++ u v-/+ j++ thomas@acuson.com