Roger checks in

["L. Bird" <pkeets@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

I haven't seen this come through on the list.  This is great, as it balances 
the negative article the LA Times published right after Pete was cleared.  
Let's hear it for Roger again!

:)
keets

===============================================================
Much thanks to J. McElwee for sending this along.

Los Angeles Times

They've got a little list, and Pete Townshend is on it

By Steve Hochman, Special to The Times

In his first statement after Pete Townshend was cleared earlier this month 
of all charges related to his arrest in London on suspicion of child 
pornography possession, Who bandmate Roger Daltrey expresses, not 
surprisingly, relief and total support.

"I am really pleased that Pete has been cleared of all charges," the singer 
says. "Anyone who thinks he is anything but a deeply thinking, caring, 
valuable member of society is sadly wrong. His honesty has shone through. 
Let's get back to work."

But will the work face obstacles now, at least when Daltrey and Townshend 
tour with the Who again in the U.S.? Even though the charges were dismissed, 
because Townshend admitted that in 1998 he had paid to view an Internet 
child porn site once (as research for memoirs he was writing, he has said), 
English law requires that his name be put on a list of sex offenders.

U.K. shares that list with other governments, which means that any time 
Townshend seeks to enter the U.S., immigration officials will see his name 
on that list.

Mathew Millen, a Los Angeles immigration attorney, says that being on the 
list is not grounds to deny the rocker an entry visa.

"England's sex registry is overly broad compared to ours," he says. "They 
may look at everybody on the list, but when they determine that he's on the 
list merely for viewing a site, there should be no problem at all. He might 
get stopped and they'll ask if he was on the list because he committed a 
crime and he'll say no."

If he does get stopped, he could be in esteemed company. Paul McCartney said 
in a recent interview with England's Mojo magazine that he is still 
regularly detained on arrival in the U.S. because of several marijuana 
convictions.

Townshend's situation, Millen says, may bear more comparison with John 
Lennon's celebrated case, in which the U.S. government used a mid-'60s 
marijuana charge in an attempt to deport him. In 1976, though, a U.S. judge 
ruled that Lennon's U.K. conviction would not have stood up under U.S. law, 
and therefore was not grounds to revoke his visa.

"One of the difficulties with these lists, whether British or ones we have 
in the U.S., is they're over-broad," says Ramona Ripston, executive director 
of the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California. She said even 
tighter visa scrutiny has been instituted since the 2001 terrorist attacks. 
"They include all sorts of people who shouldn't be on them, and that's a 
terrible thing."

-Brian in Atlanta
The Who This Month!

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