The all-volunteer organization targets would-be pedophiles using their chatroom decoys. If the conversation turns sexual, the decoys try to arrange a meeting and get a phone number from the target. In the early days of the site, PeeJ published the sexually explicit chat and the suspect's identity on its website shortly after the information was obtained. It is precisely this PeeJ policy of posting suspects' identifying information on the Web that has made the organization controversial.These days, PeeJ claims to work almost exclusively with law enforcement. But after police have the evidence they need for court - or if they don't respond to PeeJ's tips - the group will go ahead and post the target's personal information and chatlog on its site.
PeeJ's leader, Xavier Von Erck (a psuedonym), is reclusive, and the inner workings of hisorganization remain mysterious to outsiders. Von Erck lives in an apartment in Portland, where he works seven days a week for the site from a laptop in his bedroom. He claims to eat instant noodles for most meals. Von Erck rarely gives out his address, fearing retribution from the men PeeJ has "busted."9Von Erck denies being molested as a child and says he does the work so pedophiles who seek teens online will think twice about contacting them for fear of being publicly exposed by his organization.8Von Erck says he has been unsuccessfully trying to locate his father for years, who he says still owes his mother child support. "I have a low opinion of men in general," Von Erck said. "The most heinous crimes in our society are committed by males."9