SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
from the gotta-play-by-the-rules-and-thems-the-rules dept.
AP reports that a federal appeals court has overturned a civilian's conviction for possessing and distributing child pornography because he was found out by a military investigator who used a high-powered software program in 2010 to search computers throughout the state of Washington. When the program picked up two child porn images and a video, the agent contacted the FBI, which tracked down the suspect's name and address. The naval office then got in touch with local police, who obtained a search warrant. The Department of Homeland Security later got a federal search warrant, and the suspect was charged in federal court.
When the search was challenged, the government argued that the search was justified because there are military bases in the greater Seattle area, and it's a crime for military members to distribute child pornography. Those actions, the three-judge panel said, violated the Posse Comitatus Act, the 1878 law that prohibits the U.S. military from taking part in civilian law enforcement activities. The ruling said the search was so sweeping, it shows "a profound lack of regard for the important limitations on the role of the military in our civilian society." It noted "abundant evidence" that the Navy frequently hacks into civilian computers to search for evidence of child pornography and turn it over to the police if the computer owner has no relation to the military. "This is, literally, the militarization of the police," says defense attorney Erik Levin. "They have enough funding that they can go out and stray from the core mission of national security and get into local law enforcement."
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Bot on Wednesday September 17 2014, @01:22PM
Charging for distribution, surely, possession, possibly (what if I put a scaled 1x1px porn image in some website? it gets cached fullsize and can put anybody in jail). I'd concentrate on punishing production, though, and fanfare about picking out the consumers of CP seems at odd with proper infiltration to catch the producers.
I am writing this because I guess the producers don't give the stuff for free, so some money trail must be there after all, and if such a money trail can't be followed, then the NSA-like blanket surveillance of people which happens worldwide looks a bit hypocrite. It is like waging the war on terror after paying the futures that were put against airlines in 9/11. Does not compute.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by JNCF on Wednesday September 17 2014, @03:12PM
Fun fact: there is almost certainly child pornography encoded in the Bitcoin blockchain. I've seen forum posts where people have linked to specific transactions which they claimed to have stored child porn in, but I've never actually checked to make sure. Files can be stored to the blockchain [righto.com] in a couple of ways, but the classic one is just sending coins to a series of addresses that aren't real. Put end-on-end, the fake addresses form whatever bits of data you want to store.
So all of corporate mining operations, all of the true believers, they're all storing child pornography. It's a bit scary to think that those in power could use "think of the children" as an excuse to shut down Bitcoin.
(Score: 1) by bornagainpenguin on Wednesday September 17 2014, @10:03PM
Of course there is, who do you think put it there, expressly for the purpose of tainting the entire currency by association and for eventual use to justify its future illegality?
Sad thing is, I find myself paying much more attention to the crazies as more and more often it's turning out they're right about many things. Scary thing, when I consider some of the things I still scoff at to have that small voice in the back of my head going 'What if they're right about $insane_theory too?' and I sometimes wish I could go back to the days when so much of the current reality was called cyberpunk fiction not predictions of a future yet to come...
Not bothering to post Anonymously since it is increasingly meaningless these days.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by JNCF on Wednesday September 17 2014, @10:49PM
I'm not saying that the government wouldn't do that, but I think the paedophiles might have beat them to the punch. I'm not sure which motive I find creepier.
There are three types of conspiracy theories: the ones which are correct, the ones which are incorrect but well meaning, and the purposeful fictions. If I were a government with an absurd black budget and a history of conspiracies, I'd want to spread some purposeful fictions around to make the facts and falsehoods harder to tell apart.
Which (non-proven) conspiracy theories do you consider to be within the realm of reason?
Dystopian cyberpunk fiction. But really, we've been heading in this direction for the last 5000 years or so. So it goes.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 17 2014, @11:50PM
I'm not saying that the government wouldn't do that, but I think the paedophiles might have beat them to the punch. I'm not sure which motive I find creepier.
I think you guys are missing a third and much more likely option - somebody did it for the lulz. 4chan has a history of that sort of thing, there were even rumors of people finding FBI "honeypot" websites and embedded images from them on 4chan in order to trick people's browsers into accessing the honeypot and getting in the FBI's logs of people to persecute.
(Score: 1) by JNCF on Wednesday September 17 2014, @11:56PM
Yeah, that's probably fair.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by nukkel on Wednesday September 17 2014, @06:57PM
The police/politicians don't give a shit about the producers. What they want is a mechanism to implement censorship on the internet and to preempt anonymous and pseudonymous speech on the internet. Child porn (whatever the definition) is the ideal vehicle to push this agenda with minimal backlash from the public opinion. Once the mechanism is in place, it won't be long before it's being used to ban/censor other kinds of 'unfavorable' speech as well.
There's nothing irrational about this -- why go after the producers and kill off the scapegoat?
(Score: 1) by anubi on Thursday September 18 2014, @04:29AM
Exactly.
They are sharpening the axe they will be needing to control sedition when the shit hits the fan ( economic meltdown ).
But, for now, child porn is the training wheels, funded by the very ones who are going to get nailed by this technology.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Thursday September 18 2014, @03:17AM
Talking to a friend that works on this I can tel ya that...yeah they do give it away for free, in fact most of the CP websites they bust are simply recycling videos and pics they got for free from Pedos who trade it with other pedos. What will really piss you off? Almost nobody is bothering to even attempt to bust the actual producers, you know the ones actually raping kids? Yeah that usually means crossing jurisdictions and so there won't be any glory for Mr prosecutor so they won't authorize shit that leaves their jurisdiction.
This is why my friend is trying to get another job, he says the whole thing has become a sick farce. instead of actually going out there and trying to protect kids from the real monsters they spend all their time busting social retards and porn junkies passing around shit that is as much as 50 years old, he likened it to busting some junkie on a street corner with a nickle bag and giving him life while ignoring the drug cartel bringing the loads because "that is just too much work, not enough glory".
And the really fucking scary part? Prosecutors are so fucking hungry for busting pedos so they can use the "think of the children" tagline on their election campaign they have tried to continue after people after its shown they have a virus accessing content faster than any human [digitaljournal.com] because "he could have come up with the virus himself as an excuse"...riiight. this is why I still argue we need to throw out these laws and start over as they were badly written, vague as hell, and as they stand now your 1x1px example, hell even shit that nobody in their right mind would consider CP like Japanese manga and dirty cartoons like Tijuana Bibles, can get you as much time as actually raping a child. I don't care how much you are for protecting kids, I have 2 so I can relate but that is fucked up and does NOTHING to actually protect any kids.
But if you want to see how little the ones actually making money off it have to fear the law you can go to Wikileaks and read an article by an actual CP website owner, I think its called "confessions of a CP producer" or something like that where he lays out step by step how his operation works because "what are you gonna do about it?", hell he even brags about picking some poor bastard at random that visits one of his legit sites and using the virus trick to fill his PC full of CP and then dropping a dime on him because he thinks that's funny and he likes how he can make the cops jump like trained dogs. Reading his article you get the feeling he is the kind that would enjoy throwing kittens off an overpass but as he says "cops will never touch me" because he lives in one country, the servers in another, and his money goes through 3 or 4 countries before it ever gets to him so law enforcement will never bother. Its depressing but after reading it you'll see he's right, the only "busts" you see are some nobody looking at the shit while he rakes in the cash.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Thursday September 18 2014, @06:49AM
What will really piss you off? Almost nobody is bothering to even attempt to bust the actual producers, you know the ones actually raping kids?
I Don't think you are looking very closely or paying much attention. These guys get arrested all the time.
http://www.kirotv.com/news/news/optometrist-arrested-child-molestation-allegations/nhPLD/ [kirotv.com]
http://www.kirotv.com/news/news/man-accused-using-hidden-camera-record-young-girl/nhPnp/ [kirotv.com]
http://abc7chicago.com/news/police-man-tried-to-sexually-assault-girl-14-walking-to-school/313499/ [abc7chicago.com]
http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2014/09/17/former-sheriffs-deputy-gets-50-years-for-abusing-child-filming-attack/ [cbslocal.com]
These are just big news items I found in 5 minutes, without even looking at at Police blotter columns in 3000 newspapers around the country. These creeps get arrested all the time.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 18 2014, @07:05AM
> These creeps get arrested all the time.
Proportionally not so much.
(Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Thursday September 18 2014, @09:57AM
And in damned near every one of them the victim came forward so the extent of the "investigation" was to go and pick him up. And when was the last time you saw one of the pros, the guys making millions a month off it busted? Thought so. again they are ignoring the whales and getting the guppies.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.