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The Independent reports that hacktivist group Anonymous, in a project named Operation DeathEaters, is calling for help in its fight against international pedophile networks, or what it calls the “paedosadist industry” and has issued a video instructing activists on how they can aid in the operation. The Anonymous project is intended to break what it says is a conspiracy of silence among sympathetic politicians, police and mainstream media to downplay the full extent of the online child sex industry. “The premise behind OpDeathEaters is to expose high level complicity, obstruction of justice and cover-up in the paedo-sadist industry in order to show the need for independent inquiries,” says Heather Marsh, an online activist who is helping to co-ordinate the operation and describes herself as an “old friend” of Anonymous. The Anonymous database, which will be hosted on the GitHub online repository, promises to collate cases from all around the world, cross-referencing connections within sub-groups including the police, armed forces, schoolteachers, politicians, media, academics and religious organisations. The database’s ultimate purpose has yet to be fully determined, but in the first instance the group says it wants to shut down the child-sex industry by “dismantling the power structure which held it there” and by “educating to create a cultural change”.
The group is calling on volunteers to help with the ongoing work, which has been divided into three steps. The first is about collecting “all the factual information,” second is to “share that information as widely as possible,” and the third step is “to set up an independent, internationally linked, inquiry into all the areas which do not appear to have been investigated properly.” Activists point to the muted media coverage given to a recent case in Washington DC in which Michael Centanni, a senior Republican fundraiser, was charged with child sex offences after investigators traced transmissions of child pornography to his computers in his basement. The case was not covered by The Washington Post or the New York Times, and was only picked up by a local NBC affiliate state and The Washington Examiner, a small conservative paper in the city.
According to the court filings, Centanni was found in possession of 3,000 images, many apparently filmed in his own bedroom, including one showing a man raping a five year old girl.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by mendax on Monday January 26 2015, @09:26AM
I am not in favor of the death penalty in principle but as a survivor of childhood sexual abuse I know what it does to a person as an adult. My life has been hell at times because of what was done to me. Now, add to this mix the knowledge that some bastard took pictures of you as a child and they are floating around on the Internet and that they will be there FOREVER. Fortunately, I was not photographed but the knowledge that such pictures exist is as damaging if not more damaging than the sexual abuse photographed. If you are skeptical, read this [nytimes.com]. Therefore, I am of the opinion that people who make child pornography are unworthy of life. But perhaps the death penalty is too good for them. Perhaps life in solitary confinement, spending the rest of your life in a small windowless room, slowly being driven insane, would be sufficient punishment. I'm not in favor of the "lock them up and throw away the key" idea but there are some people who need to be removed from society permanently. These people are in that category.
It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 26 2015, @10:17AM
Almost every commented article I have seen about child porn/abuse includes a comment fantasizing about how to torture the perpetrators (because "the death penalty would be too good for them"). I'm not convinced by your torture fantasy. Were you raped? Prosecute it as rape. Was the abuse frequent? Make the rape sentences consecutive (effectively life in prison).
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 26 2015, @04:04PM
"I'm not against/in favour of X, but ..." is the standard form of hypocrisy. So just say the truth, namely you are in favour of those punishments, when applied to child abusers.
Either death penalty or solitary imprisonment is wrong, or it is right. If it is wrong, it is wrong, period. If it is right, then obviously you have to decide for which crimes it is appropriate.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 27 2015, @02:16AM
That article is extremely long, I doubt many people will go through all of it.
Child abuse is terrible, but there are much worse things.
The past is past, and you can't change it. Just try to get over it and enjoy the rest of your life, there is nothing else to do.