Sender: "Craig A. Johnson" <•••@••.•••>
Without knowing all the details, I think we can cautiously applaud this
bust by the Feds.
One of the main arguments by would-be Congressional censors, reintroduced
yesterday in a bill by Senate Judciary Comm. Chairman Orrin Hatch has been
that child porn is freely available all over the Net.
This action and the statement by Janet Reno speak directly to Senator
Leahy's point that we already have laws against possessing, creating,
or disseminating child porn, and that we don't need any more, is brought
home clearly in such an action. The timing is critical, since the
telecom deregulation bills are set to go to conference in October
(assuming the appropriations mess is semi cleared away).
This sends a signal to Net defenders on the conference committee
(probably Leahy, hopfully Markey) that the feds are willing to
enforce the current laws, and there is no need for further
legislation.
Now this may just as easily go the other way, providing fodder for
electronic book burners, who may try to claim that this demonstrates
the online porn problem in relief, and that we need tougher laws.
Anyone have any additional info. on the busts, or opinions regarding
the implications of it for cyber rights?
Craig
Forward from New York Times:
=====================================================
USE OF COMPUTER NETWORK FOR CHILD PORN SETS OFF RAIDS
By DAVID JOHNSTON
c.1995 N.Y. Times News Service
WASHINGTON - The Justice Department on Wednesday announced a dozen arrests in
a two-year investigation into the use of America Online, the country's
largest computer network, to distribute child pornography and to lure minors
into sex.
The searches of 125 homes and offices around the country represented the
first time that federal agents investigated the misuse of a nationwide
computer network, in which information and graphic material is exchanged
between computers.
The Justice Department said the cities in which the searches took place
included Miami, New York, Dallas and Newark, N.J., adding that many more
arrests were expected.
``We are not going to permit exciting new technology to be misused to exploit
and injure children,'' Attorney General Janet Reno said Wednesday in
announcing the arrests.
The FBI said that in the course of the investigation it collected
pornographic evidence involving mostly victims from the ages of 2 to 13 who
were pictured either nude or engaged in actual or simulated sexual acts.
The Justice Department said the investigation began in 1993 as a result of
the abduction of 10-year-old George Stanley Burdynski from his neighborhood
in Brentwood, Md., a suburb of Washington. The boy has not been found, and no
one has been tried for his kidnapping.
But during that investigation the federal and state authorities focused on
two suspects believed to have exploited juveniles in the mid-Atlantic region,
officials said. The investigation of them unearthed evidence that adults and
minors were regularly using computers, linked through America Online and
similar services, to transmit explicit images of juveniles. In addition,
adults were using the services to seek out minors for sexual encounters.
As a result of the Burdynski inquiry, agents in the Baltimore office of the
FBI and state authorities in Florida set up an undercover operation. Several
of the arrests today involved agents who posed as minors to be recruited into
sex liaisons by adults using computer bulletin boards.
In a statement on Wednesday, America Online, a service based in Vienna, Va.,
with 3.5 million subscribers, said it fully cooperated with the federal
investigators. The company said that conversations between people using its
service were private, but added that it did not knowingly tolerate the use
its network for any illegal activities.
A Justice Department official said the company was not a subject of the
investigation.
The FBI said in a statement that the investigation had demonstrated how child
pornographers were increasingly using computer networks.
``The utilization of on-line services or bulletin board systems is rapidly
becoming one of the most prevalent techniques for individuals to share
pornographic pictures of minors, as well as to identify and recruit children
into sexually illicit relationships,'' the agency said.
It is a violation of federal law to create, possess or disseminate child
pornography, and those convicted of such a crime face up to 10 years in
prison and a $10,000 fine.
The use of America Online was investigated because it had been used by the
suspects in the Burdynski case and had been the subject of a number of
complaints from its users and from other law-enforcement agencies, the
Justice Department said.
But it added that the FBI found that similar activities took place on several
other on-line services in varying degrees.
Lawmakers have debated whether to impose restrictions on the use of computer
networks. On Wednesday, a bill making it illegal to use computers to produce
child pornography was introduced by Sen. Orrin G. Hatch, R-Utah, who is
chairman of the Judiciary Committee.
The measure would expand the definition of child pornography to include any
photograph, film, videotape or computer image produced by any means,
including electronically by computer, if it depicts or appears to depict a
minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct.
``Today, visual depictions of children engaging in any imaginable form of
sexual conduct can be produced entirely by computer, without using children,
thereby placing such depictions outside the scope of federal law,'' Hatch
said in a statement.
``Computers can also be used to alter sexually explicit photographs, films
and videos in such a way as to make it impossible for prosecutors to identify
individuals, or to prove that the offending material was produced using
children.''
The Senate has passed a bill to outlaw pornography on the Internet computer
network.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Craig A. Johnson
Telecommunications/Information Policy Specialist
Transnational Data Reporting Service, Inc.
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