New legislation would try to curb the illegal imagery with record levels of funding for law enforcement. The bill, coming in response to a Times investigation, also calls for a new oversight position in the White House. Full Article
Read MoreTag: Child Pornography
Why Will This FBI Agent Not Be Prosecuted for Child Porn?
We don’t know why the Department of Justice declined to prosecute the supervisory FBI analyst who “knowingly possessed child pornography” in violation of federal law. We don’t know how many images he or she possessed. We don’t know the identity of the child or children who were exploited for the sexual gratification of this FBI supervisory analyst. We don’t know what vile sex acts the child was coerced into performing. We don’t know whether the supervisory FBI analyst supervised cases involving child pornography or whether he or she steered law…
Read MoreShould psychotherapists be required to report patients who look at child porn?
For years, California law required psychotherapists to report any patient who admitted developing, duplicating, printing or exchanging material depicting an obscene act involving a child. The therapists accepted that requirement. They regarded it as an obligation to report producers and distributors of child pornography. But when the Legislature amended the law in 2014 to reflect new technology, many therapists balked, complaining the new wording required them to inform on patients who posed no threat to others. … Ira Ellman, one of several scholars who joined a friend-of-the-court brief in the case,…
Read MoreJanice’s Journal: Child Pornography Laws Should Protect, Not Prosecute Children
The highest state court in Maryland ruled yesterday that a teenage girl could be prosecuted for distributing “child pornography” because she shared a one-minute video in which she was engaged in a consensual sexual act. Has the world gone crazy? “Child pornography” laws have been passed in every state in the nation. And in each of those states the purpose of the laws is to protect children from abuse and exploitation. Protecting children from abuse and exploitation is a noble cause. However, it is not noble to prosecute children who…
Read MoreUnited States v. Moorehead
The FBI accessed Playpen and verified that the website contained child pornography, then executed a search warrant at a North Carolina server hosting company that owned the IP address. The FBI seized a server that contained a copy of Playpen. Because of a server misconfiguration, the government was able to gain administrative control of the website. For two weeks, the FBI operated Playpen from a Virginia government-controlled computer server but was unable to identify the individuals who logged on. The FBI turned to counter-technology called NIT, which downloads on the…
Read MoreRIT study: More than half of child pornography probationers had sexual contact with kids
More than half of the men on federal probation in western New York for child pornography possession had instances of “sexual contact with children that were previously unknown to legal authorities,” according to a local study. Though completed early in 2018, the study conducted by researchers at the Rochester Institute of Technology, or RIT, is now beginning to make ripples in federal court. One federal prosecutor recently included the study in a court filing as evidence that a large percentage of individuals who are attracted to child pornography are a…
Read MoreTrump signs Hatch-sponsored child pornography victim assistance law
[deseretnews.com – 12/7/18] Child pornography victims could have better access to federal restitution under a bipartisan bill President Donald Trump signed into law Friday. Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, a key sponsor of the Amy, Vicky, and Andy Child Pornography Victim Assistance Act, called the signing a “momentous” day that was many years in the making. “This bipartisan legislation will provide meaningful assistance for child pornography victims to support their recovery and allow them to reclaim their lives. I am proud of this legislation and look forward to seeing it change…
Read MorePSA Child Porn Warning
A public awareness campaign to educate our young people as to what constitutes child pornography must begin now. The lives of too many young adults are being ruined due to ignorance about the dangers of clicking on ANY porn site. Please consider taking time to watch this 3 min PSA: When is an adult not an adult? When a teen poses to look like an adult as part of the dark web of child pornography. More and more children, teens and young adults are looking at internet pornography out of…
Read MoreMI: Man’s prison-made drawings of child sex acts qualify as pornography
A prisoner’s hand-made drawings of child sex acts qualify as child pornography, according to a state Court of Appeals ruling. Full Article Opinion Opinion
Read MoreOH: Man Faces 30 Years in Prison on Child Porn Charges for Taking Sexy Photos of 17-Year-Old Girlfriend When He was 20
A 27-year-old Cleveland man faces between 15 and 30 years in prison for allegedly producing child pornography. But no children were harmed by his actions: The man merely took consensual, sexually suggestive pictures of his 17-year-old girlfriend when he was 20. https://reason.com/blog/2018/07/05/sexy-pictures-17-child-porn-arrest
Read MoreACSOL Conference: Sex Offense Litigation and Policy Fellow to Speak
Guy Hamilton-Smith, a fellow at the Sex Offense Litigation and Policy Research Institute, will speak at the ACSOL conference on both June 15 and June 16. As a speaker, he will address two issues — child pornography and how to success as a registrant. “Guy Hamilton-Smith is a leader in our community of registrants,” stated ACSOL President Chance Oberstein. “We welcome his participation in this year’s conference.” Hamilton-Smith, a law school graduate, is well known for his challenge to take the Kentucky bar exam in 2013. In a decision by…
Read MoreBrazil: Arrests hundreds in massive crackdown on child porn
In just one day, Brazilian authorities went after 578 people on warrants for crimes of child pornography and sexual exploitation of minors. The massive raid is the largest ever in Brazil — and possibly in the world. Full Article
Read MoreRI: My Turn: John R. Grasso: Destroying lives for childish mistakes
[providencejournal.com 4/18/18] Quicksand. That’s what the Internet is for young people. It looks like solid ground but it isn’t. It blends into the surroundings as though it was always there but it wasn’t. The Internet has developed much quicker than our children’s adaptation to it. They have the technology figured out but they do not recognize the dangers. Their parents lag far behind while the police are in hot pursuit. The Barrington Times reported the arrest of two teenagers, a boy and a girl. Both 14 years old. Police charged…
Read MoreNJ: How the new ‘child erotica’ law might help stop sex predators
[nj.com] A new law that further defines child pornography and more heavily prosecutes those who distribute and possess it went into effect recently, and law enforcers are hoping it’ll help keep offenders behind bars. The legislation effectively closes a gap where possessors of “child erotica” — photos or videos of children who are being portrayed sexually or exploited — but aren’t necessarily nude, wasn’t considered child pornography. They are now. The law was signed by Gov. Chris Christie in July 2017 and went into effect Feb. 1. Officials say it’ll…
Read MoreUnjust Sexual Offense Laws: Insanity and Hope
[criminallegalnews.org] Unjust Laws Over the past 25 years, the U.S. has developed a pernicious system of sexual offense laws, including increased sentences and public registries of offenders. Based largely on unfounded hysteria surrounding a tiny fraction of high-profile cases, these laws today are a tangled mess and cause considerable injustice. The problems are caused in large measure by lawmakers’ desires to seem tough on crime and their lack of knowledge about the facts. There is a very broad brush applied to the term “sex offender.” Most, in fact, are not…
Read MoreNJ: NJ child porn kingpin pleads guilty, experts say Megan’s Law cannot prevent sex abuse
[trentonian.com] TRENTON >> An Ocean County man who possessed over 36,000 videos and images of child pornography pleaded guilty Tuesday to distributing child pornography online. Anthony White, 31, of Lakewood, is facing a six-year recommended prison sentence and will be required to register as a sex offender under Megan’s Law, but two New Jersey experts warn that sex offender registration and notification laws do not prevent sexual violence. Psychology professors Elizabeth Jeglic of Cranbury and Cynthia Calkins Mercado of Union City dispute the conventional wisdom of Megan’s Law in a…
Read MoreBest Buy defends practice of informing FBI about child porn it finds
[arstechnica.com] years Nearly 200 pages of documents released Tuesday by the Electronic Frontier Foundation show that Best Buy’s top officials have “enjoyed a particularly close relationship” with the FBI for at least a decade, if not longer. The filings were obtained by the advocacy organization as part of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit in an attempt to better understand how the retail chain sometimes uses its “Geek Squad” tech support service to aid law enforcement. In a document from 2008, the FBI’s Louisville, Kentucky, division is described as having…
Read MoreIn Denmark, Viral Video Sparks Wave Of Child Pornography Prosecutions
[npr.org] A video that went viral in Denmark three years ago is now the basis for a wave of prosecutions. More than 1,000 young people, many of them teenagers at the time, are now charged with the distribution of child pornography. Sidsel Overgaard reports from Billund, Denmark. SIDSEL OVERGAARD, BYLINE: The video shows two 15-year-olds engaged in sexual activity at a party in 2015. The two boys who filmed it were prosecuted several years ago, but now, 1,004 young people who shared it on Facebook Messenger face charges that could…
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