“A spokesman for the National Criminal Intelligence Service said the files of anybody suspected of downloading pornographic material from the internet were being sent to relevant police forces around the country for further investigation.”
Am I to believe that the government is monitoring every move we make on the net? Isn’t that what this report is stating?
I do not see anything wrong with viewing ADULT pornography but what if you are visiting a site that says “All models are 18 and older” and someone is say 15.
When I was a teenager I had a friend who was 13 who had a fake ID, was very well endowed and worked in a topless strip club so I know this kind of thing can happen.
Is the best policy to just never view porn on the net because Big Brother is watching our every move? I am a college student and personally everyone I know views porn regularly, many times just for humor but it seems to me the government tracking our surfing is a violation of privacy.
How do they go about prosecuting people with the evidence obtained unconstitutionally.
I for one will stay away from internet porn sites from now on and just drive to the video store in the future.
Thanks for taking time to read this and educate me.
well tell me if this is legal… i know of a number of sites (ive never visited but heard about them) which are not illegal but deal with the subject of children in ual situations. could a government agency check who is visiting these and then track them to see if they visit any illegal sites?
Off the bat, I’d say it’s a practical issue – the authorities may not have the idle resources to set up a giant blind fishing expedition of everyone who accesses ANY porn. Not if they care about the possibility of some Investigating Committee in 2007 asking them why were we busy tracking visitors to Naughty Schoolgirl World, while the Great Dirty Bomb Attack was being plotted at a park bench a block away from FBI HQ. Now, IF there is a lot of traffic to a site that in turn links to CP, and you actually give out your credit card for full access, you don’t have to be a pinball wizard to figure they’ll be curious.
Hmmm… seems like first they would have to have that site under surveillance, make a case for acting against it, take it to the judge, and if that stands, then those who frequent it may be looked at. But to track someone as a possible pedo because they visit a site about, say, sex ed for teens, would be hard to justify at budget time.
Yeah, I wondered about that too… I don’t know if that’s supposed to be an acronym (underage something maybe?) or if someone saw a site about “sex(ual) stories” and assumed ual is a synonym for sex.
Since the OP mentions Pete Townshend, it behooves me to point out that Townshend was eventually cleared of all charges pertaining to child pornography, although he still had to register as a sex offender due to a quaint British law that requires “suspected” pedophiles to register as actual pedophiles.
(I’m not sure which is more stupid – that British law, or Pete for viewing illegal images in the first fucking place!!!)
Indeed, “can” and “would” are horses of different colors.
The law here is pretty swampy, at least in US. US Supreme Court recently struck down the provision that made it illegal to produce images that only appear to be CP, or that simply claim to be CP. Written descriptions are also protected.
Further complicating matters is the issue of state law, which varies within the US. I recently read of a couple of fellows serving minimum mandatories of well over 100 years for fewer than 10 images on their computers. They’ll be in longer than the average murderer.
The problem is real and huge (even if hysteria abounds – e.g., the “Little Rascals” and Friedmans cases), but progress is being made. Primary focus is on nabbing those who produce and distribute the stuff, of course. There have been some successes in busting folks trading images in newsgroups (although there are now charges that some people arrested in the “Candyman” case did not post or download anything), but that’s a tough nut to crack – ABPEPT even has a FAQ which clearly states the group’s illegal intent (I think that’s alt.binary.pictures.erotic.preteen). More recently, international cooperation has helped to bust some organizations that launder money for pay-CP sites.
But there’s just not enough money to surveil everyone who lurks at teaser sites or browses incest story pages, for example. The big question, though, is “What is CP?” A 9yo w/ his/her tail end in the air for a close-up seems cut-and-dried CP to most LEAs (law enf. agts.). A Polaroid of your 2yo in the tub? Of course not. But what if the Polaroid is posted on a site targeted at folks who are sexually aroused by images of naked infants? And what of the “child erotica” sites that intentionally walk that line, showing nude and partially-nude “art” photos involving kids?
And legally, there’s a lot of largely untested territory. Unfortunately, we’ll probably have to sort this out by putting individuals on trial. Those who are found not guilty of a crime will essentially have their lives ruined anyway.
As to the issue of surveillance, unless you’ve taken great pains to anonymize yourself (proxies, encryption, and the like), your every move on the Net is likely recorded and available to third parties (if only your ISP and the hosts of the sites you visit). You have no more legal expectation of privacy on the Web than you do on a public street.
It’s difficult to imagine any LEA spending money to monitor traffic on adult porn sites. They’re not likely to get anything from it, and the traffic volume is overwhelmingly huge.
It’s not difficult to imagine LEAs cooperating with ISPs to at least produce short-lists of IP addresses which regularly browse sites already under investigation (as I imagine all of the “child erotica” sites are). But actually getting warrants would probably require evidence of download (or upload) of clearly illegal material. Conviction in court would be dicey without actual files or printouts.
Bottom line, if you’re into adult porn, I wouldn’t worry about surveillance by LEA’s, although you can bet your info is being traded in the industry. If you search suspicious sites, it’s probably a safe strategy to assume that you are being monitored from time to time and to behave accordingly. If you do view, or even download, images of minors from a porn site which a reasonable person would not suspect of CP activity, no sane prosecutor would bother mounting a case against you – just as the patrons of the strip club would not be prosecuted for viewing the underage dancer who looked legal.
If you do find suspicious material on the Web, you may want to consider reporting it to ASACP (Adult Sites Against Child Pornography) via their Web site. They will check the URL to make sure the material hasn’t vanished, verify that it does contain pornographic material involving persons who clearly appear to be minors, and report the site to the appropriate LEAs. If the site has already been reported, they will not repeat the report, thus saving cash-strapped enforcement agencies from having to wade through duplicate reports.
Re this situation specifically, an LEA “could” do this as long as they found administrators, judges, and ISPs who saw fit to allow them to. They can’t just open a box and look-see who’s visiting a Web site.
Chances are, such a program would be struck down if it ever came under public scrutiny, and any cases made on the basis of tracking such persons would be in serious danger of getting tossed out.
I find it hard to imagine that anything like this would be undertaken. There are much better ways to target persons who are truly likely to be involved in CP.
