Did the FBI go too far in ensnaring pedophiles?

[Slash1972]

@Bricker

It’s a little more difficult-- in a chat, interactive session the proof is clear: “How old r u?” “14 is that ok?” “Sure but don’t tell ne1 ok?”

So it’s not impossible, but it’s not useful. The whole reason pedophiles visited the Playpen was that it reliably delivered actual child pron (before the FBI was able to find and seize it). If it then began serving up adult images labeled as underage, the change would be quickly apparent to its clientele and visits would cease; this would compromise the ability to identify more users of the site.

Yeah, I’m sure the parents of the children whose photos were still being downloaded after the server was taken over by law enforcement were just thrilled about it :rolleyes:

[Slash1972]

@BigT

Remember, it is not the downloading of child porn that is the immoral element. It is the production of child porn. The downloading is criminalized in order to stop the production.

So if all new production was stopped and people just shared already produced child porn, you would be cool with that?

[Bricker]

@Slash1972

Yeah, I’m sure the parents of the children whose photos were still being downloaded after the server was taken over by law enforcement were just thrilled about it :rolleyes:

And?

This is the kind of comment that at first seems like it’s an argument of some kind, but on closer examination it reveals itself as simply an observation.

The answer is: assuming the parents were not the ones involved in creating the images to begin with, I suspect they would be be upset, but perhaps willing to understand that the images were being distributed before the FBI came into the picture and that what the FBI did had the longer term effect of perhaps saving some other set of parents and child from being similarly victimized.

A similar concern might be those same parents who are outraged when their child’s abuser gets a plea deal in return for testifying against others in a ring of child predators. Those parents might well weigh their own case more strongly than the need to stop the ring, but the job of prosecutors is more broad and requires them to weigh competing harms to society.

For this reason, while such parents often have a guaranteed voice in plea agreements, they ultimately don’t control them – for the same reason that is fatak to your observation above: in our society, victims do not control the process of how malefactors are apprehended and punished.

[Noel_Prosequi]

I am intrigued by the process by which covert police operations like this and drug stings get the green light. Who has to sign off? At what level of seniority is approval given? Is there prior outside scrutiny?

Here in Oz, the history of these things is that for decades police undercover operations were just done as a matter of course because good guys, ya know. Then a couple of cases came oblong.

One emerged where the undercover operation was out of control. In the course of investigating a car stealing ring, police became actively involved in stealing citizens cars, and then randomly offering them for sale in order to catch the receivers in a process that has been called “random virtue testing”. Another case pointed out that what police were doing (in the drug context) was nevertheless illegal, and triggered certain discretionary exclusions.

So most Oz jurisdictions now have rules about undercover operations that require pre-approval from a committee that contains people from both inside the police service at a senior level, and outside it, such as retired judges, anti-corruption authorities, etc. There are also conditional protective rules for the police involved, assuming they comply with the rules.

A judicial warrant is not required, but the approval process is designed to militate against the sort of risks discussed in this thread, and the sort of risks involved in an operation allowing funds to be lost unnecessarily or drugs to get loose in the community, or the risks of an operation being mere random virtue testing.

So how does the FBI do it?

[Ruken]

@Bricker

A similar concern might be those same parents who are outraged when their child’s abuser gets a plea deal in return for testifying against others in a ring of child predators. Those parents might well weigh their own case more strongly than the need to stop the ring, but the job of prosecutors is more broad and requires them to weigh competing harms to society.

In that case the abuse stops. If a child is harmed by distribution or viewing of images, then here the harm continues.

Now some posters have implicated there is no harm in viewing or distribution, only in production. I’m not familiar with the law here. People have certainly been sued for possession and distribution, but people get sued for a lot of things.

I earlier compared the operation to siezing a physical location and watching people, but we should find out more about the software for sites like this. It’s it just a listing service, or does it act like a courier?

[igor_frankensteen]

I don’t have a simple solution, because I am convinced there is none. I just a significant observation or two.

• The world of people is very complicated. Recognizing this simple-sounding thing, is extremely important to do, before attempting to address difficult problems like this. If you don’t accept that the world is complicated, you will insist on only simple solutions, and none of them will work.

• There is a natural and inherent conflict between human freedom and any attempt to administer any legal system. They cannot coexist without lots of contradictions.

• That in turn, means that what dealing with this (or any other criminal subject area) involves, is choosing which NEGATIVES you are going to accept. The choices available to you include everything from doing nothing at all, and accepting crime having free range, to doing too much, and causing damage to who and what you are trying to protect. All the choices in between, involve some of each extreme being present.

In cases like this, some people choose to indulge themselves in righteousness about the damage to be accepted; others about the damage to be prevented, and those two subgroups often argue each other into complete inactivity.

** It is ESPECIALLY important to recognize that anything can be done well, or right, and it can also be done poorly, or wrong. It is important to keep THAT in mind, and to be careful when rejecting a POORLY EXECUTED procedure, to reject completely, the entire PRINCIPLE which was behind the particular procedure.

By the way, it is NOT true that all illegal drug and other “sting” operations are conducted using fake drugs or other legal items. Most of the time, that isn’t possible, because the “bad guys” can tell quickly that fake stuff is being offered. Real, dangerous drugs and real dangerous weapons are involved much of the time, of necessity.

[buddha_david]

@Bricker

The answer is: assuming the parents were not the ones involved in creating the images to begin with, I suspect they would be be upset, but perhaps willing to understand that the images were being distributed before the FBI came into the picture and that what the FBI did had the longer term effect of perhaps saving some other set of parents and child from being similarly victimized.

My stepsister had a very large online gallery of photos featuring her preteen children. She hid them from public view after someone informed her that they were being traded on a pedophile website. :eek:

This weekend, I asked her how she’d feel if the FBI hypothetically asked permission to use her photos as part of an anti-pedophile sting. (Keep in mind these are perfectly mundane, family-oriented pictures, containing nothing more salacious than a bathing suit.) Her reaction was…well, let’s just say she used words which would not be appropriate for this forum.

My point is, it strains credulity to think that parents would ever give permission for LEO’s to use images of their kids in such a manner, especially if they were abused. Parents tend to go freaking ballistic where their children are concerned.

[JRDelirious]

In Ye Olde Tymes pre-internet when the Postal Inspectors would sting people WRT to printed kidpr0n they’d let those who fell for it place the order, and then when the person accepted the delivery of the materials they’d grab him in possesion of the contraband(*). But that material would not end up further propagating – nowadays with our online access you have the possibility of the material being re-propagated within seconds of being downloaded. This makes this sort of sting a bit more delicate to manage, IMO.

(*And in at least one ocassion ran afoul of entrapment standards by performing a hard-sell on one of their targets.)

@Bricker

Yes, it’s true that this is second-hand. But the thinking is that the market that’s created for child rapists to earn money by filming their rape of kids is a direct result of these pervos that are merely “looking” at child porn.

Or not even to earn money necessarily: The way the idea goes, having a pedo-media ecosystem up at all creates a supply/demand dynamic that can even be based merely on in-community standing, where those who bring in or provide links to “fresh” content become valued members. So from that POV mere accessing of kidpr0n still creates an environment where new molestations are encouraged. (FWIW, though production and sale of kidpr0n was outlawed in most of the West in the mid/late 70s, not every major country outlawed simple possesion thereof, some until surprisingly late.) The big target for LE in a case like this one is to see if they can detect original producers or large propagators.
(US law as it stands right now allows victims to sue private downloaders and file-sharers for civil damages, even after the victim’s own immediate case has been done with, under the premise that they still suffer harm from continued circulation of the material. )

As far as I can understand here (and I admit I may not have all the info I need) the feds argue that *they *did not distribute new material, but just *allowed *the system as was established to continue letting users do *their own *up- and downloading while Mr. Fed monitored activity in order to be able to break the anonymity and gather evidence. **But **the contrary argument seems to be they did not merely hack or backdoor into the system or “turn” an admin/mod to get insider status, but that they actually took the site over, became active operators for a period of time, maintaining the site to keep up and running the system of kidpr0n distribution including allowing new memberships, thus allowing distribution to continue unimpeded that they could have stopped.

Tough call here. I could see the argument that if we are to take it that ANY unauthorized perusal of kidpr0n is criminal “harm” to the kids, then the site should be shut down as soon as you have the enough evidence against it and what operators and users have been identified at that point, NOT kept around as a “honeypot” still facilitating illegal activity on the off chance that we may hit a big payday yet.

[Slash1972]

@Bricker

This is the kind of comment that at first seems like it’s an argument of some kind, but on closer examination it reveals itself as simply an observation.

Yes, it was an observation.

The answer is: assuming the parents were not the ones involved in creating the images to begin with, I suspect they would be be upset, but perhaps willing to understand that the images were being distributed before the FBI came into the picture and that what the FBI did had the longer term effect of perhaps saving some other set of parents and child from being similarly victimized.

A similar concern might be those same parents who are outraged when their child’s abuser gets a plea deal in return for testifying against others in a ring of child predators. Those parents might well weigh their own case more strongly than the need to stop the ring, but the job of prosecutors is more broad and requires them to weigh competing harms to society

I don’t believe this is similar at all. In the first case, pornographic photographs of peoples’ children are STILL being shared by people.

In the second case, the abusers have already been arrested and are NOT still sharing pornographic photographs of peoples’ children.

Perhaps it is similar to the FBI taking over a brothel with underage prostitutes in it, as was mentioned earlier. And the FBI allowed people to come and have sex with the prostitutes and then busting them AFTER the deed was done.

[Crazy_Canuck]

@iamthewalrus_3

Can you go into the thought process that makes the duration that they run the site relevant?

It seems to me that if running the site to find and arrest its users is morally valid… well, it’s morally valid for an arbitrary amount of time.

Well, Bricker hit most of it with his post on diminishing returns. I’m enough of a realist that I’ll weigh a small about of child porn being shared as a lesser evil than not being able to arrest those creating and distributing it. The key word is small. The longer they run the site as a honey pot, the higher the ratio will be of child porn shared to people arrested.
In this case, my totally gut-feel, pulled from my ass opinion is that while less than a week could be for the greater good, two weeks prioritizes catching creeps over preventing additional harm to minors.

@JRDelirious

Or not even to earn money necessarily: The way the idea goes, having a pedo-media ecosystem up at all creates a supply/demand dynamic that can even be based merely on in-community standing, where those who bring in or provide links to “fresh” content become valued members. So from that POV mere accessing of kidpr0n still creates an environment where new molestations are encouraged.

This is how the system is setup to work. Fresh content is the currency of the child porn world. From my limited understanding, most of the material freely available on the darknets is poorly labeled and low quality, and functions as advertisements for the bigger sites and trading communities. If you want higher quality or specific material, you will need to provide fresh material to get in.

[iamthewalrus_3]

@Crazy_Canuck

Well, Bricker hit most of it with his post on diminishing returns. I’m enough of a realist that I’ll weigh a small about of child porn being shared as a lesser evil than not being able to arrest those creating and distributing it. The key word is small. The longer they run the site as a honey pot, the higher the ratio will be of child porn shared to people arrested.

That’s fair. I was not really factoring in the delay between someone accessing the site and being arrested, although it would certainly exist.