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Archive for the ‘child pornography’ Category

Ed Balls Warns OnJames Bulger Killer Jon Venables Sent Back To Jail On Suspected Child Porn Offences | UK News | Sky News

2:12pm UK, Sunday March 07, 2010

Alison Chung, Sky News Online

The Children’s Secretary has told Sky News the media is getting close to breaking the law over reports about James Bulger’s killer.

The latest claims by the Sunday Mirror are that probation chiefs revoked Jon Venables’ licence because of child pornography allegations.

Justice Secretary Jack Straw will say only that ‘extremely serious allegations’ caused Venables, 27, to be returned to prison last week.

Newspaper speculation about those allegations includes claims of drug use, violence and sex crimes.

The murdered toddler’s family have called for full details of the allegations to be disclosed – but the Government has insisted Venables’ anonymity must be protected.

Ed Balls said some newspapers are getting too close to revealing Venables’ identity which would undermine the integrity of the criminal justice process and could prevent prosecution.

‘If we responded to the desire for people to know the facts in public in a way which ends up prejudicing a legal case, we would look back and think we made very irresponsible decisions,’ he told Sky News.

‘At the same time we will do nothing that would put children or adults at risk, now or in the future.’

Venables was controversially released on life licence in 2001 with a new identity after serving eight years for the toddler’s murder.

James’s mother Denise Fergus believes Venables should lose his anonymity if he is charged with new offences.

Her spokesman Chris Johnson said: ‘If after that, depending on the outcome of the court case, the powers that be decide that he should have some new identity yet again, then we’ll deal with that when we come to it.

‘But she can’t understand why he doesn’t appear in a dock under his own name, if that’s going to be where he ends up.’

Mrs Fergus does not believe Venables should be at liberty and should have served closer to 15 years.

‘In her mind, if there has been an offence committed, it means that that could have been avoided,’ Mr Johnson said.

Mrs Fergus has demanded to know why Venables was put back in jail, and is meeting Mr Straw this week.

She found out about Venables’ recall only on Tuesday, shortly before the news became public.

She told a newspaper that when a probation officer told her she ‘threw question after question at her, but she blocked every one’.

‘My fear was that he’d hurt another child, or any human being,’ she said.

Venables and accomplice Robert Thompson were just 10 when they battered two-year-old James to death in Liverpool 17 years ago.

They were both released on lifelong licence in 2001, requiring them to obey strict conditions such as not contacting each other or returning to the city where James was killed.

Bulger killer Jon Venables jailed again ‘for child porn’ | News.com.au

By Alison Chung and Tom Bonnett, Sky News
NewsCore, March 08, 2010 5:44AM

JON Venables, who killed two-year-old British toddler James Bulger in 1993, was reportedly sent back to jail last week on suspected child pornography offences.

British newspaper the Sunday Mirror claimed probation chiefs revoked Venables’ parole licence once the allegations were made, but UK cabinet officials refused to reveal the exact reasons.

The 27-year-old was recalled to prison after what Justice Secretary Jack Straw described simply as ‘extremely serious allegations’.

Venables and his accomplice Robert Thompson were just 10 when they tortured and battered James to death in Liverpool, northern England, 17 years ago.

They were both controversially released from jail on lifelong parole in 2001 with new identities after serving eight years for their crimes and were made to obey strict conditions, such as not contacting each other or returning to the city where James was killed.

James’s mother Denise Fergus believes Venables should lose his anonymity if he is charged with new offences.

Her spokesman Chris Johnson said: ‘If after that, depending on the outcome of the court case, the powers that be decide that he should have some new identity yet again, then we’ll deal with that when we come to it.

‘But she (Fergus) can’t understand why he doesn’t appear in a dock under his own name, if that’s going to be where he ends up.’

Fergus did not believe Venables deserved early release from jail and said he should have served closer to 15 years.

‘In her mind, if there has been an offence committed, it means that that could have been avoided,’ Johnson said.

If Venables returned to court, it could cause a potential security nightmare for the authorities trying to preserve his lifelong anonymity order.

Mr Straw, the police and the UK Director of Public Prosecutions all said revealing Bulger’s new identity would undermine the integrity of the criminal justice process and could prevent prosecution.

Reports last week said Venables visited nightclubs and a pop concert in Liverpool and even watched Premier League soccer club Everton in the city.

He also reportedly worked as a nightclub bouncer and had a history of drug abuse.

EU – European Commission calls on social networking companies to improve child safety policies: (RAPID)
50% of European teenagers give out personal information on the web – according to an EU study – which can remain online forever and can be seen by anybody. Today, Safer Internet Day, the European Commission is passing a message to teenagers: ‘Think before you post!’ It welcomed actions to protect children using social networking websites taken by the 20 companies who signed the Safer Social Networking Principles last year. Most of these companies have empowered minors to tackle online risks by making it easier to change privacy settings, block users or delete unwanted comments and content. Yet more needs to be done to protect children online, the Commission says. Less than half of social networking companies (40%) make profiles of under-18 users visible only to their friends by default and only one third replied to user reports asking for help. See Think before you post! How to make social networking sites safer for children and teenagers? speech by Viviane Reding, Member of the European Commission responsible for Information Society and Media, Safer Internet Day Strasbourg, 9 February 2010. See also European Commission assesses social networking sites’ approach to safety of under 18s and video clip.

(Via QuickLinks Update.)

DE – New Internet Legislation Embarrasses German Government: “(Der Spiegel)
A new bill to fight child pornography has been signed into law by Germany’s president. There’s only one problem: The government has decided it no longer wants it. They are now in the awkward position of relying on opposition help to repeal the legislation. It was supposed to be an initiative to stop child pornography on the Internet. But now the German government finds itself in a uniquely awkward situation after a bill which it no longer wanted was signed into law by the country’s president. German President Horst Köhler signed the law after deciding that there were ‘no significant concerns’ regarding the law’s compatibility with the German constitution. The Access Impediment Law, as it is known, is aimed at combating child pornography and allows access to offensive Web sites to be blocked.
However the German coalition government, which pairs Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives with the business-friendly Free Democratic Party, has decided it no longer wants the law, which was massively opposed by Internet users. Instead of blocking access to Web sites, it now wants to delete offensive Internet content instead.

“

(Via QuickLinks Update.)

French Parliament approves Net censorship | La Quadrature du Net French Parliament approves Net censorship

Submitted on 11 February 2010

Paris, February 11th, 2010 – During the debate over the French security bill (LOPPSI), the government opposed all the amendments seeking to minimize the risks attached to filtering Internet sites. The refusal to make this measure experimental and temporary shows that the executive could not care less about its effectivity to tackle online child pornography or about its disastrous consequences. This measure will allow the French government to take control of the Internet, as the door is now open to the extension of Net filtering.

The refusal to enact Net filtering as an experimental measure is a proof of the ill-intended objective of the government. Making Net filtering a temporary measure would have shown that it is uneffective to fight child pornography.

As the recent move1 of the German government shows, only measures tackling the problem at its roots (by deleting the incriminated content from the servers; by attacking financial flows) and the reinforcement of the means of police investigators can combat child pornography.

Moreover, whereas the effectivity of the Net filtering provision cannot be proven, the French government refuses to take into account the fact that over-blocking – i.e the “collateral censorship” of perfectly lawful websites – is inevitable2. Net filtering can now be extended to other areas, as President Sarkozy promised to the pro-HADOPI (“Three-Strikes” law) industries3.

“Protection of childhood is shamelessly exploited by Nicolas Sarkozy to implement a measure that will lead to collateral censorship and very dangerous drifts. After the HADOPI comes the LOPPSI: the securitarian machinery of the government is being deployed in an attempt to control the Internet at the expense of freedoms”, concludes Jérémie Zimmermann, spokesperson for La Quadrature du Net.

1. 1. See: http://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/0,1518,676669,00.html
2. 2. Every study, including the government’s own impact assessment comes to that conclusion.
3. 3. “The more we will be able to automatically depollute the networks and the servers from all sources of piracy, the less it will be necessary to take measures weighing on the end-users. [...] We must therefore experiment promptly filtering schemes.” Speech to the world of culture: http://www.elysee.fr/download/?mode=press&filename=100107-discours-Voeux…

Is it art or is it pr0n? Australia decides it’s ALL filth: “

Won’t someone think of the pictures of children?

Australian painters and photographers may soon need to watch their step, as an overhaul of child pornography laws in New South Wales looks set to remove the defence of ‘artistic merit’ from the statute books.…

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(Via The Register – Public Sector.)

Microsoft Tackles the Child Pornography Problem: (New York imes)
The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children assists law-enforcement authorities by culling through 250,000 images a week, looking for illegal material, and sends daily alerts to 68 Internet service providers worldwide. It is difficult, labor-intensive work for all. But Microsoft is contributing new image-matching software, PhotoDNA, that promises to automate and streamline online child-pornography monitoring. The new software is the result of two years of collaboration by a team at Microsoft Research, led by Larry Zitnick, and a group at Dartmouth College. In test runs, PhotoDNA has processed images in less than five milliseconds each and accurately detected target images 98 percent of the time.

(Via QuickLinks Update.)

Cartoon smut law to make life sucky for Olympic organisers: “

Internet + iffy logo = Ha ha!

Government zeal in pursuing anyone suspected of harbouring paedophilic tendencies may shortly rebound – with unintended consequences for the 2012 Olympic logo.…

“

(Via The Register – Public Sector.)

Federal judges argue for reduced sentences for child-porn convicts – The Denver Post

By Felisa Cardona
The Denver Post
Posted: 11/29/2009 06:28:17 PM MST
Updated: 11/29/2009 06:28:30 PM MST

In a nationwide series of hearings, members of the U.S. Sentencing Commission have heard from federal judges seeking reduced sentences for a group of defendants one would think unlikely to get sympathy from the bench: possessors of child pornography.

From New York to Chicago, and recently in Denver, federal judges have testified before the commission, which sets federal punishments, that the current sentencing structure for possessing and viewing child pornography is too severe.

The commission has made reviewing child-pornography sentencing guidelines a priority of its work, which will end in May and could include a change to the guidelines to allow shorter sentences for future offenders.

Judges, for the most part, have based their argument on a belief that some of the defendants who view child pornography have never molested a child or posed a risk to the community and may be better served by treatment rather than prison.

As federal guidelines now stand, the number of images and the way the contraband is obtained enhance prison terms. A first-time offender with no criminal history can be sentenced to 10 years in federal prison.

In the Colorado case of Dale Ilgen, federal agents found 1,627 photos and 23 movies depicting prepubescent children being sexually abused by adults.

Ilgen admitted he downloaded the contraband and pleaded guilty, and now prosecutors are seeking to lock him up for six to eight years.

But the 50-year-old Parker man is fighting for a probationary sentence below the guidelines set by the commissioners and Congress.

Ilgen will learn the outcome of his case Feb. 4 when he appears in U.S. District Court in Denver for sentencing.

His attorney, Matthew Golla, says there is no proof his client is a risk to the community and that he has some physical and mental impairments that make prison an unsuitable option for him.

‘Throughout the course of this case, whenever discussions arose surrounding the potential advisory guideline ranges, Mr. Ilgen at times crumbled into a ball on the floor of counsel’s office unable to communicate,’ Golla wrote in a motion for a lesser term.

Precedent for probation

Golla also argues that Ilgen did not molest a child and there is no evidence he intends to do so.

‘For at least one year and possibly longer, the defendant, in the privacy of his small condominium, used a single computer to download child pornography,’ Golla wrote. ‘He never chatted with anyone on the Internet regarding the images he possessed, never used the material to entice a child, nor did he produce, distribute, or trade any of the images. Mr. Ilgen has never had inappropriate contact with a child.’

U.S. District Judge John L. Kane, who is presiding over Ilgen’s case, has previously granted two defendants in similar cases probation rather than incarceration, drawing the ire of prosecutors.

Several medical problems

Ralph Rausch and Leslie Wilkinson got probation — with lifetime supervision — because both men suffer from severe medical impairments and the judge felt placing them behind bars would be unreasonable and detrimental to their survival.

Rausch was awaiting a kidney transplant, and moving him to the Bureau of Prisons may have knocked him off the list. Wilkinson is a paraplegic with limited use of his arms, and Kane had similar concerns about the quality of health care in the prison system and the expense.

‘We do not see producers (of child porn) or the parents who sell their children or the stepfathers who attack them,’ Kane told the commission in October. ‘What we see are the men on dialysis confined to a wheelchair who spends all of his time confined already and no economic analysis of what it would cost to keep this man in prison.’

Kane testified there is no empirical research referenced in the sentencing schemes to indicate whether long prison sentences will stop defendants from re-offending or help them overcome their compulsions by the time they get out of prison.

And Kane is not alone. Federal judges from Hawaii, New York and Oklahoma have made similar gripes to the commission.

‘It is too often the case that a defendant appears to be a social misfit looking at dirty pictures in the privacy of his own home without any real prospect of touching or otherwise acting out as to any person,’ U.S. District Judge Robin J. Cauthron of Oklahoma City said in her testimony to the commission. ‘As foul as child pornography is, I am unpersuaded by the suggestion that a direct link has been proven between viewing child porn and molesting children.’

Federal prosecutors in Colorado declined to comment on the Ilgen case or the testimony of federal judges.

But Colorado U.S. Attorney David Gaouette criticized Kane’s decision in the Rausch case when he testified before the commissioners.

Gaouette also said that the Bureau of Prisons has medical facilities to care for defendants like Rausch and Wilkinson who have impairments when they enter the prison system.

‘Cases like this suggest that the current state of the federal sentencing system increasingly favors judicial discretion over uniformity, consistency and certainty,’ he said.

In 1995, federal defendants convicted of possessing child pornography were sentenced to an average of 15 months in prison, Ilgen’s attorney wrote in court documents. By 2007, first-time child-pornography offenders were receiving 102 months in federal prison.

Crime fight targets Internet

In the early 1990s, the U.S. Justice Department established the Innocent Images initiative to combat the emerging availability of child pornography on the Internet.

Before online access, purveyors of the contraband relied on sending the images through the postal system, which meant there was limited access to the material.

Ernie Allen, president and chief executive of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, said some judges don’t realize possessing the images revictimizes the children in the photographs and fuels a growing online business.

‘There are too many judges who continue to provide token sentences for what we consider to be serious crimes,’ Allen said. ‘These are images of prepubescent children, growing numbers of them infants and toddlers, and they trade with each other for purposes of arousal and breaking down the inhibitions of other children.’

Allen said educating the judiciary about the impact of child pornography on victims is key.

‘We are not in favor of disproportionate sentencing or disparities, but the problem here is too many judges who simply do not recognize how serious these crimes are,’ he said.

Looking for treatment

Bernie Mrugala, whose son Shawn Mrugala is serving 10 years in prison for possessing a vast child-pornography library, said treatment over incarceration should have been an option for his son.

‘I think the thing we really have to do is figure out why. What is different about him that drives him to that? What personality traits? What is the issue here?’ Bernie Mrugala said. ‘To put somebody in jail for 10 years may not be enough if we do not get to the crux of the matter.

‘We need the power of the courts to be on our side to help maintain and control the problem to the point where this kid can be beneficial to society.’

Shawn Mrugala, 33, was working as a network engineer making $60,000 a year when he got caught downloading child pornography.

His father compared his son’s compulsion to drug addiction that needs treatment.

‘I don’t know if sending them to prison is the way to protect children, and I am more concerned about when my son gets out,’ Bernie Mrugala said.

‘I don’t think he is getting treated to the point he wouldn’t do it again.’

Canada Fights Child Pornography: “New legislation is expected to be introduced in Canada this week that would force Internet service providers (ISPs) to notify federal authorities of any sites they host which may link to illegal child pornography (CP).”

(Via XBIZ.com | News & Articles.)