Where Are IP Execs On Kiddie Porn?

Payoff
Tales Of Political Corruption Vol. 1, No. 5

The Worldwide Perversion
Information Superhighway
What Internet Providers Should Do

By RICHARD MEEHAN With ANDY THIBAULT
The Cool Justice Report
www.cooljustice.blogspot.com
Oct. 3, 2006

EDITOR'S NOTE: This column is available for reprint courtesy of The Cool Justice Report, http://cooljustice.blogspot.com

Popular Florida Congressman Mark Foley was a shoe-in for reelection.

But, over the course of a few days, he was labeled a potential internet predator and resigned his congressional seat; seems the congressman had a penchant for emailing sexually suggestive comments to young male pages. Federal investigators are now searching for more sordid information concerning the ex-congressman's fascination with teenage boys.

The same week the congressman was crashing and burning I found myself sitting in the FBI's computer forensics laboratory investigating a cyber porn case on behalf of a client and being educated on how the feds snag an alleged internet predator. I was working on the defense of what the feds call a "traveler" case; that is, someone allegedly caught in an internet sting exchanging salacious emails and IM's [instant messages, for the uninitiated] who then travels to meet the "child" only to be met by some burly cops with guns and handcuffs.

Chris Hansen and NBC Dateline have made "To Catch a Predator" the pervert's answer to "Deal or No Deal," and with much higher stakes. They have demonstrated how this internet sex trolling has evolved into almost epidemic proportions.

I recall about 20 years ago asking my secretary if she had ever heard of the information highway. Her son was a computer savant studying at the University of Pittsburgh. We were state of the art with our 64 bit microprocessor "computer" at the time.

At that time there were not a lot of dirty old men hanging around lusting after youngsters, or so it seemed until the priest scandals broke. Someone would have to really work at feeding a perversion in those days. I had to wait until AL Gore "invented" the Internet to get wired in. So now the failed presidential hopeful who brought us enlightenment about global warming probably needs to take responsibility for the single greatest tool of perversity since Eve ate the apple.

Today Google will point you to any manner of unthinkable human depredations in nanoseconds. The ease with which we now access the entire spectrum of available human knowledge has spawned a new generation of criminals, and a new perversion- cybersex, or "cybering," as the initiated refer to it.

In some gulag half a world away a child is forced to perform unspeakable acts in front of a webcam for the profit of faceless exploiters. Little technical skill is needed to create websites and upload graphic images to feed this perversion. Despite formidable skills in tracking criminals through the web, the purveyors of this perversity are rarely unmasked.

The kindly Internet giant AOL permits anyone to create chat rooms, even those the names of which bespeak the kinky desires of the chatters. Fanatasy role playing chat rooms exist to satisfy every manner of cybering.

In recent years geeks have developed file sharing programs that have allowed multitudes of nameless strangers to exchange music and video files. First illegitimate and now legitimate, sites like Napster have institutionalized the process. Apple has reinvented itself on the success of its Ipod and ITunes, turning what was once considered potential internet piracy into a lucrative marketing device.

But, more than just music and MTV videos are exchanged with file sharing programs. Child porn has become readily available. Sitting at a computer console in a quiet space somewhere has emboldened people who may never have taken their perverse interests beyond mere fantasy. The web has created a seeming cloak of invisibility that fosters these misadventures into forbidden websites.

There are certainly instances that most web browsers can point to where a seemingly innocuous webpage title pops up a porn site. The number of adults that surf adult sexual sites is staggering -- consenting adults, etc.

Accessing an adult website that does not exploit children does not violate the law. But, one doesn't accidentally stumble on to child porn. What most don't understand is that merely downloading child pornography is a felony on a state or federal level. Prison sentences for mere possession are severe. Utilizing the internet to solicit sex with a minor is a mandatory 5 years at Club Fed. Add to that downloading child porn pictures and the years in the federal pokey start to really pile up. Use a file sharing program to allow the cyber freaks to share kiddie porn brings a mandatory 10-year prison sentence. Of course all of this is followed by sex offender registration and a lifetime of public shaming and shunning.

So why do they do it? What perverse need drives people to stray so far outside of the boundaries of acceptable sexual desires? These aren't the prototypical dirty old men, either. Several years ago a noted middle-aged Yale University professor was jailed for an eternity for this type of conduct. What makes an elected official -- in the midst of a re-election campaign, no less -- decide to start sending sexually graphic emails to young men he has met in the halls of Congress? The answer is simple enough: No one thinks any one is really watching.

These guys get caught in a variety of ways: the "traveler" who gets snagged showing up for the tryst finds that the police are armed with a search warrant to seize the computer that had been broadcasting his IP address with each graphic email or IM; the soon to be ex-spouse finds a cache of kiddie porn on hubby's laptop; or the guy who calls in a techie to cure some computer glitch gets the whistle blown. The cloak of invisibility disappears. In its place comes the public pillorying of another internet pervert, prison and eventual sex offender registration.

The answer does not lie in allowing a Big-Brother-like monitoring of where our internet surfing takes all of us. We shouldn't all abrogate our personal privacy because of a misguided minority. Maybe the solution lies with the internet providers.

How about it, AOL? Can't you cyber geeks find a way to filter out potential kiddie porn sites? We have sophisticated anti-spam filtering programs that save us from the barrage of internet spammers hell-bent on giving us cheaper drugs and larger sexual organs; so keep the kiddie porn purveyors at bay.

Bridgeport attorney Richard Meehan Jr. was the lead defense counsel for former Bridgeport Mayor Joseph Ganim's corruption trial. Meehan is certified as a criminal trial specialist by the National Board of Trial Advocacy. Meehan has also obtained multi-million dollar verdicts and settlements in complex medical and dental malpractice and personal injury litigation. He is a past president of the Greater Bridgeport Bar Association and appears regularly on Court TV.
Andy Thibault, author of Law & Justice In Everyday Life and a private investigator, is an adjunct lecturer of English and a mentor in the MFA writing program at Western Connecticut State University. Website, www.andythibault.com and Blog, http://cooljustice.blogspot.com