I had a meeting this morning with a client and they had a couple of their Int'l security folks in.  A part of the conversation was how little protection of privacy rights people have in most countries.  None of the european countries have anywhere near the protection that we do in the US.  In most of these countries LE/Gov't is apparently pretty free to invade folks privacy almost at will, including unwarranted searches, hacking into computers, etc.

On the other hand, their laws are generally not anywhere near as intrusive as ours.  You're pretty free to do whatever you want as long as you don't intrude on others.  EG, Prostitution is legal in all EU countries (as well as Isreal, most of Asia, The Mediteranean, etc.), drug use, in private, is generally legal (but you're really sunk if you cause an accident or injure someone).

I'm pretty patriotic and glad we have the protections that we do, am willing to fight to protect them, and wouldn't mind seeing a few more.  But, I sure would like to see a bit less intrusiveness into our private lives.

Now if I can just rationalize this with what we need to do to prevent terrorist threats.

??

Launce

... is the effort and taxpayer dollars they put into things like the MGC raid and the othe recent arrests, when there are evil bastards like Bin Laden and his ilk whose main goal in life is to kill Americans at home and abroad.

Or, if they insist on delving into people's bedrooms, why couldn't local LE have found all those people in MN sharing kiddie porn on the "Candyland" site? There was some real harm being done, to children no less, but it took a Federal probe to find then.

The answer is simple - bagging terrorists and child pornographers is HARD. These people know what they are doing is evil, and that it does harm to others, and that society as a whole finds it repugnant, so they work very hard to conceal their activities. By contrast, it is EASY to disrupt a bunch of consenting adults doing something that has no deleterious effects on the lives of others. Intersest in "the hobby" is so widespread that it can't be kept secret within terrorists cells or secretive pedophile groups.

Local LE and prosecutors are just after maximum press for minimum effort. They care about funding and reelection, not public safety.

See now, we gotta talk about this.

From what I understand, the Candyland site was a sting operation, which means that at some point, LE was using child porn as bait. Is anyone else disturbed by that?

The other side of this-- yes, somebody is *making* porn with pre-pubescent children, and that is wrong in the most severe way. But I understand that some of the incriminating evidence was pictures of "naked underage" persons, and that by itself isn't a crime-- if it is, then I'm in trouble for having some Jock Sturges and David Hamilton works in my posession, and Amazon.com is in trouble for sending it to me across state lines.

Certainly a line is crossed with children in sexual acts with another person, be it child or adult. Beyond that, where do we go?

The 'tother thing is who they captured. They didn't get the *producers* of the kiddie porn, they got the *consumers*. They got the *traders*. Say what you will, I do not believe for a minute that this has the same level of evil as terrorism.

Sorry to go off on a rant here, but I'm disturbed by all of this.

They investigated the Candyman (ebay/yahoo) site.  Some in the site were producing kiddy porn and selling/distributing this porn via the site.  

"Forty individuals in 20 states are now in custody, with another 50 expected by week's end," FBI Executive Assistant Director Bruce Gebhardt. "They include members of the clergy, law enforcement officers, a nurse, a teacher's aide, a school bus driver, and others entrusted with protecting, nurturing and educating the American youth," he said. "Gebhardt said special priority was placed on arresting suspects in positions of trust."

CNN: "The paedophiles who referred to themselves as "The Round Table" operated through a chatroom which they protected with passwords and encryption.  "This wasn't one of the chatrooms which you could accidentally stray into," Deats added. "It was set up in strict secrecy to try and protect itself from the law. They thought they were elite."

I'm including an article that was written, which clearly states that it's common for ISP's to cooperate with local, state and federal govt.
www.cnn.com/2001/TECH/internet/09/13/fbi.isps/index.html

In the link below, check out the map in the background.  

My interest in this really isn't about child porn.  It's my interest in privacy on the internet.  I'm happy if they can stop predators.  I'm unhappy when I imagine how they found these sites.  continued...

that whole child porn thing turns my stomache.  those poor kids  will be screwed up for the rest of there life. as for who got caught in the sting i think they need to try to get the people actually making it.  and i am sure LE would rather get the makers instead of the consumers. personally i think a little older and experienced is better anyway. just a personal preferance of mine.

"Other observers, among them John Zalud, a partner at Strategic.net of Sacramento, California, have been even more vocal in denouncing Carnivore. To Zalud, the real problem is not that Carnivore can be used to track suspects' communications, but rather that the proposed bill goes too far in allowing surveillance without court orders."

"The sniffer technology provides the FBI with access to all traffic on an ISP. The public has to trust that federal law enforcement will only look at data necessary for its investigation, Sobel said."

I think 'The Line' can be tough to determine and quite honestly I'm not sure where I would fall on how to determine where it is.  On the one hand I am ardently against 'any abridgement of personal freedoms' which is a right granted us by the constitution.  Thus, many things that we do in private and that do not infringe on others rights should not be illegal - prostitution included.  On the other hand, kiddy porn folks s/b locked away.  If what I've read is correct the stuff they had was pretty hardcore and was clearly over the line.

Where I think I gets dicey is when courts are trying to determine if something 'has artistic merit'.  Who's to say what you or I consider to be artistic?  I've got a tooled leather seat from a Harley in my den that alot of folks wouldn't consider artistic at all.  I like it and I like to look at it.

What else worries me is when I read in the paper that someone is being tried not on clear facts, but on what they were thinking.  From what I remember the verdict came down to determining if the guy was aroused (not physically, but mentally) by the pictures, which were apparently pics from a nudist camp.  I don't need the thought police in my yard.

I thinking about it, another concern is the difference in production vs possesion.  There is some stuff that's clearly over the line and s/b dealth with for both production and possesion and certainly producers who molest kids or force them to pose s/b dealt with.  However, there are certainly going to be instances where someone could be in possesion but not realize that the people in the photos are underage (I've seen Jr High girls that could easily pass for adults and adults that look like they could be in Jr High.)  And even if they are underage some stuff (such as Sturgis) is legal.

Whew, sorry this got so long.

Launce

Excellent article.  Here's another quote:

"This intrusion into our private life, the monitoring of our most personal thoughts and communications, makes the United States feel like the repressive Communist regimes of old," Zalud says. "If we become the 'land of the watched' instead of the 'land of the free,' then we've let the terrorists win."

I don't think we're anywhere near the repressiveness of the old Communist states, but loss of freedom, like many things, is a slippery slope.

Launce

A few comments ...

If you read the full article, it indicates that they did get numerous "producers" of this stuff, not merely the "consumers."

They also targeted consumers who were in positions or authority / trust with regard to children first of all.

This was clearly a ring formed to distribute truly sexually exploitve material. I think that there will always be fights in the courts, and in the court of public opinion, about things that fall into gray areas.

Children at play in a nudist camp is a wonderful expression of freedom to many people, including their own parents, and does not have any sexual connotation per se. However, another person viewing such activity may find it tittilating. Are images of such things child pornography? One man's natural lifestyle is another man's porn.

If you have seen some of the most recent animated films, you know we are not far from the day when animations will be all but indistinguishable from films of flesh-and-blood actors. Those tools have not yet been applied to the adult-film industry, but they will be. If someone makes a sexually explicit animated film "starring" highly realistic animated children, with voices provided by adult actors, is THAT child pornography? No children would need to be involved at any stage of the production, but if it looks like a duck, and it quacks like a duck ...

And finally, there is the independent issue of our right to privacy. "Packet sniffers" can be targeted, but they work best when they just sniff everything that passes by, looking for anything that LE deems "suspicious." If there are not strict protections of our online privacy, forget the idea of being able to securely arrange an escort appointment by e-mail. Encryption helps, but encrypted files are considered suspicious a priori by most LE agencies.

"Big Brother" is not watching the Internet full-time by any means. But he has certainly started to "sniff" around a bit already.

I'm more than a little worried over the "candyman" scenario.  I happen to know one of the individuals who was prosecuted.  Shocked everyone.  Whatever, that's not my problem.

However, now I'm concerned about LE monitoring discussion boards like this.  How safe are we?  I'm considering deleting everything on my computer, dropping my membership to fun boards like this, "quitting the hobby....say it ain't so, Joe", and going back to my boring life "before the hobby and meeting all of the wonderful ladies".  God forbid such a dream....

Are we safe playing on these boards???

I think as long as we are reasonably careful and aren't too indiscreet, lists like this are fine. You can bet your arse that LE is monitoring at least some if not all of the public boards.

This is what TER has:
Q. What about confidentiality?
A. Providing a safe environment where both providers and clients can anonymously express their views is our main concern. TER fees are processed by ibill, which prevents even TER from having full access to our members’ personal information. We have even created a pay by money order option in case you prefer not to use a credit card. We also recommend that you take advantage of such free e-mail sites as Yahoo Mail, and Hotmail, so that a TER email won’t be sent to any sensitive, personal account.

Well, I can guess how they found the site.  I've been involved
in several child porn investigations.  I work as a sysadmin
at a large internet site.

In each case, the user contacted someone else who was already
under arrest, or surveillence.  It turns into a game of dominoes.
Get one guy, check the groups he subscribes to, identify
more suspects, and so on and so on.

Hotmail, Yahoo, etc don't hide who you are.  They might keep
your boss from finding out it was you bashing the company on
some investing e-mail list (don't count on it), but LE just
gets an administrative subpeona to get the info from
hotmail/yahoo and traces you back to your ISP.
Another subpeona, and they know who you are.  If you sent
a picture to the compromised person, they can get a warrant
based on that info.

They can get a warrant just for the contents of your account,
or they can get a tap warrant for all traffic to/from your
account. Then the game starts with a fresh new suspect.

From what I can tell, this keeps a good number of cops busy
full time, both at the local, state and federal level.