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Fighting Porn Vs. Ruining Innocent Lives
After news of the conviction of a substitute teacher for endangering minors — because porn popups, possibly initiated by adware, had appeared on her computer during class — comes the even sadder story of 16-year-old Matt Bandy. His family's life was turned upside-down when he was charged in Arizona with possession of child pornography, even though the family computer was riddled with spyware and Trojans. After the intervention of ABC's 20/20, Matt finally was allowed to plead to a lesser charge (namely, sharing a Playboy magazine with friends) and just barely escaped being labeled a sex offender for the rest of his life.
Now let's figure ruining your life into into that total cost of ownership.
Got Code?
lesser charge (namely, sharing a Playboy magazine with friends)
Wow. You USAians really live in a fucked up country if you can be charged with showing your mates a playboy.
It appears, as in most cases like this, the prosecutor was trying to make an example of this boy. The judge actually suggested that the boy's family appeal the decision, as the judge could not believe why the prosecutor wanted to keep the "Sex offender" charge even though he had dropped the child pornography offense. This boy finally cleared his name, but not without horrendous legal wrangling. Sad, very sad.
WHen a Windows machine gets really infested with spyware, it's tough to sort out the chickens from the eggs.
Did a user to to a porn site that downloaded spyware that brought down kiddie porn, or did somebody intentionally go to a kiddie porn site?
I've never found pictures of kids on a customer's PC (thank God), but I have done some investigations on "porned" and infested PCs: it's hard enough for an IT pro to figure out which came first. When the cops are doing the investigating, I expect they'll come to whatever conclusion makes the suspect look guilty.
Funny, but noboby gets labeled a "murderer" for life. Murderers are released from prison every day. In fact, hundreds of them. They serve their sentence and move on. No reporting themselves to their neighbors. No exclusion zones. No "registered murderer" lists.
I'd actually rather live next door to sex offenders rather than next to convicted drunk drivers. Why am I not notified when a convicted drunk driver moves in next door? Probably a lot more dangerous to me and my kids. Right?
The really weird thing is that neither side of the political spectrum dare oppose the whole "sex offender" legal agenda thing. Its a bit like global warming. Groupthink.
"Think of the children!!" Wait, I didn't mean it THAT way.
"If you want to improve, be content to be thought foolish and stupid." - Epictetus
At my old University, they required everyone to buy a computer through them. So, every numb-nuts had a computer hooked up to the network. There was no default AV or firewall installed, or even Auto-updates, as this was early WinXP days (and Win2k and 98 the years before that).
Well, he of course got infected with ungodly amounts of crap. I ran Adaware on it once, and it came up with 500-600 pieces of garbage, with approximately 50 - 60 of those being actual installed software. As the school had on-campus service, I just told him to bring it to them, and they'd reinstall all the school software for him.
So, he brought it in, and they found "child pornography" on it. Now, this was absolute news to him, and everyone else. As this was at my old Fraternity house (owned by the school, network owned by the school, was run similarly to other school-owned residencies), they threatened everyone at the house, and God knows what else. Eventually they looked around the house, and to their surprise, did not find a projector and child porn laying around. Apparantly this is what they thought they were housing a child porn theater of some sort. Amazingly, they dropped the case right there, and were very nice about it all, considering what was involved.
As for the original poster, was it this student's fault anyway? He was forced to use this computer, was given inadequate software with no training, and was only using the services given to him. I realize he got away cleanly, with no lawyers involved, but can we really expect this to not be a problem? Many in law enforcement do not understand what's involved in these cases, nor do many in the field of law (though this is getting better as the younger generations are entering these fields.)
This is not isolated to porn (duh). When a prosecutor has it out for you, there isn't much that can be done. Often there is a willingness to make an example for others, or to appear tough on a specific kind of crime for political benefit.
Chris Soghoian knows what I mean. It has nothing to do with evidence - all that matters is the nature of the charges. The Duke lacrosse team knows too.
FairTax baby!
Would it still be that wrong? Why would a sixteen-year-old find a forty-year-old-woman attractive? At that age, you still develop an attraction to other 16 and 15 year old girls. But anyone featured in pornography under the age of 18 is considered child porn.
These things should be looked at with relativity. And some lawyers and politicians need to remember that they were kids once. Rediculous, "possession of a playboy." I can understand cigarettes or alcohol, but it's illegal to be curious now?
... priceless
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Here http://abcnews.go.com/2020/story?id=2791529&page=1 is an interview with the DA of this case.
...that he did it.
Very interesting read.
Quote:
"JIM AVILA: So there was a huge amount of evidence that in fact, this kid was not involved in a sex crime. And yet, your office and
you yourself continue to believe and put him through two years of hell, because you continue to believe despite lie detector
tests, court psychiatrist reports, a report from the computer expert who said it could have come from anywhere...you
continue to say..."
NDREW THOMAS: (Overlap) Well...
JIM AVILA:
ANDREW THOMAS: Well, I...again, I...I'm not sure that that's totally right. But you gotta...
JIM AVILA: (Overlap) Halfway right?
"
Round and round we go.
At the risk of the infamous lousy analogy, consider this:
- You have a Masterlock brand deadbolt on your front door.
- You head out for Las Vegas Friday night at 9:00 pm, lock your door.
- Unbeknowst to you, at noon on Saturday a guy with a lockpick breaks in -- turns out your lock is easily cracked in 30 secs by anyone with a pick and 3 minutes to spend on google.
- From the moment he breaks in up till 10:00 pm Sunday night, the guy sells crack to anyone who walks in the front door.
- At 10:00 pm, he cleans up and clears out -- you'd never he had been there.
- You arrive home on Monday at 7:00 am and lounge about resting before heading back to work the next day.
- Tuesday afternoon, you come home from work and are arrested -- it seems some kid got pulled over for speeding and during the course of the traffic stop, the cops found the crack. Kid "cracks" in fear and fingers your address as the place where he bought the drugs.
The question is, should you be convicted based merely on the fact that your house was used without your knowledge and permission to perform illegal activities? Sure you locked the door but any luser idiot would know that a Masterlock isn't true security. Why should it matter that you didn't actually sell crack -- it's plainly your fault for keeping such an insecure home.What we're talking about in the real case, is someone whose property was used to commit a crime and faced life in prison (9 consecutive 10 year sentences) merely because their property was used without their permission or knowledge. That's flat fricken wrong.
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
Using the logic of these laws, we should charge any child who has seen him/herself naked with possesion of kiddie porn.
I am not a crackpot.
More percisely, how can you tell if she's turning 18 tommower or turned 18 yesterday? One of those makes you a sex offender for life, the other is perfectly legal. Both are equally moral in the eyes of the majority, but try to get the laws changed in any way other than more harsh and people think you're some kind of kid rapist.
And if you wanted a real answer, look for 18 USC 2257 compliance. It at least gives you some kind of plausible denial (not that that will get you far in court). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_Protection_and
On a related note, if you google for "18 usc 2257" like I just did to find the wikipedia link, you find plenty of sites like met-art and all the other legal-but-looks-like-jailbait sites. Funny how those are legal, but a 17.999 year old who looks 25 is illegal because "pedophiles get enticed by it" or some such drivel.
I should post this anonymously, but meh, more people need to speak out.
Pain lasts, kid. Its how you know you're alive. Sometimes I think this growing up thing is just pain management-TheMaxx
No need to lower it. I'd be willing to bet that nearly all of us break a half dozen laws or more each day. Just thinking about it, I can come up with about 10 infractions for me today, and those are of laws I know about. Most are of crap no sane law enforcement officer would ever do anything about, but the point is they're still on the books and they could, at any moment, decide to enforce them.
That's one of the problems with the US today (and I'd bet many other nations) - we pass *fuckloads* of laws that are then never revisited, never repealed, but sitting out there awaiting enforcement if they can't pin anything else on you. There's no way that the citizenry could possibly know all of the laws and be sure they're abiding by them all, thus we need to streamline and simplify.
I'd suggest starting with all laws having a 10 year sunset clause and a constitutional provision against omnibus renewals. That'd be a good start. If it's not important enough that it can be revisited every 10 years, then we should really question if it needs to be a law.
as someone that has gone through this system on this.
Many moons ago I went out to meet this gal I met online, I knew she was under 18 but I was early 20s and stupid so I went out to meet her and I got busted as I walked in the door, tossed in jail and got a lawyer and got out on probation.
5 years, 2 lie detector tests, 2 years of mandatory therapy, tens of thousands of dollars spent out of mine and my families pocket, 1 career, 1 fiancee all lost along the way because I never really did anything but I thought with my love whistle insetad of the head on my shoulders.
So now I'm labeled a pure hardcore sex offender. I'm on the website here in my state, my glorious picture is up there, they put posters all around my white color suburbanite neighborhood, my neighbors who knew me couldn't believe it, the ones who didn't' saw me and pulled their kids aside like I was going to eat them alive when it was the farthest thing from the truth. I've had people spit upon my father who has a lawn business, mom who gets harrassed at her school from other teachers cause of it, my friends got hassled and dropped me like the plague. I got to see who my true friends and people were. People who were still there, still loyal, looked past my stupid mistake and realized "Hey, he did something really dumb, but he didn't rape some kid or kidnap a school bus full of girl scouts."
So here I sit here after I got all my ducks in a row, got a consulting job because companies hire business' not people so no background check, going to school out of state because they don't require registration or signup stating that some kiddy raper is attending their school, I live in a place that's in a decent area but the county is trying to squeeze people like me out because the community thinks we are all 'horrible representations of society' or some nonsense. I had to grow up alot along the way and I learned alot about the legal and criminal system and know there are thousands upon thousands of guys like me that are out there that really won't be able to be 'themselves' for 20yrs or so until it's all cleared up in the system and maybe a pardon for the governator.
I'm sorry for what I did to my family, to my friends, and to that lil child whom when I saw her in court I would've never done a thing to as she looked like my lil 12 yr old sister.
Do I feel my debt to society has been repaid? You be the judge on that. I'll let you know in 10 more years.
Eventually it was discovered
That God
Did not want us to be
All the same
This was
BAD NEWS
For the Governments of The World
As it seemed contrary
To the doctrine of
Portion Controlled Servings
Mankind must be made more uniformly
If THE FUTURE
Was going to work
Various ways were sought
To bind us all together
But, alas SAMENESS was unenforceable
It was about this time
That someone
Came up with the idea of TOTAL CRIMINALIZATION
Based on the principle that
If we were ALL crooks
We could at last be uniform
To some degree
In the eyes of THE LAW
Shrewdly our legislators calculated
That most people were
Too lazy to perform a
REAL CRIME
So new laws were manufactured
Making it possible for anyone
To violate them any time of the day or night,
And
Once we had all broken some kind of law
We'd all be in the same big happy club
Right up there with the President,
The most exalted industrialists,
And the clerical big shots
Of all your favorite religions
TOTAL CRIMINALIZATION
Was the greatest idea of its time
And was vastly popular
Except with those people
Who didn't want to be crooks or outlaws,
So, of course, they had to be TRICKED INTO IT...
Which is one of the reasons why
Music
Was eventually made
Illegal
http://www.lyricsdomain.com/6/frank_zappa/scrutin
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
What really rots your socks is he could have had a picture of a girl 17 and older than him, flashing her tits, and not only would it be child porn, but they could easily try the 16 year old as an adult!
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
Xenon, where's my money? -Borno