Slashdot Mirror
Major UK Child Porn Investigation Flawed
Oxygen99 writes "The Guardian (UK) is carrying a story on Operation Ore, a major police investigation aimed at catching online pedophiles. This has resulted in several high-profile arrests, such as those of Pete Townshend and Robert Del Naja (both falsely accused), while attracting significant press attention. Yet, the reality of the investigation is one of stolen credit cards, wrongful accusations, and ignorance leading to a significant number of the 7,292 people on the list being wrongfully accused of a very emotionally charged crime. There have been 39 suicides and a number of other people on the list will probably never be investigated. It seems to me this case highlights flaws inherent in the way law enforcement agencies handle evidence that only a small minority of front-line officers fully understand."
No evidence against man in child porn inquiry who 'killed himself' ... the commodore was dead the next day.
The inquest into his death heard that computer equipment and a camera memory chip belonging to Commodore White had yielded no evidence that he downloaded child pornography, and a letter was written by Ministry of Defence police to Naval Command on 5 January this year indicating that there were "no substantive criminal offences" to warrant pressing charges. But the Second Sea Lord, Sir James Burnell-Nugent, feared that the media would report the case and on 7 January removed him from his post anyway
In one case at Hull Crown Court last year, a distinguished hospital consultant was acquitted after it emerged that hackers had used his credit card on Landslide. The judge dismissed some police evidence as "utter nonsense".
Reduce, reuse, cycle
There could certainly have been developments in this since however many years ago that it happened, but didn't Pete Townshend acknowledge having sought out and downloaded child pornography, claiming it was "research"? Whether or not you believe that, he certainly wasn't "falsely accused" in the sense used in the story.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
Coming from Britain I can say this is typical of our government. They are of the impression all it takes to solve a problem is to assign someone (typically totally unsuited) to the task of assigning money to agencies or companies (with the greatest kick back) with absolutely no insight into how to handle things and then sitting back thinking how to BS there way out of the mess that inevitably ensues (just watch them on the news, they are experts at dodging the questions they get asked about how they fucked up again).
The way they try to fix this is to create new agencies in between agencies.. all this creates is more paper work that never finds its way into the correct hands and causes more problems and tax pounds which could be better put elsewhere.
Britain is essentially becoming a broken beurocractic piss hole.
"
The state must declare the child to be the most precious treasure of the people.
As long as the government is perceived as working for the benefit of the children,
the people will happily endure almost any curtailment of liberty and almost any deprivation.
"
-- Mein Kampf, Adolf Hitler, Publ. Houghton Miflin, 1943, Page 403
captcha: are you swayed by these arguments yet?