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Department of Justice: FBI Too Focused On Child Porn
itwbennett writes "The Department of Justice has issued a scathing report (PDF) on the ineffectiveness of the FBI in investigating and countering cyber attacks. The shortcomings are partly attributed to lack of training and lack of communication, but the biggest issue is the allocation of effort. From the report: 'Overall, we determined that in FY 2009 the FBI used 19 percent of its cyber agents on national security intrusion investigations, 31 percent to address criminal-based intrusions, and 41 percent to investigate online child pornography matters."
...instead of focusing on child pornographers.
ORRRRRR
someone @ te DoJ realizes that 41% of the resources being used on theoretical pedobears was a waste of money compared to people who could actually hurt the underlying infrastructure and cause millions if not billions of dollars in damage.
I know its not popular, but pedophiles dont do much harm in the big picture.
Why do all the hard work tracking down serious fraud when you can link a honeypot image on some pervy website, do a reverse DNS lookup, call the ISP, get a warrant, and bust the perp? Easy way to boost your conviction rate, with very little man power, and the people will love you for protecting the children. Plus, you get all the kiddie porn you want... you know, for the investigation.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
The FBI should go after producers of child porn. The ones actually harming the children, not the spectators. Sure, bust the spectators if you happen to catch one anyway. But actively setting up stings to catch people who aren't actively going out and harming children is a bit of a waste.
I'd really rather have the FBI collecting evidence against Goldman Sachs.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Moreover, people who view or collect child pornography may do no harm whatsoever. The overwhelming majority of people who watch child pornography are not paying for it, and most of what gets "traded" are old pictures and videos. Some guy who is sitting in his home masturbating to images of child abuse may have some psychological problems, but that in and of itself does not cause harm and it is a waste of law enforcement time and resources to arrest such a person.
Of course, the FBI has released official statements in the past that promote the idea that, in fact, just by looking at images of child abuse, a person is harming children, even if the children have been rescued and their abusers have been put in prison (unless, one is looking at those images as part of their job as an FBI agent, in which case it is not harmful).
Palm trees and 8
I think that the identify theft and other breakins as well at the botting of innocent peoples computers for illegal or just monitary purposes is a far larger area of crime. If you look at the statistics of how many child pornographers there are vs, say the theft from Sony of tens of thousands of credit cards. It is not a size nor a severity issue but someones decision that this crime is worse than say stealing all of someones money, or killing them, or kidnapping them. I think this is an ideological aberation from those in the FBI. Methinks they protest too much.
Tho I agree, playing devil's advocate I'd have to point out they are trying to remove the market for the kiddie porn. Remove the market and the producers will dramatically drop off. Only a minor percentage are paying for it, but there are also a lot more that are funding the producers/distributors indirectly with banner impressions and clicks, and with zip files of KP with botnet/spyware sprinkled in.
Why not? It's been working so well to shut down the drug trade.
So I'm suporting the MPAA by downloading movies from a torrent and watching them?
Why do they seem to not like it then?
>>>If there is a "healthy" "market" for child pornography then some people will go out and get fresh product for that market. This is how children are harmed by viewing it.
Your logic is lacking. If it made sense, we should also outlaw:
- murder photos
- snuff videos (like animals set on fire)
- accident scenes
- and so on. Because the distribution of this material will cause an "industry" of murder to create new photos/films! The horror!!!
Or not.
Your logic is flawed. Just like most religious nutcases (think Jim Baker or Pat Robertson). Stop trying to suppress free people from exercising "thoughtcrimes" like pornography, smoking weed, chewing tobacco (sin tax), and so on. Victimless crimes are NOT crimes.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
Somebody makes these photos, domestically or internationally.
And looking at a picture will change nothing. It won't somehow make the situation worse. If people are so afraid of them, for some reason, beginning to buy child porn, despite the fact that most people apparently don't (if that's true), then why don't they also ban murder photos and the like?
The exploitation of children for sexual gratification is plainly evil.
That depends on your definition of "evil."
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
If there exists a demand for a good, eventually someone will fill that demand.
Not at no cost; were you not paying attention in your economics course? Most of the "consumers" of child pornography are paying nothing for it -- they are not paying for it with money, they are not paying for it with new images of child abuse, they are just leeching off the small minority who are fueling the production.
My understanding of the economics of child pornography is this: at the highest levels of production and distribution, pedophiles are trading new and unseen images and videos with each other. The market is based on barter, not money, to thwart efforts at tracing the participants.
Eventually this material is somehow leaked to lower level forums which are more easily accessible, and from there the images are reposted again and again. Below a certain level in the distribution chain, the incentive for the producers to keep producing is entirely lost; the material is reposted on various forums at no cost. The overwhelming majority of people who view child pornography are viewing it at a level that is far below this point, and are contributing nothing to its production.
In simpler terms, arrested the "low hanging fruit" is nothing more than showmanship; it has little affect on the people who are actually abusing children. Every few years we hear about some big deal arrest, where law enforcement agencies manage to gain access to a high level production network, and those are good things in terms of thwarting child abuse. Unfortunately, the overwhelming majority of child pornography arrests are not in that category.
Palm trees and 8
That is completely irrelevant. Nobody is arguing that exploiting children is right, they're arguing that the demand for it isn't causing supply. A pervert is going to do perverted things whether someone views it or not, since almost always, the pervert doesn't know who sees the material or how it it shared.
Big difference between someone abusing children and making material and someone who is viewing material.
while(1) attack(People.Sandy);
What about the 16 year old girl who sent a sexual nude pic of herself to her boyfriend who then went and shared the pic with the whole class getting the 16 year old girl arrested for creating and distributing child porn?
She is now a registered sex offender and can't go to school or college. Her life is destroyed because of some blind application of a law that was not intended to target her but because of overzealous DA's who want a notch on their political belt go after such easy crimes because of the emotional appeal to people like you.
http://www.watoday.com.au/wa-news/sexting-teens-makes-sex-offender-list-20110121-19zwu.html
http://articles.cnn.com/2009-04-07/justice/sexting.busts_1_phillip-alpert-offender-list-offender-registry?_s=PM:CRIME
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504083_162-20001082-504083.html
Or how about the grandmother who took pictures of her naked grandchildren (under the age of 3) in a bathtub and then took the pics to walmart to get prints? Another overzealous DA went and prosecuted her. She was sentenced to 3 years in prison.
http://reason.com/blog/2009/05/04/grandma-arrested-for-child-por
It is evil that children are getting exploited. The problem is, the ones getting punished by the application of the laws due to the political and emotional fervor such application engenders for those leading the crusade, are not the ones exploiting the children.
Both those who download decade old pictures, or pictures of jailbait teens who voluntarily post their own pics on the net, or of innocent grandmothers who take pictures of their infant children, these are not the people being exploited nor are they the one's exploiting others, yet they are the people being targeted by the current application of the law.
Because a DA with 10 "Child Porn convictions" under his belt has an emotional appeal to mindless cosmic space zombie followers and that emotional appeal will get him elected / re-elected.