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Anonymous Asks Activists To Fight Pedophiles In 'Operation Deatheaters'
HughPickens.com writes The Independent reports that hacktivist group Anonymous, in a project named Operation DeathEaters, is calling for help in its fight against international pedophile networks, or what it calls the "paedosadist industry" and has issued a video instructing activists on how they can aid in the operation. The Anonymous project is intended to break what it says is a conspiracy of silence among sympathetic politicians, police and mainstream media to downplay the full extent of the online child sex industry. "The premise behind OpDeathEaters is to expose high level complicity, obstruction of justice and cover-up in the paedo-sadist industry in order to show the need for independent inquiries," says Heather Marsh, an online activist who is helping to co-ordinate the operation and describes herself as an "old friend" of Anonymous. The Anonymous database, which will be hosted on the GitHub online repository, promises to collate cases from all around the world, cross-referencing connections within sub-groups including the police, armed forces, schoolteachers, politicians, media, academics and religious organisations. The database's ultimate purpose has yet to be fully determined, but in the first instance the group says it wants to shut down the child-sex industry by "dismantling the power structure which held it there" and by "educating to create a cultural change".
The group is calling on volunteers to help with the ongoing work, which has been divided into three steps. The first is about collecting "all the factual information," second is to "share that information as widely as possible," and the third step is "to set up an independent, internationally linked, inquiry into all the areas which do not appear to have been investigated properly." Activists point to the muted media coverage given to a recent case in Washington DC in which Michael Centanni, a senior Republican fundraiser, was charged with child sex offences after investigators traced transmissions of child pornography to his computers in his basement. The case was not covered by The Washington Post or the New York Times, and was only picked up by a local NBC affiliate state and The Washington Examiner, a small conservative paper in the city. According to the court filings, Centanni was found in possession of 3,000 images, many apparently filmed in his own bedroom, including one showing a man raping a five-year-old girl who cries "no" and "mommy" while the man says "good baby" and "stop crying," according to one filing.
The group is calling on volunteers to help with the ongoing work, which has been divided into three steps. The first is about collecting "all the factual information," second is to "share that information as widely as possible," and the third step is "to set up an independent, internationally linked, inquiry into all the areas which do not appear to have been investigated properly." Activists point to the muted media coverage given to a recent case in Washington DC in which Michael Centanni, a senior Republican fundraiser, was charged with child sex offences after investigators traced transmissions of child pornography to his computers in his basement. The case was not covered by The Washington Post or the New York Times, and was only picked up by a local NBC affiliate state and The Washington Examiner, a small conservative paper in the city. According to the court filings, Centanni was found in possession of 3,000 images, many apparently filmed in his own bedroom, including one showing a man raping a five-year-old girl who cries "no" and "mommy" while the man says "good baby" and "stop crying," according to one filing.
There are many things Anonymous does which are morally dubious. But, I have to say, I can't really take issue with this vigilantism.
After all "think of the children!". But uh.. actually, don't. It's kinda disturbing. Or do.. since, it's disturbing, and one shouldn't bury one's head in the sand because.. it's hard to think about.
I know nothing about the particular case that they are referring to. But the fact that it wasn't widely reported is actually a good thing. Being charged is not the same as being convicted. There are too many cases of people being tried in the media and having their lives destroyed when they actually haven't done anything wrong.
Given people are so fucking stupid they will attack paediatricians thinking they are paedophiles just sums up the wider mobs inability to effectively deal with the information.
Like everyone I think fighting pedopornograhy is a good thing, but what will happen if Anonymous post something wrong about someone?
You're exactly why this is a bad idea. You're so blinded by your hatred, you're a useful idiot for anyone who wants someone eliminated based on shakey planted evidence.
Not all pedophiles act on their urges. The ones that realize their urges cannot be acted upon and thus live their lives suffering with such an affliction should be commended, not referred to as "scum" just because of an attraction they probably wish they didn't have.
This also looks a lot like a slightly unpopular kid going and beating up the most unpopular kid to make everyone else like them more.
Pedophiles are like Nazis: They are widely assumed to be completely and thoroughly evil and thus worthless human beings. If you are going to pick a group to engage in vigilante activity against this is just about the perfect one, because who is going to going to stand up and say 'that's not right'. Unlike other extremely unpopular groups like Human traffickers or actual no-Nazis, pedophiles are not generally gun toting violent lunatics, so the risk of being murdered in retaliation is pretty low.
If you want to break the law to try to uphold the law, this is a logical choice, I guess.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
Suspected != guilty and if they go around publicizing suspects or even people who the police have named as suspects or "persons of interest" who turn out to be innocent, it will hurt Anonymous's own reputation big-time.
What they - and everyone else - can and should do is make sure that if you do run across child porn or links to what you think is child porn, you immediately report it to all relevant authorities and that if the authorities seem to be ignoring a case, that all relevant news outlets are notified. If the news outlets seem to be participating in a cover up, notify other news outlets, but be careful: What looks like a "news outlet conspiracy of silence" may be because the FBI is in the middle of a sting and the feds have asked the news outlets to keep quiet until the trap is sprung. If Anonymous's well-meaning attempts to bring things into the open result in the sting being aborted or going bust, well, that would be bad.
On a side-note:
* Do not go "looking for" child porn - you could wind up being charged and convicted yourself. If you are wondering what it's like, my best educated guess is it is like looking at images of concentration-camp children: 1) the underlying event that happened to land on camera haunts the person in the photograph for his or her life, 2) the image itself is likely to be so stomach-churning that it will haunt you for a long time, and even if it doesn't, 3) the knowledge of what happened to that child should haunt you for a long long time (if it doesn't, either you have grown jaded and I'm sad for you, or you need to talk to someone because your conscience may be less than that of the average adult's and this diminished conscience may lead you to hurt someone without realizing it and/or without caring)
* If you routinely do things in your fight against child-porn that put you at a higher risk of running across it, as some of these Anonymous guys likely are, take technical steps to reduce your risk (use a text-only browser, for instance), and have a lawyer on retainer. Ask your lawyer what steps you need to take so when the police do come knocking it's painfully obvious to the police, the jury, and to everyone else that you are not intending to actually download or possess the stuff but sometimes it gets through your technical barriers.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
So there's a conspiracy of high ranking officials worldwide who all are in the same child abuse ring? I wonder if they've been presented with the counter-evidence of ummmmmmmm no there's not. They're going after something that doesn't exist. Yeah, I'm sure NBC didn't cover a story well enough because there's a giant pro-child abuse lobby working for them. Are they even serious? No wonder these people don't have full time IT jobs to occupy their times.
No one is sympathetic to pedophiles.
I guess that depends on what you mean by sympathetic and what you mean by pedophile.
I assume you meant "child molester" not pedophile. Someone else has in another sub-thread already said that pedophiles who control their urges should be commended not called scum.
As for child molesters:
Anyone who due to biology or upbringing (e.g. being brainwashed to enjoy sex while a child themselves) that lets them enjoy having sex with kids or young teens and who due to biology or upbringing lacks the self control to keep away from the insides of kids' pants deserves prison (or a psych lockup if legally insane), in- and (if not a life sentence) post-prison mental-health care, and, yes, sympathy.
Why sympathy? You can't help your biology. You can't help your up-bringing. You CAN and MUST make your own choices as an adult, but if you are facing life with "two strikes against you," you do deserve and have my sympathy. But if I'm your juror that sympathy won't reduce your punishment.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
I am swayed.
I'm not. I grow tired of people treating adults as if their lives are worth less than the lives of children, and I will not sacrifice our fundamental liberties in exchange for 'safety' from bogeymen, even if that safety is real. Freedom is what's important.
As the facts come forth we will know more. If the accusations are true then let the offenders be castrated and tortured to death. I will volunteer to do it with a rusty blade.
There's absolutely no accountability or standards of evidence. Even if they are true, though, by revealing that you support the death penalty (and torture), you've revealed yourself to be a mere barbarian ruled by their emotions and desires for vengeance.
Is there any evidence for that? No. Is there any evidence that enforcement against viewers is effective? No.
Yes, indeed we are. You fabricate "facts" to support an encroachment of a surveillance state and totalitarian government. Typical for you.
But they are.
No, they aren't. There is no objective value to someone's life. A child's life is no more important than my own.
while children are potentially part of the solution
Everyone is potentially part of the solution. You may say that the chances that an adult could change their views are slim, but I'd say the chances that a child could be part of the solution when they grow up is just about as slim.