Families of SOs Community Group
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Just a quick update on Doe v. Bardell, 13-cv-01548-MJG (D. Maryland 2014). This is a case where the Plaintiff (actually, a mother standing in the place of her two minor daughters who had been sexually abused by their father and a friend of his) is suing any and all defendants she can find that were convicted of possessing or trading child pornography involving her daughters. She is seeking over $8 million in damages. As some of you know, I represented a couple of the defendants in this case and was able to get them dismissed with prejudice. Judge Garbis thereafter appointed me amicus curiae (friend of the court) to unofficially represent the interests of the nearly 100 remaining defendants who are not represented by counsel. We had a hearing on June 20 to determine whether the Court even has jurisdiction over out of state defendants (all but two are outside of Maryland). The Judge is really concerned about the number of defendants and the logistical issues in trying all these cases (the Court made the Plaintiff split the case into separate cases for each defendant), and would like my help in weeding out defendants quickly. Obviously, any defendants that have little to no assets the Plaintiff will not be interested in pursuing and likely will get dismissed. So, if you know of anyone that has been served in this case, please contact me asap by email (preferred). Please spread the word. There will be more of these cases popping up around the country, but this is the biggest one to my knowledge so far.
Do you have any idea whether this could he true? If it is true, then maybe a rash of cases like this could motivate the government to shut down the "industry" for good.
Up until about 15 years ago, there were a few companies in the Ukraine and parts of Europe where children were paid to be in films, but those were shut down a few years ago. The boys and girls would be paid and I think a monthly fee was required to join and download the videos.
There are many old videos and images taken years ago that have been floating around forever. They have been traded, copied, and copied more so that it would be very difficult to eradicate the Internet of these videos and images.
Many of the servers that store these images and videos are in countries where the United States has no jurisdiction, so nothing can be done there.
Much of the CP is on the "Darknet" a portion of the Internet that is only accessible using the Tor browser. Those images on hidden services are almost impossible to track, although much of the Darknet was busted by the FBI or NSA last summer when they seized the Freedom Hosting servers and injected a javascript exploit, which in turn sent any visitor's mac address, IP address, and host name to a server in Virginia, which turned out to be a block of addresses that belonged to the government.
CP will surely never die now as too many young underage girls are on webcams making videos for their boyfriends or just anyone that wants to watch. They are stripping and doing sex acts. These videos are then captured or "capped" and copied and put online. These are just ordinary girls "showing off" but of course, they are under 18, so it is considered CP.
Tons of CP is being manufactured every day in this manner.
The ISPs could track some of the older videos as they could identify them by their unique hashes, but still all the new, webcam stuff would get through. If, for example, my son's girlfriend made one of these webcam videos today, nobody would have the hash value to be able to trace it. The government has to have the hash value of known CP to compare any new images to.
And lastly, you have the debate whether anyone really wants to stop CP, as so much money is being made. Here is what I think after doing some research-----No, the CP cases are not prosecuted and the War on Child Porn was not developed to arrest guys just so they could fill the private prisons, but some of the more "borderline" arrests have occurred in an effort to increase the cop's arrest figures so they can qualify for more federal grants.
And now that they are starting to include forfeiture from the offenders by taking their computers, all digital phones, etc., there is even more an incentive to cast a very wide net to catch everyone possible instead of the worst of the worst.
As a result many people are making tons of money off CP arrests and prosecutions. Sometimes I wonder how much incentive they really have to wipe out all the CP since so many people----therapists, private prisons, psychologists, GPS manufacturers, polygraphers, etc.----are profiting from all this. CP prosecutions are certainly generating a lot of money for a lot of people.
The worst part is that, in their zeal to arrest as many as they can regardless of the degree of their involvement with CP, many people are getting arrested and locked up for "iffy" cases. They do this and are willing to arrest even the simplest case of someone who might have accidentally downloaded an image because there is money in it for law enforcement.
No, I don't see how the CP industry will ever be wiped out. The genie has already been let out of the bottle.
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I'm sorry to say this myself being that I am in the same boat with you. My son is now seeing the impact of PFL on his family. He knows that neighbors have taken it out on us, his parents. Locally, Im not allowed in certain pubs. Not because of anything *I'VE* done. Whispers in the neighborhood. I don't join certain fund raising events because of the whispers. I dont go to HS sports to support local teams anymore. He knows my love of coaching and teaching.
My son sees that and now feels even more guilty about his crime.
I worry about his current state of mind.
I have said this in this forum and will again.. Megans Law hurts families. There can be no stability knowing a P.O. can have a bad day and violate our family member based on lies alone.
Maybe it's time we formed ONE Group and put all of our financial efforts and other resources towards working our way up the line to SCOTUS. Its' never been tested to my knowledge.
I know this much......Its an extremely hurtful law that punishes much more than just the person who committed the crime.
This is not going to stop until the families and the people of this once great country raise such a stink that it gets the legislators' attention. The War on Child Porn will be just like the War on Drugs, in that they will demonize the defendants, scare the hell out of the public, and the public will then go along with more and more prison construction to "house those dangerous perverts who rape our children."
Hell, this a tried and true method and it works because of FEAR. Instill enough fear in people and they will consent to anything.
I know CP is bad, but I don't really like hearing the part of the "government censoring parts of the Internet." Once the government gets a foot hold and we give them the power to do something like this, they carry it to extremes. I, frankly, want the government to keep its hands off the Internet. If someone is caught with CP, then prosecute them, but make the punishment fit the crime---and no more. But I don't like the word censorship.
No country can get rid of unwanted images when they are being made daily at the rate these young people are making them with their webcams. You have hundreds of underage teens stripping daily on these webcam streaming sites. I don't know which ones are still functioning but Stickham and Omegle used to be popular. This just creates an endless supply.
If we could somehow wipe all the CP off the Internet, within a week there would be an ample supply just from the teens on webcams. This is endless.
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