Wisechoice
is the tool which can put an end to your internet pornography use.
We
offer a filter that cannot be bypassed except by telephoning our support
staff and identifying yourself as the primary user. Wisechoice is
also effective for families and guarding children, it is highly customizable.
We also provide accountability reporting at no extra charge. For more
information go to www.wisechoice.net
Internet Pornography Statistics
Over
50% of men accessing the internet are using internet pornography on
purpose...28% of women.
Internet
Porn is the fasting growing cause of divorce in the United States.
Other
statistics: *
These
statistics are believed to be as current as any available and have
been compiled from a variety of sources and compiled by familysafemedia.com
Pornographic websites 4.2 million (12% of total websites)
Pornographic pages 420 million
Daily pornographic search engine requests 68 million (25% of total
search engine requests)
Daily pornographic emails 2.5 billion (8% of total emails)
Internet users who view porn 42.7%
Received unwanted exposure to sexual material 34%
Average daily pornographic emails/user 4.5 per Internet user
Monthly Pornographic downloads (Peer-to-peer) 1.5 billion (35% of
all downloads)
Daily Gnutella "child pornography" requests 116,000
Websites offering illegal child pornography 100,000
Sexual solicitations of youth made in chat rooms 89%
Youths who received sexual solicitation 1 in 7 (down from 2003 stat
of 1 in 3)
Worldwide visitors to pornographic web sites 72 million visitors to
pornography: Monthly
Internet Pornography Sales $4.9 billion
US porn revenue exceeds the combined revenues of ABC, CBS, and NBC
Children Internet Pornography Statistics
Average age of first Internet exposure to pornography 11 years old
Largest consumer of Internet pornography 35 - 49 age group
15-17 year olds having multiple hard-core exposures 80%
8-16 year olds having viewed porn online 90% (most while doing homework)
7-17 year olds who would freely give out home address 29%
7-17 year olds who would freely give out email address 14%
Children's character names linked to thousands of porn links 26 (Including
Pokemon and Action Man)
Adult Internet Pornography Statistics
Men admitting to accessing pornography at work 20%
US adults who regularly visit Internet pornography websites 40 million
Promise Keeper men who viewed pornography in last week 53%
Christians who said pornography is a major problem in the home 47%
Adults admitting to Internet sexual addiction 10%
Breakdown of male/female visitors to pornography sites 72% male -
28% female
Women and Pornography
Women keeping their cyber activities secret 70%
Women struggling with pornography addiction 17%
Ratio of women to men favoring chat rooms 2X
Percentage of visitors to adult websites who are women 1 in 3 visitors
Women accessing adult websites each month 9.4 million
Women admitting to accessing pornography at work 13%
Women, far more than men, are likely to act out their behaviors in
real life, such as having multiple partners, casual sex, or affairs.
*Statistics are taken from
htttp://familysafemedia.com
Daily
News archives:
Another attempt tp make laws regarding internet pornography..in
the meantime you can protect your family with Wisechoice.net
By
Kathie Durbin
Columbian
Staff Writer
Sunday,
December 27, 2009
As
it did to so much else in society, the Internet has changed how child
pornography is distributed.
Not
so long ago, pornographers primarily shared child porn images by downloading
them onto hard drives and printing them out. That made perpetrators
— and evidence — relatively easy for police and prosecutors to track
down.
Nowadays,
it's easy for porn merchants to avoid criminal liability for possession
of child porn by sharing access to images on remote computers accessible
through the Internet.
“They
can look at images on a news group without leaving any evidence that
they have done that,” said Dan Sytman, a spokesman for Washington
Attorney General Rob McKenna.
But
criminal law in many states has not caught up with the technology.
Existing Washington law limits a prosecutor's ability to charge multiple
counts of possession of child pornography when the defendant has intentionally
viewed multiple images of children engaged in sexually explicit activities.
“The
existing law assumes an image will be downloaded and printed,” McKenna
said. In April, the Washington Supreme Court issued the latest in
a series of opinions narrowly interpreting the law.
McKenna
wants to change that law. He has drafted legislation for the 2010
Legislature that would allow prosecutors to charge multiple counts
of possession of child porn if they can prove a defendant had a pattern
of intentionally viewing multiple images of children engaged in sexually
explicit conduct over the Internet.
The
argument for the law is simple: Child pornography is a permanent record
of the sexual abuse of a child, and each time an image of that abuse
is viewed, the victim of that abuse is victimized again.
In
fact, there is a growing movement to substitute the term “child abuse
images” for “child pornography,” because the term “pornography” could
imply consent by the victim.
McKenna's
legislation flowed from the work of a Youth Internet Safety Task Force
he convened in 2007 to identify strategies for making the Internet
safer for Washington families.
It's
a daunting challenge in the rapidly transforming world of cyberspace,
McKenna said.
“There
has been a huge increase in circulation of images of children being
raped,” due to the proliferation of digital cameras and the use of
the Internet, he said. “We think every time an image is viewed, a
child is being traumatized.”
Those
images also help to create a larger market for child porn, he said.
Child pornography is estimated to be a multi-billion-dollar industry
of global proportions, fed by the growth of the Internet.
And
many consumers of child porn are not merely passive viewers. A 2000
study by the Federal Bureau of Prisons found that 76 percent of offenders
convicted of Internet-related crimes against children admitted to
previously undetected sex crimes involving children.
Another
study found that 83 percent of possessors of child porn had images
of children younger than 12 years old, 39 percent had images of children
younger than 6, and 19 percent had images of children younger than
3.
McKenna's
legislation, introduced as House Bill 2424 and Senate Bill 6201, would
redefine the felony crime of possession of depictions of child pornography
to include deliberately viewing those images over the Internet. Similar
legislation introduced in the 2009 session died on the Senate floor.
But the latest bills have drawn sponsors from both parties.
Under
the proposed legislation, in order to prove the crime of possession
of child pornography, a prosecutor would have to show a pattern of
viewing. That would involve using computer forensic experts to document
the use of search terms and thumbnail images and downloading activity.
The
law would protect people who inadvertently stumble on child porn sites,
or who buy used computers with pornographic images on their hard disks,
Sytman said.
“Prosecutors
would have to be able to show that the defendant has intentionally
gone looking for these images.”
Kathie
Durbin: 360-735-4523 or kathie.durbin@columbian.com . http://www.columbian.com/news/2009/dec/27/ag-seeks-tougher-laws-on-child-porn/
This
pastor would never have thought this could of happened to him....if
only he had filtering perhaps he would still have a ministry, family,
freedom....
Surrey
pastor jailed for child porn
Tom Zytaruk, Surrey Now
Published: Friday, December 11, 2009
A Surrey pastor has been sentenced to 15 months in jail for making
a video encouraging the rape of a teenage girl.
Larry Robert Collins, 45, of the Church of Nazarene in Guildford,
was convicted of possession of child pornography and sentenced to
15 months in jail and three years probation, in Surrey provincial
court Tuesday. He was fired from his pastoral job in September last
year.
Transitional pastor Doug Woods said this latest news is stirring fresh
grief among the church's congregation. He likened it to opening an
old wound.
"It's
been a wave of disappointment and shock again," Woods said.
The B.C. Integrated Child Exploitation Unit began a child porn investigation
on June 10, 2008 concerning a video showing a young teenage girl,
said Const. Rosiane Racine, of the ICEU.
Police are withholding the victim's name and whereabouts.
Collins confessed to making the video and distributing it on the internet,
Racine said. Collins also made online accounts impersonating the victim
and encouraging web surfers to visit a site where the video was displayed,
Racine added.
"Collins also posted the victim's name and home town, which jeopardized
the child's safety."
He was originally charged with distributing and possessing child pornography
but the Crown stayed the distribution charge.
http://www2.canada.com/surreynow/news/story.html?id=87dc344d-610b-40de-a49e-eb9beafeb54b
© Surrey Now 2009
Women
are not immune from using internet pornography
porn for
women
01:00 AM EST on Sunday,
December 6, 2009
By RITA WATSON
Has “sexting” become the new
love note? No longer content with sending e-mails or letters to boyfriends,
women are discovering that the practice of transmitting provocative
nude or semi-nude self-portraits via cell phones is a popular though
risky trend.
Meghan McCain twittered her
breasts. The former Miss California, Carrie Prejean, sent a sex tape
to an ex-boyfriend several years ago. He released it anonymously to
the press. Let's hope his name surfaces so that women can put him
on their danger list. Gossip over the alleged Tiger Woods affairs
has been fanned by what was called cell phone texting and sexting
Rita Watson: The exploding world of soft . Right now, teens are running
the Internet gamut with sexting and sex tapes.
Dr. Mary Muscari noted in Medscape's
Public Health and Prevention Journal that the National Campaign to
Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy and Cosmogirl.com conducted a
survey of 653 teens (ages 13 to 19) and 637 young adults (ages 20
to 26) to better understand the connection between sex and cyberspace
.
They found that 20 percent
of teens (22 percent of girls and 18 percent of boys) electronically
sent or posted online nude or seminude photos or videos of themselves.
Eleven percent of young teens (ages 13 to 16) electronically sent
nude/seminude photos. Even more teens (39 percent overall, 37 percent
of girls, and 40 percent of boys) sent sexually suggestive text messages,
e-mails, or instant messages: Forty-eight percent of teens stated
that they received sexually explicit messages. The numbers were higher
in all areas for young adults.
What most students do not realize
is the danger inherent in sending nude or semi-nude photos from cell
phone to cell phone. In a digital world those photos might be around
for years or surface on the Internet .
But even more serious than
having photos show up on the Internet or passed around to other students
are the charges in some states being levied against those who send
soft porn electronically — child pornography . Teens are being prosecuted
or sent to juvenile detention centers for indiscreet transmission
of explicit photos.
And it gets worse. With social
networking and the ease of text messaging, a new form of inappropriate
behavior is taking place in the world of teaching. For years, we knew
of insecure professors who had affairs with students. But now high
school coaches and teachers are becoming involved more intimately
with their students through sexting and texting. The list of communities
in which teachers are being chastised or sentenced is too long to
report, but the indiscretions are becoming all too common an item
on the nightly news.
Why the sudden surge in passing
along sexy photos and the pursuit of passion? Many attribute the new
openness about sex to the entry of soft porn into mainstream America.
Porn is no longer a dirty little secret of seedy store-fronts with
peep shows for men. Now adult movies are available at local video
shops that are geared to both women and men. Erotic toys are available
in pharmacies, and book stores now carry a full selection of sensual
literature.
Violet Blue's “Smart Girl's
Guide to Porn” and Alison Tyler's “Red Hot Erotica” are two of the
more popular titles. But books about sudden sex and spanking are high
on the list of sought-after titles.
Dr. Muscari sees sexting and
the new soft porn in America as an extension of a society where parents
grew up as part of the free-loving Woodstock generation. Oprah Winfrey
noted last week that “one in three consumers of online porn in our
country are now women.”
Why the trend?
William Hurt Sledge, M.D.,
is a psychiatry professor and medical director of the Yale Psychiatric
Hospital. For three years, at Yale's Calhoun College, he taught a
course with Dr. Ruth Westheimer in which they explored with students
“Twentieth Century Family, Marriage, Intimacy, and Fulfillment.” One
of the sections taught by Dr. Sledge focused on pornography and erotica.
“The Oprah show report does
not move, surprise or seem newsworthy to me,” Dr. Sledge said. “If
you look at the scientifically collected data (Kinsey, et al; Masters
and Johnson, and others) on ‘sexual outlets' you would find that,
in general, women are doing the same things that men are, and have
been doing it for a long time.”
Rita Watson is a monthly contributor
and editor of GreenLegals.com and RitaWatson www.Relationships.com
.
The
power of internet porn is so powerful that this man has already served
one prison term and then went back to it and will serve 17 more years
Chesterfield
man gets 17 years for 2nd child-porn conviction
By
Frank Green
Published: December 5, 2009
danville_regi373:http://www2.timesdispatch.com/rtd/news/local/crime/article/PORN05_20091204-222602/309661/
vote
no w Buzz up !
A
Chesterfield County man convicted twice this decade of distribution
of child pornography was sentenced to 17 years in prison yesterday.
James
Turner Yager, 31, had been facing a federal guideline sentence of
about 20 to 24 years and -- because it was a second offense -- a minimum
term of 15 years when he appeared before U.S. District Judge Robert
E. Payne in Richmond.
Payne
sentenced Yager to four years in prison in 2001 for the same crime.
But not long after completing his prison sentence and three years
of probation, he began receiving and sending child pornography, trading
hundreds of images on the Internet.
Payne
was to have sentenced Yager for the second time in October but delayed
proceedings until yesterday, concerned about the rationale behind
the sentencing guidelines in such cases.
The
federal guidelines, which are not binding on a judge, call for a significant
boost in Yager's sentence because of the number of pornographic images
involved.
But
Yager's lawyers argued there is no data showing a link between the
amount of pornography involved in a case and the likelihood an offender
would reoffend or molest a child. They said federal judges increasingly
are sentencing below the guidelines in such cases.
Payne
asked the U.S. attorney's office to explain what empirical evidence,
if any, underpins guideline sentence "enhancements" for
the number of images involved in a case.
In
a brief filed last month, the government wrote that sentence enhancements
based on the number of images involved "arose from a congressional
directive based on 12 years of experience, study and review submitted
by the United States Sentencing Commission."
"The
entire history of the child exploitation guidelines demonstrates that
the quantity of child pornography was of paramount concern in both
Congress' creation of substantive laws and in deciding punishment,"
wrote prosecutors.
Yager's
lawyers countered that sentence enhancements based on the number of
images are not based on any hard data. Yesterday Payne agreed, saying
he found "no empirical basis" for such enhancements.
Nevertheless,
Lawrence Lloyd Muir Jr., with the Virginia attorney general's office
but serving as a special assistant U.S. attorney in the case, urged
Payne to impose a sentence stiffer than the 15-year minimum sought
by Yager.
Payne
did so, saying the earlier, four-year sentence was a relatively lenient
one.
Contact Frank Green at (804) 649-6340 or fgreen@timesdispatch.com
***************************************************
A
new Parental strategy against internet porn..one might think that
filtering should be included
New
safety strategy for web usage
(UKPA)
– 12 hours ago
Parents
are to be urged against leaving their children to roam the internet
without adult supervision as part of a new safety strategy to be launched
next week.
The
Daily Telegraph reported that a key recommendation will be to keep
computers in areas where adults can keep an eye on children's use.
The
strategy, drawn up by the UK Council for Child Internet Safety (UKCCIS),
will also feature a national awareness drive for parents.
The
internet industry will be expected to play its part, too, in making
the web safer for children.
The
strategy comes after a report by psychologist Tanya Byron into the
harmful effects of websites and video games.
Professor
Byron flagged up the risk of children being bullied or encountering
pornography online.
She
warned that many parents were not aware of the dangers.
Media
regulator Ofcom believes that 35% of children aged between 12 and
15 years have internet access in their bedrooms.
A
Whitehall source told the Telegraph: "We are encouraging parents
to make sure their children use the computer in a common room in the
house.
"This
is all about getting parents involved, what they know online, how
they can manage that and how they can be more aware of what they can
do such as better protection controls ."
Copyright
© 2009 The Press Association. All rights reserved.
************************************
Spokane,
Wa. Man convicted for using child porn images to lure kids
In
brief: Child porn brings federal sentence
From
Staff Reports The Spokesman-Review
A
45-year-old Spokane Valley janitor was sentenced to 80 months in federal
prison for possessing and transporting child pornography, officials
with the U.S. attorney's office for the Eastern District of Washington
announced Friday.
Frank
E. Murinko Jr. pleaded guilty to the crimes in August.
Based
on an FBI investigation on the East Coast, in March 2007 agents discovered
a computer in Spokane Valley was used to distribute child pornography
. Officials found more than 750 images of child pornography on Murinko's
home computer, and they learned he had pretended to be a teenage boy
to solicit dozens of sexually explicit photos from adolescent girls
on the Internet.
Upon release
from prison, Murinko will be under the court's supervision for 15 years.
Researcher
reports that use of internet porn triples the incidence of marital
infidelity
Washington
D.C., Dec 4, 2009 / 02:57 am ( CNA
) .- A new study on the effects of pornography indicates that
it erodes the family, corrupts men's sense of normal sexuality and
is frequently a major factor in most divorces. The author of the study
characterized pornography as “a quiet family killer.”
The
study, titled “The Effects of Pornography on Individuals, Marriage,
Family and Community,” was authored by Patrick F. Fagan, Ph.D, who
is a trained psychologist and a former Deputy Assistant Health and
Human Services Secretary. He is also Director of the Center for Research
on Marriage and Religion at the Family Research Council (FRC), which
produced the study.
The
study reports that men who regularly view pornography have a higher
tolerance for abnormal sexuality, including rape, sexual aggression
and sexual promiscuity.
Married
men involved in pornography report feeling less satisfied with their
marital relations and less emotionally attached to their wives, the
study says. It also notes that men who regularly use pornography or
women who engage in “cybersex” show increased infidelity.
Researcher
Steven Stack of Wayne State University led a study which indicated
pornography use more than triples the rate of marital infidelity.
Seattle
Children's Theatre worker sentenced in child porn case
By
LEVI PULKKINEN
SEATTLEPI.COM STAFF
Former
Seattle Children's Theatre information technology worker William Edgar
Hoke was sentenced to an 18-month prison term Thursday after pleading
guilty to possessing child pornography.
Arrested
in April, Hoke was accused of possessing at least 13,000 pornographic
images featuring children. Federal agents and police raided Hoke's
Seattle home the day of his arrest after tracking an e-mail used on
Internet bulletin boards to his Seward Park address.
In
sentencing Hoke, U.S. District Court Judge Thomas S. Zilly noted that
Hoke and others like him support and enable the sexual abuse of children.
"What
we have got is an industry of child pornography where children are
the victims," Zilly said, according to a U.S. Justice Department
statement. "People such as the defendant help to maintain that
industry and that is very disturbing."
According
to court documents, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service had been investigating
the online site since January 2007 after receiving a tip from European
Union authorities. Law enforcement agents seized the site's servers
in 2008, and prosecutors now contend Hoke was one of 545 members registered
with the business.
While
Hoke did not work directly with children at the theater, Assistant
U.S. Attorney Mary Dimke noted in court documents that he'd chosen
a job that put him in close proximity to kids.
"Hoke
intentionally placed himself in a position near children," said
Dimke, adding that Hoke accessed child pornography through his work
computer. "Hoke does not do IT work for IBM, Microsoft or some
local ordinary business; he works at a business that targets children."
Hoke
was fired by the children's theater shortly after his arrest. He had
not previously been accused of any crime involving children.
Dimke
also claimed Hoke repeatedly lied during psychosexual evaluations
and failed to make a distinction between adult pornography and child
porn.
"It
is disheartening to see Hoke characterize his acquisition and retention
of his collection -- of these young girls who were sexually exploited
-- as simply an extension of his addiction to pornography, and as
a symptom of having a 'collector bug,'" Dimke said in court documents.
"Viewing this horrific act as an extension of his addiction to
pornography fails to appreciate the harm to the victims and illegal
nature of his offense, and the distinct difference between adult and
child pornography."
Hoke,
38, pleaded guilty to possession of child pornography charges in August
at U.S. District Court in Seattle. In addition to the 18-month prison
term, Hoke was ordered to remain on probation for 10 years.
E-Stop
Law Purges Social Networking Sites of Sex Offenders - 12/1/2009
NEW
YORK, NY (December 1, 2009) - Attorney General Andrew Cuomo today
announced that more than 3,500 registered New York state sex offenders
have been purged from social networking sites Facebook and MySpace
in the first database sweep since the state's new Electronic Securing
and Targeting of Online Predators Act (“e-STOP”) went into effect.
At the same time, many other social networking sites remain slow at
adopting available new protections against sexual predators online,
and Cuomo's office today sent letters urging them to take action now
to similarly purge sex offenders from their sites.
Under the new e-STOP law, which was authored by Cuomo, Facebook was
able to identify and disable accounts linked to 2,782 registered New
York sex offenders, and MySpace was able to identify and disable accounts
linked to 1,796 sex offenders. Some registered sex offenders
were linked to accounts on both sites, leaving a total of 3,533 individuals
purged from Facebook and/or MySpace during the sweep. New York
State has more than 8,100 sex offenders who have registered e-mails
with the state. That means over 43% of those sex offenders have
identified accounts linked to Facebook and/or MySpace.
Information about the accounts is now being shared with law enforcement
authorities. To date, Facebook and MySpace are the only social
networking sites that have sought access to the state's new registry
of sex offenders' Internet information made available through e-STOP.
Under e-STOP - the nation's most comprehensive law to enhance protections
from sexual predators on the Internet - many sexual predators are
banned outright from using social networking sites on the Internet
while on probation or parole. Also, convicted sex offenders
must register all of their e-mail addresses, screen names, and other
Internet identifiers with the state. That information is then
made available to social networking sites so they can purge potential
predators from their online worlds.
“We created e-STOP to help put an end to sexual predators using the
Internet as a tool to prey on the innocent,” said Attorney General
Cuomo. “Facebook and MySpace are successfully using e-STOP to
help make the Internet safer, and it's time for all social networking
sites to do their part to keep others from being senselessly victimized.”
WFC
releases study on efects of internet pornography
December
2,2009
Wisconsin
Family Council (WFC) and Family Research Council released
a new study today that comprehensively details the effects of
pornography on marriages, children, communities and individual happiness.
The
study, “The Effects of Pornography on Individuals, Marriage, Family
and Community,” synthesizes all available research on the effects
of pornography on families and communities.
Pornography
distorts an individual's concept of the nature of conjugal relations,
which, in turn, alters both sexual attitudes and behavior. It is a
major threat to marriage, to family, to children and to individual
happiness. In undermining marriage, it is one of the major factors
in undermining social stability.
Social
scientists, clinical psychologists, and biologists have begun to clarify
some of the social and psychological effects, and neurologists are
beginning to delineate the biological mechanisms through which pornography
produces its powerful negative effects. Among the study's findings:
- Men who view pornography
regularly have a higher tolerance for abnormal sexuality, including
rape, sexual aggression, and sexual promiscuity.
- Married men who are involved
in pornography feel less satisfied with their conjugal relations
and less emotionally attached to their wives. Wives notice and are
upset by the difference.
- Pornography engenders greater
sexual permissiveness, which in turn leads to a greater risk of
out-of-wedlock births and STDs, which in turn lead to still more
weaknesses and debilities.
- The presence of sexually
oriented businesses significantly harms the surrounding community,
leading to increases in crime and decreases in property values.
- Child-sex offenders are
more likely to view pornography regularly or to be involved in its
distribution.
- Pornography eliminates the
warmth of affectionate family life, which is the natural social
nutrient for the growing child.
“Pornography
addiction destroys the life of the addict, wreaks havoc on marriages,
degrades women and children, destroys relationships with family, friends,
and acquaintances, ruins livelihoods and destroys the intimacy designed
for marriage. We know thousands of Wisconsin marriages and families
have been ruined by this insidious industry. The Wisconsin Department
of Justice's Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force Unit alone
reports almost 200 arrests involving Internet child pornography in
an 18-month period. This is just one aspect of the pornography business
in our state. There are no winners in this pernicious industry,” said
Julaine Appling, President of Wisconsin Family Council.
Mid-Missouri
Internet crimes unit faces many challenges
Tuesday,
December 8, 2009 | 12:03 p.m. CST
Detective
Andy Anderson explains how each monitor on his desk is tied to a different
computer and how he uses each computer for a different task such as
chatting with someone or for forensic examination. Detective Anderson
is the coordinator for the Mid-Missouri Internet Crimes Task Force
and a 23-year veteran of the Boone County Sheriff's Department. ¦
Calin Ilea
BY
Tram Whitehurst
COLUMBIA
— The door to the office is closed. A sign next to it reads, "Evidence
being processed. Please knock before entering."
The
warning is meant to keep visitors from stumbling across things they'd
never want to see. Inside, detectives with the Mid-Missouri Internet
Crimes Task Force are sorting through images of child pornography.
From
2007 to 2008, Internet crime investigations increased 11 percent.
With more than 1,200 hours of training from 2007 to 2009, Mid-Missouri
Internet Crimes Task Force members are working to keep up with the
rise in Internet crime. Hard drives of different capacities stand
on a shelf at the Mid-Missouri Internet Crimes Task Force. The hard
drives are used to copy and back up data in the investigations of
the task force.
Detective
Mark Sullivan (left), Detective Tracy Perkins and Detective Andy Anderson
are investigators for the Mid-Missouri Internet Crimes Task Force.
The task force investigates child pornography possession and enticement
cases. The three detectives pose for a portrait at the Mid-Missouri
Internet Crimes Task Force office in Columbia .
Detective
Mark Sullivan takes notes while working on a case for for the Mid-Missouri
Internet Crimes Task Force in Columbia . "You think you've seen
just about everything, then you see something new and you wonder,
how can someone do that to a child?" Sullivan said.
Looking
at such images is just one part of their job. The task force conducts
criminal investigations and provides forensic assistance to law enforcement
agencies across a seven-county region. Its detectives focus mostly
on crimes against children, including possession of child pornography
and enticement.
Since
it was formed in 2007, the task force has conducted hundreds of investigations,
leading to dozens of convictions and to the identification of 24 child
victims.
But
the detectives acknowledge they're only reaching the tip of the iceberg.
Theirs is a daily struggle to keep up with a flood of material online
and not to lose themselves in a world in which children are constantly
victimized.
‘There
is no typical day'
The
four members of the task force — each of whom comes from a local law
enforcement agency — spend hours in front of their computers each
day, looking for leads, writing warrants, chatting with possible pedophiles
and viewing photos and videos of children being brutalized.
"There
is no typical day," said Detective Andy Anderson, the task force
coordinator. Anderson is the veteran of the group, a member of the
Boone County Sheriff's Department who has worked on crimes against
children for 20 years. Five computer monitors sit on his desks, clear
indications of the nature of his work.
Because
the unit is so small, each of the detectives contributes to the investigations
in any way they can. But they also have their specialties.
Detective
Tracy Perkins, for example, spends much of her time playing the online
role of a 14-year-old girl. Within minutes of entering public chat
rooms on AOL, Yahoo or MSN, she's inundated with messages from older
men. On some nights, so many people want to chat that Perkins has
to sign off.
She's
not alone. About one in seven youth online receive a sexual solicitation
or approach over the Internet, according to the National Center for
Missing & Exploited Children .
"how
are you tonight?" a 37-year-old married man asks Perkins in one
conversation.
"k
u," Perkins responds in character. She uses two monitors to keep
track of her conversations.
"pretty
good. where in MO are you?"
"
columbia ," Perkins responds. She has a feeling what's coming
next.
"how
old are you?" the man asks. Perkins says most people try to find
out her age right away.
"14"
"cool,"
the man says.
In
more than eight hours of conversation over the next two weeks, the
man compliments the girl on her looks and intelligence, tries to find
out if she will report him and sets up a time and place to meet —
all part of what investigators call "grooming" the victim.
The
man is arrested when he shows up at the Columbia address Perkins provided.
He is what detectives refer to as a "traveler," a suspect
who attempts to meet a child in person.
Overwhelming
evidence
The
same factors that make child pornography so easy to access over the
Internet also make prosecuting the cases relatively straightforward.
For every conversation conducted or image downloaded, there's an electronic
record — often significant in size — that detectives can find.
"Typically,
the evidence in these cases is pretty clear and overwhelming,"
said Boone County Assistant Prosecutor Merilee Crockett, who works
closely with the task force.
The
life cycle of child pornography cases varies. They can be proactive
or reactive and take weeks or months to complete, depending on the
complexity of the case. A man sentenced in August to eight years in
prison, for example, possessed more than 6,000 pictures and 300 videos
of child pornography. Detectives had to sort through all of it.
The
task force can determine if an individual possesses child pornography
by monitoring file-sharing networks, such as LimeWire, where people
trade in illicit images as if they were songs or TV shows. Once detectives
determine that a particular network address is being used to download
or share child pornography, they get a warrant and seize computers
and other devices.
At
that point detectives forensically examine the digital files — whether
they're on computers, external hard drives, cell phones, CDs or DVDs
— and determine the extent of the crime. If the case goes to trial,
detectives must view every picture and video the defendant possessed
to select the handful that will be shown to the jury.
"It
can be disgusting," Anderson said. "Listening to kids talk
about it after the fact is nothing like watching them on videos and
hearing them scream."
Images
are eventually sent to the National Center for Missing & Exploited
Children, which maintains a database of sexually abusive images and
tries to match and identify victims. The database has information
on more than 2,400 child victims, but fewer than 10 percent are ever
identified, which is the first step in locating the children.
"We're
not doing a good job identifying victims," said Rodney Jones,
chief of the State Technical Assistance Team of the Missouri Department
of Social Services. His unit also conducts investigations into crimes
against children over the Internet.
‘It's
a dark world out there'
The
arrests and convictions provide momentary relief for the detectives,
who otherwise spend their time confronting issues others would rather
avoid.
"Most
people haven't given a lot of thought to what child porn really is,"
Crockett said. "It is probably the most horrible thing anybody
can do to a child, and they spend all day working on it. I really
admire them for that."
The
detectives admit there are certain cases that stick with them, even
years later. For Anderson , it's a case in which a man molested a
4-year-old girl whom his mother was babysitting. Perkins recalls a
man she talked to online who thought she was a parent and wanted to
pay her to use her daughter for sex acts.
"It's
a dark world out there," said Perkins, who has worked in law
enforcement for 16 years.
The
world of sex crimes against children has a language all its own. Users
enter terms such as "pedo" for pedophile, and "PTHC"
for preteen hardcore, when searching for or labeling images. Search
terms as innocuous as "Helen" can lead users to a series
of pictures and videos of a particular child who has become so popular
online that users know to search for her by name.
"You
think you've seen just about everything, then you see something new
and you wonder, 'How can someone do that to a child?''' Detective
Mark Sullivan said. "This one I saw a week ago, I think about
it every once in a while when I'm back at (home)."
Adding
to the stress of the job is the fact that the detectives all have
children of their own. Photos cover the walls, desks and computer
monitors in the office, the children's smiling faces offering a stark
contrast to the images normally on view.
The
detectives try to keep the two worlds separate as much as possible,
dealing with the divide in their own ways.
"I
can't take it home with me, and I don't take it home with me,"
Perkins said. Her young children don't know the details of what she
does for a living.
But
the detectives acknowledge that their work does influence how they
view the world and their children's place in it.
"I
know there are individuals out there that harm kids," said Sullivan,
who has a 10-year-old and 17-year-old. "I don't think I'm paranoid
or hanging over them, but I do have that level of awareness of who
can do these crimes." At his house, the family computer is in
the living room.
The
longer the detectives work on the cases, the more they find themselves
trying to get inside the heads of the perpetrators. It's a challenge
they can't — and don't necessarily want — to master.
The
typical offender the task force encounters is a white man in his 30s
or 40s. The detectives also have started to see younger offenders
in their 20s and even teens. They've investigated five juvenile cases
this year alone.
Most
offenders do not have a significant criminal record before showing
up on the task force's radar. The detectives could not think of a
single enticement case in which the suspect had a criminal record,
and in only a few possession investigations was there a criminal history.
Many suspects were well-educated and had good jobs.
"People
say 'they seemed like such nice people,'" Anderson said. "That's
what's so scary about it. They can be extremely dangerous."
Black
humor
Despite
the depressing nature of the job, or perhaps because of it, the mood
in the office is light and the humor often off-color.
"You
can do a serious job and still have some fun," Perkins said.
"You have to."
The
detectives joke around with one another throughout the day, the bonds
between them forged in their shared hardship and the physical closeness
in which they work.
Their
small, windowless, two-room office is in the attic of a nondescript
county building south of town off U.S. 63. It makes it hard for the
detectives to avoid hearing, and chiming in on, other conversations.
During
one discussion about humor in the office, Anderson interrupted and
said, "Even surgeons cut up once in a while," at which point
both he and Sullivan broke out in laughter.
"Don't
forget to tip your waitress," Sullivan said in response.
At
other times the detectives strike a world-weary posture that would
be familiar to law enforcement officials in any time or place.
The
detectives refer to suspects as "knuckleheads" and make
fun of the stories they come up with to explain why they were trying
to meet a 14-year-old or download child pornography. And instead of
the "easy" button present in many offices, the task force
has a "bull—" button that has seen its fair share of use.
A
constant struggle
Technological
advances only make the detectives' job more difficult. Although child
pornography is not a new phenomenon, the Internet has led to explosive
growth; Anderson started working on Internet-related cases just 10
years ago.
Peer-to-peer
networks make finding and sharing child pornography as easy as the
click of a mouse, and cheap storage means people can collect more
of it.
"There
is such a craving for this material," Jones said. "And all
people have to do now is turn on their computer and it's done."
The
newest challenges for detectives are social networking sites such
as Facebook and Flickr, where users post family photos often without
a second thought. If the images are not made private, they can be
accessed by almost anybody.
"Once
you put a photo on the Internet you can't take it back,” Jones said.
“You have to be cautious about what you post online."
A
lot of the material the detectives come across originates in Russia
and Eastern Europe . That's why U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement
is one of the agencies with which the task force works closely. It
also partners with federal prosecutors, the FBI and seven other regional
task forces in Missouri .
Yet
for all the agencies working on the problem, the detectives say there's
much more that could be done.
"Child
porn is way out of hand," Anderson said. "We could do so
much more if we had the resources, but we can't. It's frustrating."
The
task force is funded by a combination of grants and contributions
from local law enforcement agencies. In July, Gov. Jay Nixon allocated
about $195,000 to help pay for detectives' salaries and additional
training.
But
earlier this fall the task force lost a full-time detective when the
Columbia Police Department pulled Mike Lederle from the office for
budget reasons. Lederle specialized in forensic examinations, and
his departure will be a big loss for the unit, the detectives said.
"Sometimes
you can catch fish a lot faster than you can clean ‘em up," Sullivan
said. That means the task force can identify suspects, but they need
the special skills of forensic examiners to analyze computers and
other electronic evidence. Capt. Scott Richardson of the MU Police
Department conducts forensic examinations part-time for the unit.
Although
the detectives realize they will never fully put a stop to the flow
of material over the Internet, they take solace in the fact that they
are making a difference in their small corner of the world.
"It's
real rewarding to be able to stop this activity," Anderson said.
"For every person we locate and identify, that's one less person
committing crimes against kids."
http://www.columbiamissourian.com/stories/2009/12/08/internet-crimes-unit-faces-many-challenges/
***********************************************************************
**********************************************************
-Dartmouth helps fight child
pornography
By Mark Davis
Valley News of Lebanon
Published: Saturday, December 19, 2009
HANOVER — A Dartmouth College researcher has helped develop a computer
program that could remove large amounts of child pornography from
the Internet.
In collaboration with Microsoft Corp., Dartmouth computer scientist
and digital forensics expert Hany Farid developed PhotoDNA, software
that extracts the underlying signature of digital pornographic images
and allows Internet providers to track down the images.
The team recently donated PhotoDNA to the National Center for Missing
and Exploited Children, the national clearinghouse for images of child
pornography, and to all Internet service providers, to allow Internet
companies for first time to sift through billions of digital images
to detect which are the most offensive and commonly redistributed
images of child sexual abuse.
Developers say it is a promising tool to combat a massive problem.
The Center for Missing and Exploited Children reviewed nearly 30 million
photos and videos of child pornography since 2003, and currently reviews
250,000 images a week, officials said.
While officials said the software will be made available to law enforcement
agencies, for now, Farid said, the goal is not to track down users
of child pornography, but to remove as many images from the Internet
as possible.
“You can't arrest your way out of the problem,” said Farid, who specializes
in using math and computer tools to determine whether digital media
are authentic. “Child pornography — it's too big.”
Every digital image has its own identifying traits, like a human's
DNA. With PhotoDNA, the Center for Missing and Exploited Children
will extract the signatures of a few thousand of the most disturbing
images obtained from convicted pedophiles. These images often are
copied widely across the Internet. The signatures, and the PhotoDNA
software, will then be made available to all Internet service providers,
which can use them look for scan millions of images on the Internet.
When they detect a signature that matches one stored in the Center
for Missing and Exploited Children database, the service providers
can remove it from circulation.
PhotoDNA incorporates no major technological breakthroughs, but was
made by possible by two key tweaks to existing technology.
In the past, once a digital image was altered in any small way — users
could crop it, change color or add text — it would change its signature,
making the images virtually impossible to detect.
PhotoDNA essentially extends the signature of a digital image, to
make sure that small changes cannot conceal its underlying identity.
The second advance allowed developers to overcome a more fundamental
problem — how to sort through billions of images quickly, without
paralyzing Internet service providers.
PhotoDNA, by storing only a few thousand images for comparison, will
be able to act quickly; the software can analyze an image's signature
in 5 milliseconds, Farid said.
It also must be able to distinguish an image of child pornography
from a benign image, like, for example, a family picture of a baby
in a bathtub.
Farid said PhotoDNA is close to foolproof and registers a “false alarm,”
on only one out of every billion images.
Internet service providers are expected to begin implementing PhotoDNA
in the coming months. By law, Internet service providers must notify
the Center for Missing and Exploited Children when it believes a child
pornography image comes through its network.
While Farid said the immediate goal is to remove images from the Internet,
the technology behind PhotoDNA could be used by law enforcement to
target distributors of child pornography. For instance, Internet service
providers already monitor e-mail for spam and viruses, and could use
PhotoDNA to track child pornography transmitted via e-mail.
“Those are policy decisions that have to be made,” Farid said.
Farid has a longstanding relationship with Microsoft, which helps
fund his Dartmouth lab.
Farid recently made news by declaring that the well-known image of
Lee Harvey Oswald holding a rifle in his backyard was indeed authentic.
Oswald had claimed the photo, which depicts him holding a rifle in
one hand and a Marxist newspapers in the other, had been doctored,
and observers over the years noted what appeared to be inconsistent
lighting and shadows.
***********************************************************************
Two
emergency workers fired in porn- could you be next?
By
Wayne Laepple
The Daily Item
SUNBURY
— Viewing pornography on county computers has not been confined to
the Northumberland County sheriff's department, officials said Wednesday.
Two Northumberland County 911 center employees have been fired for
looking at pornographic materials on their work computers, The Daily
Item learned Wednesday.
Joe
Picarella, county human resources director, confirmed the employment
of the two was terminated. He would not reveal their names.
County
Commissioner Vinny Clausi, who Tuesday leveled accusations that sheriff's
deputies had viewed Internet pornography on their office computers,
confirmed the firings, but also declined to identify the employees
or their positions.
Asked
whether he knew of others who could face discipline for similar actions,
Clausi replied, "No comment."
Clausi
said received more than 100 phone calls Wednesday from residents who
were "outraged and upset" over the allegations centered
on the sheriff's department.
"This
must be resolved," Clausi said. "It's a concern beyond the
pornography. How can (Sheriff Chad Reiner) secure the courthouse and
protect the judges and the court systems when he can't even secure
his own office?"
Clausi
raised the issue of porn-viewing in the sheriff's office while balking
over Reiner's request for a $30,000 increase in his budget.
Contacted
Tuesday about the concerns, Reiner said county officials could not
prove who was viewing the pornographic Web sites because his deputies
would often leave their computers logged on while away from their
desks. In light of the concerns, the sheriff said he has ordered his
staff to cease all use of the Internet while on the job.
http://www.dailyitem.com/0100_news/local_story_364225900.html
****************************************************************************
If You Must
Know
What Happens in Sex Rehab?
By Caitlin Duke Tuesday, Jan. 26, 2010
The entrance to the compound of the Gentle Path facility in Hattiesburg,
Miss., where Tiger Woods is allegedly receiving treatment
Rogelio V. Solis / AP
The calls for Tiger Woods to get help did not go unheeded: on Jan.
16, after weeks of sordid allegations regarding his extramarital affairs,
Radaronline.com reported that Woods had enrolled in the Gentle Path
program at Pine Grove Behavioral Health and Addiction Services, in
Hattiesburg, Miss., to be treated for sex addiction. Local television
stations later confirmed the story.
Few people know what actually happens at sex rehab. While those who
treat it say sex addiction is a disease like any other compulsion,
the field is in its infancy: there is virtually no research on it
compared to the vast resources on drug or alcohol addiction. "You
look at ways that your behavior has made your life unmanageable. That's
really the question," says Benoit Denizet-Lewis, author of America
Anonymous: Eight Addicts in Search of a Life, who has been treated
for sex addiction himself. "That often differentiates a sex addict
from a nonsex addict."
Sex addiction is marked not simply poor decision-making in the face
of temptation, but by a sense of powerlessness before one's own compulsive
sexual behavior. There are many different types of sex addicts, including
so-called sexual anorexics who avoid physical intimacy with their
partners and seek it out in fantasies or with others. Despite the
shortage of statistics, researchers agree that the vast majority —
over 90% — of sex addicts are men. Rob Weiss, the founder and
executive director of the Sexual Recovery Institute in southern California,
estimates that up to 5% of Americans deal with some form of sex addiction,
though he says that there is no real way to know.
(See more about Tiger Woods.)
Rehab length varies from two-week-long outpatient seminars to inpatient
clinics that keep patients for up to six weeks, such as the one where
Woods is staying. Treatment — to address both the addiction
and its underlying causes — involves a mix of one-on-one sessions,
group therapy and family counseling, with addicts and their partners
encouraged to also participate in supplemental 12-step programs.
The first step in treatment of a sexual addiction is a full evaluation
of a patient's history and any past trauma. "All the men I've
worked with — and I've worked with thousands of them over the
years — have some profound experience of abuse and/or neglect
in childhood," says Weiss. Without addressing the underlying
sexual, physical or emotional trauma that usually leads to addiction,
there is little hope of ending it.
The second stage of treatment involves confronting patients' distorted
view of reality. Did the addict really believe that paying for a sensual
massage was not the same thing as hiring a prostitute? Or that he
could spend most of the day surfing the Internet for pornography and
that no one would find out? These questions are not meant to shame
a patient, but to force him to understand what really happened. As
Weiss puts it, "We may not stop the behavior, but we're going
to ruin it for you."
(See TIME's sex covers.)
The last stage of treatment is relapse prevention. Therapists and
patients discuss triggers for addictive behavior — unstructured
time alone, for example — and identify ways to avoid them. Brian
McGinness, a senior cost estimator at a Michigan commercial construction
manufacturer, spent the first nine years of his marriage addicted
to pornography. His treatment was supervised by members of his church,
an antipornography ministry group called XXXchurch, and a neighborhood
friend, who acted as "accountability partners," monitoring
his Internet usage after he decided to get sober. (Sex addiction shares
the use of the word "sobriety," with other forms of addiction,
though definition varies based on an individually determined level
of acceptable sexual behavior.) With the monitors' help, which he
no longer needs on regular basis, McGinness has not looked at pornography
for the past four years.
(See the top 10 medical breakthroughs of 2009.)
A patient's partner also plays an integral role in his or her treatment.
Elin Nordegen, Woods' wife, has already visited him at Pine Grove.
"Recovery is a three-legged stool for a couple — his recovery,
her recovery and healing, and then the marriage recovery," says
Dr. Douglas Weiss (no relation to Rob Weiss), executive director of
the Heart to Heart Counseling Center in Colorado, who describes himself
as being sober from his own sex addiction for over 20 years. Addicts
are encouraged to disclose the full range of their behaviors to their
partners when confronting their distortions of reality in the second
stage of treatment. If an addict happens to contract an STD and never
tells his wife, "his behavior could kill her," Douglas Weiss
notes.
Athough Woods may have only signed in for a six-week program, his
therapy is likely to be ongoing. Indeed, at Heart to Heart, clients
are encouraged to come back for annual polygraphs to test sobriety.
According to Maureen Canning, a clinical consultant at the Meadows
Addiction Treatment Center in Arizona, simply working through the
addiction itself could take two to five years of therapy, enhanced
by 12-step programs for both partners; working through related trauma
might take the rest of a lifetime. "Sex addiction is not about
remaining abstinent for the rest of your life," says Denizet-Lewis.
"It is about learning to have sex in a way that makes you happy
again."
Read more: http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1956517,00.html#ixzz0ditEog7v
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