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Child pornography
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1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11
Child porn is at the heart of our new sexual absolutism. Its laws have criminalized both artistic representation and objective intellectual examination and speculation.
Alabama man’s four year wait in Limbo
Pete, not his real name, from Alabama, read Jack’s story on this web site and wrote us, first under an onsite Comment as ‘Throwme’ and then directly under his real name to the editor.
Here he is now talking.
Wow, reading Jack's story hit home. I was accused of possession of CP in February of 2001. Now, it is 2005, and I still haven't gone to court. This all began as a police raid on the house I was living in, where they were looking for drugs. I live in Alabama, and in Alabama, they have on every drug related search warrant, article "G". Article "G" says that they can look on your computer for drug-related evidence, which in this day-in-age, might not be a bad idea. At any rate, during this raid, the police found pornography on the machine. Not child pornography, but just regular old porn. They did see one URL address that had the word "Lolita" in it. They asked me if there was any child porn on the machine, and I said no. They asked if they could look. I said yes. They looked for about 1-1/2 hours. They found nothing. They asked if I used this computer to look at child pornography. I said no, but that I had seen some before while looking through the many pages of porn that are available.
They officer said, "Okay, that's enough for me. Let's take this computer.” (Meaning that Pete had admitted to seeing CP). They took the CPU, the monitor, the keyboard, the mouse-pad, the mouse, the speakers, they even took the 6-plug-in serge protector that the computer environment was plugged into! That day, I was arrested for possession of marijuana. About 4 months later, the police came to my house and picked me up for possession of pornography, possession of child pornography, and production of child pornography! I was in jail for 2 days, and bonded out for what was originally $100,000. (My lawyer got the bond reduced to $10,000 and I paid a bondsman $1,000 and I got out). The police said that in searching for drug records on my PC, they could not access the hard drive, and that I was of no help. Then that they took my PC for that reason. While looking for drug records (using some forensic software that only pulled pictures up) they came across what appeared to be child pornography. Long story short, my lawyer filed for a motion to suppress the search warrant that they obtained to look further into the child pornography. During this motion to suppress, two of the officers stories didn't match up, and I figured that it was over. (At this point it had already been about 1-1/2 years since I was first arrested) Now it's been 2-1/2 years since the motion to suppress, and they finally decided to deny the motion. Now we will have to go to trial. The 12 images that they found were in my temporary internet files, and are clearly titled things like: banner1.jpg ; nudist.jpg ; image.jpg... things like that. They are small file sizes and anyone that views this information sees what has happened. Yet, they are going to try to make my life miserable by labelling me as a child molester. I am supposed to go to court sometime in April. You can e-mail me at - zero112358@gmail.com ~~help~~
Editor: We have just asked Pete what he means by “They are small file sizes and anyone that views this information sees what has happened.”
First we sent Pete’s story to Jack.
We need to advise readers that, while Jack has been a huge help to both us here at Inquisition21 and to hundreds of men and women in trouble with the police worldwide, as his story spilled out from this web site into the general media, because of the injustice meted out to him in the US and in particular by the absence of a decent defence system there he is understandably pessimistic. We need to say this most of all to Pete who will now also read Jack’s reply below.
From Jack.
In Alabama he risks getting 60 years in prison, five years for each picture. I don't know how to help. In the US nobody cares. Just about all journalists are following the government’s directions. I saw an article last week, that the number of child porn convictions has increased 4 times since 2002, and this is just the tip of the iceberg. What can we expect in the year 2006? I had a conversation with Paul Roberts (writer/journalist). This is his opinion below. There are only a few people like him in the US. May be you can contact him. He was in the Reagan administration. There are many of his articles at www.vdare.com.
Paul Roberts replies to Jack
Dear (Jack’s real name)
I think all child porn sites are run by the police. Perhaps the browser hijackers are also police. I have no way to help you. The US has the largest prison population in the world, both in absolute number and as a percentage of the population. Amazing. I think most are innocent. Prosecutors and police justify their budgets with high conviction rates. Only 5% of cases go to trial. Rest are coerced pleas.
Paul Roberts
Editor. If anyone still believes that we have been over-pessimistic on this web site, the above was written by a man whose work can be seen at http://www.vdare.com/roberts/injustice.htm where ha has an article tilted ‘Forgive Us Our Injustice System’. His book The Tyranny of Good Intentions can be found at Amazon.
The story unfolds
(Somewhat reassured by the initial publication above and emails to and from us, Pete now expands and what transpires is alarming.) Here is Pete again below.
Thank-you for the comforting words, really. I will tell you all of the components involved now. This is a long story, so get some coffee. I moved in with a buddy of mine. So, in this house, there were two people living there, me and him. We both, at the time, smoked pot pretty much every day. I never had any money, so the pot we smoked was always his. He kept it generally in the living room of the house. Okay now that that's out of the way, here we go. One night I was at a local bar hanging out. It was after the New Year, like around January 10th or so. Anyway, at the bar, I saw a girl that is the sister of a guy I use to play soccer with. This girl, we'll call Linda. Anyway, Linda was acting like she wanted to go back to my place for some smooching. I asked her if she wanted to go back. (Now, you have to remember, this girl is hot! And she has a lot of hot friends. And all of them are over the age of 21)
She said that she would like to go back to my place, but that she wanted to bring some friends. Now my mind was wondering.....and you know where it was wondering to.) Anyway, I said, "Sure, you can bring some friends." She goes away to get her friends. Later to arrive with three OTHER GUYS! Oh well. Off to my house we go. I knew two of the guys. The other one was older, but he looked familiar. (I live in a small town).
The older guy was doing his best to hit on Linda. So he and I were kind of in a battle over her, on a small level. So there we are, rolling joints, and smoking them, all except this older guy. He just kept passing. I asked him why he was passing. He said "I like to party, but in my line of work, I can't fail a drug test." I asked what he did for a living. He said, "I'm the assistant to the D.A. in town here."
As you can imagine, this was quite a shock. I asked, "What do you do for the D.A.?" He said, "Oh just shuffle paper-work around for him. Mainly I just put away drunk drivers and pot heads. But don't worry, I'm cool. And hey, if anybody has anything to worry about, it's Linda." (Because Linda's dad is a local judge).
I started taking offence to this guy in my house talking to me like that, and I'm a dumb-ass anyway, so I started being an asshole to him. They all left after Linda got sick and puked. About two weeks after that, the cops broke down my door looking for drugs. While looking, they searched my PC for drug files. This is where they found the word ‘Lolita’ in some URL. They asked me if they could look for child
pornography, I said sure, yada yada yada, I've told you this already.
They looked for 1-1/2 hours and found nothing. No drug records, nor ANY form of child pornography whatsoever. They did find pot and pipes around the house, all in the living room and kitchen. Nothing in my bedroom. So off to jail we go. I was thinking that they would try to find something on the computer along the lines of pirated software, but no child porn. We go to jail, and bond out that night. I moved
out of the house, and about 3-4 months later, they come get me again for possession of pornography, possession of child pornography, and production of child pornography. Bail set at $100,000!
Whoa! I had no camera, no scanner, no children, no nothing to produce child pornography with! I had seen child pornography on the internet, but it was usually from a link that included other links to CP, or pop-ups. I like regular porn, man, not child porn, so often times, my whole screen would be filled up with pop-ups, not all child porn, but some. Anyway, I get the discovery for the case. The police state
that while trying to go through my computer looking for drug records, they came across this URL that included the word ‘Lolita’. Then they couldn't access the hard drive, and that I was of no help. That it was password protected or something. At that point, they took the computer looking for drug records only. When they got back to the station, or wherever they go, they got a hold of the FBI to bring some forensic software that would pull up images. Images? Images of drug records? You mean, not anything that would bring up Word documents, or spread-sheets, or anything like that? Nope, just pictures. So, when that guy came, evidently, they brought up all the images on my PC, even those in the Temporary Internet Files, as dedicated by Microsoft.
From the, probably, millions of files that they found, only 12 of them were ‘Questionable’ CP. They sent those pictures to a grand jury, for an indictment. Man, I live in southern Alabama, so this Grand Jury consisted of farmers, or something close to it. They told the grand jury that these images were taken from my PC, and they needed an indictment. Probably not a lot of thumb twiddling going on there. They got the indictment, and arrested me.
So my lawyer says that they didn't have a search warrant to search my PC for pictures, and that the one that they did get, wasn't valid, because they obtained it through illegal manners, of which they admitted to doing! This process took over 2-1/2 years, but came back denied. So now we have to go to trial. Was there child porn on my PC? Maybe so. Was it in a folder that was made for it? No. I use to look at porn through newsgroups. Sometimes, there would be CP, but I never kept it on my PC for more then 2 days, and that would be only if I didn't delete the files out of the folder that the download was defaulting to. This has been a problem for me for over 4 years now.
I hope this is understood. If you have any questions please let me know. Maybe I haven't been clear on some issues. Do you guys have anything to tell me that could be helpful?
Then the bombshell
I forgot to mention in my last e-mail - The judge that was issued to me was Linda's dad. The prosecutor was a good close personal friend of the older guy that was the assistant to the D.A.
HOLY SET-UP BATMAN! (Pete’s expression)
Initial response
First almost disbelief that such a case could go ahead when the initial arrest was based on information supplied by the friend of the pot-smoking judge’s daughter, obtained during her puking session at his house. Where is the defence lawyer? Is he asleep all the time, like the one in Texas in the stories about bad lawyers on this web site? Why has this tit-bit not been fed back to the DA’s office who should know the consequences of this case going to court. Or the fact that the prosecutor’s assistant to the DA friend was at the same party.
We have not even reached the stage of considering the defence of accidental or unknown acquisition of CP or that it could have been planted through hijack or by the police to justify their earlier bumbling.
Advice to Pete. No plea bargaining, no guilty plea. Hit them as hard as you can. Only one cause for anxiety. Not just the farmer jury, but an incompetent defence lawyer.
It gets even better
I didn't ever give more details into the other things that I have dealt with along the lines of our ‘justice’ system. Every time I get a new court date, I get three little papers from the court system. One is for the possession of marijuana, another for possession of paraphernalia, and another for the three pornography charges. On these papers, it tells the time, court room, and judge. Well, one day, instead of the three that I usually get, I got four of them. I thought wow, they've got more things on me! I opened the first, it was the possession of marijuana. The next one was possession of paraphernalia. The next was the pornography. I opened the last one, and it was a summons for jury duty! All of these expected me to be there at the same time, on the same day! Hahahahaaa!
My court dates were then cancelled, AGAIN, so I decided to go for jury duty. I was elected to serve on a jury panel! Okay, you ready for the ringer? It was on a panel for the judge that was supposed to judge my porn case! Yes, Linda's dad. Now, remember, I know Linda's dad from my early years of playing soccer with his son. He knows me as well. After we the people were finished with our decision, the judge stood outside the court room to thank us for our serving on jury duty. He stopped me and asked me how I was doing, and if everything was okay. I said I was doing as well as I could. He told me to hang in there.
Later, all of my charges were switched (from him) to the judge that was over my drug charges. Basically, they put it all together. So Linda's dad is no longer my judge for the porn. Also, I never mentioned that when me and my buddy that got arrested for the drug charges, went to court for those charges. He went first, pled guilty, and was sentenced to 6 months jail, suspended, with 2 years probation. I went next. I pled not guilty.
At this time, my lawyer didn't show up because I never gave him any money. Even though I had in my pocket the money to give him, $1,500. Anyway, I told them I wanted to plea not guilty. The judge told all parties involved to step forward and raise their right hand. I said, "Whoa, hold on, what is this?" The judge said, "Well, if you plea not guilty, it has to go to trial." I said, "Well, I don't have a lawyer, so I'll plea guilty." (after seeing how easily my buddy got it) The judge said, "If I were you, I'd plea not guilty." Thinking that he knew something I didn't, I pled not guilty. We had our little trial, and the arresting offers showed pictures of the marijuana, of which there was no way to prove how much pot we were looking at in those pictures. At any rate, I ended up being found guilty, because the pot was in the living room, where it could have been anybody's. I was pretty mad, but figured, at least this is out of the way. I went to get in the line where you get your probation officer. The line was long, and I decided to go to the bathroom instead. While standing there pissing, a guy walked in and told me that I can appeal the decision made by the judge. I asked, "Who the hell are you?" He said, "My name is so and so, and I'm a lawyer. If you would have had a lawyer back there, you would have got off those charges." I said, "Why didn't you step up for me?" He said, "I cannot do that, as I am not your lawyer." I took his advise, and told the probation officer I wanted to appeal it. He didn't even know what to do. He went and got papers for me to fill out. I filled them out, and had to re-bond out of jail. A bail-bonds-man came down, and I gave him $1,000. I haven't been back to court for that yet either.
I am quite confident in my lawyer’s ability. He is a smart man. I don't know much about the system, but he does. I just trust him to do what needs to be done. I can also say that the judge I have is probably the best one as well. It's just that with child pornography, it's not as easy to just dismiss. This I can understand. That's why it's such a touchy subject. Nobody wants to let a child molester go without checking it out really good. The lack of knowledge about how the internet works has let a lot of people to be subject to what I am being subject to.
I am a brave man, and can handle this. What I can't handle is the way the obvious has been overlooked. I mean, the arresting officers took my computer saying that they couldn't get into the hard drive. There was no password stopping them from getting into my hard drive, and if there was, how did they find a URL that had the word "Lolita" in it? They also noted that my hard drive was partitioned into 4 logical drives, and that child porn people partition their drives into 4 parts often. I had my drive partitioned into 4 logical drives, because I had a program that in order for the license to work, the machine had to be a participant on a network. I was running Win98, so that cannot be networked to itself. I split up the drive so I could install Win NT so I could loop it back to itself. This was so the program could work. It ended up that Win NT didn't like my video card to do the talking, so it shut it down, and denied it working. The result was that I only had 16 colors, so I never booted up in Win NT, nor did I get to use that program.
I see you guys wanted to ask me a question about the pictures being small, and that if anybody who looked at it, would know what happened. Let me clear this up. I mean to say that anyone, say in the F.B.I. who went through my computer, surely must be savy to some extent, right? So they can see that the files are called, "logo1.jpg" and
"banner2.jpg" and "sample.jpg". They should know that since these are located in Temporary Internet Files, they are just cache files, not downloaded images. They know what's going on. Understand? These files are so small, that they had to blow them up, as they are thumbnails.
I want to take the time to thank all who is taking interest in this case. I have not been able to get this out to the public before I saw this site. It makes me feel a lot better. That, I am not going to forget. I have a lot of good friends, and they all stand beside me on this.
As it stands now, the conditions of my bond are this: Pay $10,000 bond (which I've done). Not able to access computers outside of a work environment. Cannot be alone with anyone under the age of 18 without their parent being there.
As you can see, if I were to get convicted on these charges, I will not be able to access a computer. How will we be able to further discuss this matter if I'm convicted? (Editor – there are ways but don’t expect that to happen.)
I am 28 years old, and am scheduled to get married on March 18th of 2006. By trade, I'm a draftsman. I am currently working for a company that provides car dealerships with software to run their business. I am in the support side of it. If convicted, I will most likely lose this job. My father is 59 years old, and is 100% disabled. I take care of him. He lives with me, and draws S.S. of $1,200 a month. I have a black lab-golden retriever mix. I live in a 1600 sq. ft. house with 3 bedrooms on a decent size lot. A truck that's paid for, and the most wonderful fiancé. I am not trying to attract pity by saying this. I'm just trying to expose myself a bit more, as I never told anyone (on this site) my real name. And in doing so, I wish everyone to be able to relate to me. I'm just a regular guy. I work, come home, walk my dog, eat, and go to sleep. I don't have a computer at my house, and this has let to my loss of knowledge of things that I do by trade, like drafting. I live in a small town in Alabama, called (Name removed by editor). It's about 20 min from (Name removed by editor). Deep South baby. My thoughts often revolve around mathematics, hence my screen name. (See
http://www.mcs.surrey.ac.uk/Personal/R.Knott/Fibonacci/fib.html)
Many thanks,
Zero112358
More
The only thing that I haven't mentioned is that when the decision came back (about the motion to suppress) denied, my lawyer now wants another $5,000. I have given him $10,000 already, and all that has been done is that motion to suppress. I informed my lawyer that I don't have $5,000 at my disposal. He says that we will have to work something out. I don't know man, but I have been feeling much better about all this since I started speaking with you. I can't stress enough my gratitude for your kind words. Before this happened to me, I would have looked at sites such as yours as, well, not applicable. I have to say, that is not my view now that I can see how it can help someone like myself. At this point, even if I go to jail, I will always have the understanding that I am not an outcast.
-Zero112358
From Editor
Thanks Pete. Shame is what we feel not just when we are found guilty of doing something that we are now ashamed off, and not simply by the act of our being cut off and cast out from the community, but by the taking away of our former state of happiness. It’s all the worse when we are either innocent or being harshly treated for doing something we believed to be human and truthful. We are living in a terrible world where we are cast out and shamed through the taking of our lives away and re-branding as perverts and criminals. But, like the Nazis, and all the former witch hunters, the perverts and criminals are the ones doing it to us all. They are also ruining society for all of us.
It’s no surprise that your lawyer is trying to screw you for as much as he can. We’ve heard of only one exception to that so far in dozens of cases.
Editor.
Some further reflection
Some further reflection, while we catch our breath. First back to the reply above from Paul Roberts, we agree that most of the child porn available to non-police has long ago either vanished or gone well underground – often literally, but that the police who carry out stings use the huge hoards of mainly child nudity and erotica that they have seized for the stings they carry out to entrap people, and some of them use it for private extortion. This should surprise no-one. In some of the SEA countries where our writers have been at work, the prostitution industry itself is run by the local police and sometimes by powerful government ministers. We must also constantly remember that prosecutors and police are paid for by the state, so the adversarial system is hard wired.
Here are some of Paul Roberts’more disturbing findings: “Conservatives are right that the guilty often go free, but the reason is that the innocent are convicted in their place. Justice is no longer a concern of the justice system. Careers depend on conviction rates. It is easier for police and prosecutors to get convictions by piling charges on a convenient suspect until they coerce a plea than to solve a case and find the truth.
Editor. We can add that the judicial system is used to uphold and maintain the social ideology, not justice.
“Mary Sue Terry, former attorney general of the Commonwealth of Virginia, has this to say: ‘Our concern has turned from seeking truth to seeking convictions, and our post-conviction efforts are focused on denying any further review’.”
In their co-authored book The Tyranny of Good Intentions Craig Roberts and Lawrence M. Stratton warn of a ‘police state that is creeping up on us from many directions’. The plea bargain has been ‘turned into an enemy of the truth’. There is ‘outright misconduct, abetted by prosecutors more interested in compiling long lists of indictments than ensuring the fair treatment of all suspects’. The authors suggest that America, barring ‘an intellectual rebirth’, may yet go the way of German Nazis and Soviet communists.
Milton Friedman called the book ‘a devastating indictment of our current system of justice’. The road to hell is indeed paved with good intentions. “A thousand years of legal protections against tyranny are being stolen right before our eyes. Under the guise of good intentions, personal liberties as old as the Magna Carta have become casualties in the wars being waged on pollution, drugs, white-collar crime, and all of the other real and imagined social ills. The result: innocent people caught up in a bureaucratic web that destroys lives and livelihoods; businesses shuttered because of victimless infractions; a justice system that values coerced pleas over the search for truth; bullying police agencies empowered to confiscate property without due process.
” - - - the law, which once shielded us from the government, has now become a powerful weapon in the hands of overzealous prosecutors and bureaucrats. Lost is the foundation upon which our freedom rests - the intricate framework of Constitutional limits that protect our property, our liberty, and our lives. Roberts and Stratton convincingly argue that this abuse of government power doesn't have ideological boundaries. Indeed, conservatives and liberals alike use prosecutors, regulators, and courts to chase after their own favourite ‘devils’, to seek punishment over justice and expediency over freedom. The authors present harrowing accounts of people both rich and poor, of CEOs and blue-collar workers who have fallen victim to the tyranny of good intentions, who have lost possessions, careers, loved ones, and sometimes even their lives.
”This book is a sobering wake-up call to reclaim that which is rightly ours - liberty protected by the rule of law.” You can buy it at Amazon.
Other links: ‘Truth in Justice’ is an educational non-profit organized to educate the public regarding the vulnerabilities in the US criminal justice system that make the criminal conviction of wholly innocent persons possible. Find it HERE.
Some good news
From Pete
I talked to my lawyer yesterday. He had good news. Evidently, the judge ruled to reject our motion to suppress, without looking at some important things that were filed along with the motion to suppress. The things that were filed, if I understand this correctly, was a ruling in Georgia. This was evidently a case very similar to mine, in that a house was raided for drugs, and a computer was present. It goes something like this - - - . If you're a cop, and you enter someone's house looking for drugs, and you see a computer you want to snoop through looking for drug files, you have to stop the search altogether, and go apply for another warrant. Then while you're looking through the computer, if you come across something other then drug files, like child porn, you have to stop again, and apply for another search warrant. This law extends to Georgia, Florida, and you guessed it, Alabama. If this is indeed the fact, then this could be very good news, as the cops in my case have already admitted that they searched my computer illegally. I just thought you might want to know this.
Editor. This could be very important information for people accused in other jurisdictions.
And now, very good news indeed! October 18 2005
Pete writes: “I've been pretty busy celebrating my freedom! Yes sir, all the pornography charges were dropped, as I pled guilty to the drug charges. I have 2 years unsupervised probation, and I pay almost $2,000 in fines and such, which will be spread out over the next 2 years (I pay about $150.00 a month)."
At last, one American happy ending!
But not all agree
A UK reader writes: “I have to say, a very sad story, and a wholly inappropriate ending. The lawyer did what American lawyers tend to do, negotiate a settlement, and of course, for a few letters, the lawyer is no doubt quite happy with his own settlement. A substantial proportion of the American population take drugs, and it is not an issue if viewed as a problem, that is solved by trivial prosecutions and law enforcement. I cannot see that society gained anything at all by this preposterous process. As for Pete, what an absurdity that he had to go through any of this nonsense in the first place.”
Child pornography
Background reading
Mitsubishi abandons employee
Henry goes to prison
Dangers from your hard drive
Operations Ore and Amethyst are discredited
The Athlone story - State of malice
Irish judge in child porn allegations
Who did it? When child porn appears.
Operation Ore on the verge of collapse
Alabama man’s four year wait in Limbo
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