Around the Web

The Wall Street Journal's Law Blog is reporting that NBC is being sued following an incident produced for the “To Catch a Predator” series.  A Texas prosecutor contacted a decoy who had been posing as a 13 year-old boy, which allowed police to obtain search and arrest warrants for the man, and went to his home, with Chris Hansen and camera crew in tow.  Once the police entered the house, they saw the man enter and say, “I’m not going to hurt anyone.” He then shot himself with a handgun.  On camera, a police officer reported this to Hansen, and then allegedly said, “that’ll make good TV.”  The man's sister is now suing NBC is federal court for $100 million, claiming, among other things, intentional infliction of emotional distress. More information is available here.

Crime and Consequences reports that a new Kentucky bill will authorize law enforcement to seize property from convicted sex offenders. Confiscated houses, money, and personal belongings will be sold and the proceeds used to defray the cost of prosecuting sex offenders such as expert witnesses and forensics.

An Ohio judge has agreed to put the state's sex offender law on hold in 11 cases until a federal court judge addresses constitutional challenges to the new law.  Ohio's new Adam Walsh Act-complaint law is currently being challenged in U.S. District Court for the Northern of Ohio.

How Appealing mentions an article by the Associated Press which discusses the challenges police and prosecutors face in determining whether digital photos depicting child pornography are real.  In 2002, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a ban on computer-generated child pornography.

Comments

[ZMan]

Also check out Corrupted-Justice.com, there is a law suit against Perverted-Justice, Absolute Zero United and many of the other vigilantes out there who think everyone is a pedophile.

http://www.corrupted-justice.com/

[George]

The AP article is interesting and that is the first time I've seen any numbers on this.

"After officials submit seized photos, the center uses software and visual inspections to look for matches. It can usually verify that children in some or all of the images are known and real.

"The program, which costs about $1 million a year to run, now has about 1,300 children in its database, up from 20 in 2002. Staff grew from just Collins then to 11 full-time analysts who now work under her. The program reviewed 5 million images last year, up from about 450,000 in 2003, the program's first full year."

It's too late tonight to give it the concentration it deserves, but evidently most child porn is images of these 1,300, which is why it "can usually verify that children in some or all of the images are known and real."

1,300 is 1,300 too many, of course, but evidently most or almost all of the 5 million images are of those 1,300.

[jjoe]

RE: AP article:

Debbie Nathan had a bit on Professor Farid several months ago: http://debbienathan.com/2007/11/29/more-sex-angst-round-up/

"When Fabrizio contested the government’s claim that all the images portrayed real children, the FBI contacted Professor Farid and asked him to run one of his analysis programs on the porn. But Frabizio’s lawyers discovered that Farid’s program had a 30 percent error rate. The program often classified a real photo as computer generated. It also classified a cartoon image as real."

Meanwhile, the feds are allowing the distribution of known individuals in footage they prosecuted as child porn: http://trewthe.wordpress.com/2008/02/23/why-are-the-us-feds-allowing-the-distribution-of-footage-they-prosecuted-as-child-porn/

"Each week, about 100,000 sexually explicit images of children arrive on CDs or portable disk drives at Michelle Collins' office.

They are sent by police and prosecutors who hope Collins and her 11 analysts at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children can verify that the graphic pictures are real, not computer-generated. When they can't, officials sometimes turn to outside experts."

As far as I know, Collins is not a federal agent, and nothing in the statutes allows her or anyone else at NCMEC to view child porn, alleged or otherwise. Another hypocritical stance by the DOJ.

[dt gebhart]

Incest is just sex. Molestation is some thing different. Ages need to standard in all cases of incest. Some states consider 14 the age limit for consensual sex and others 18. A age standard should be a national not a state by state issue.