John Walsh "America's Most Wanted" host touts captures of child pornographers using new software

9-3-2010 National:

John Walsh, touring the nation, and a few State Attorney Generals are touting captures of online child pornographers using some new software by an unknown vendor.

See: NY- America's Most Wanted' host makes child-porn-targeting software available to Onondaga County sheriff (9-2-2010)

FL- Bay County Juvenile Among 77 Statewide Cybercrime Arrests (6-9-2010)

Florida dubbed the sting "Operation Orange Tree" and Florida is considered fourth in the nation for child pornography. See In statewide child porn sweep, most arrests in Polk

"Twenty-three agencies took part in the effort – including the Polk County Sheriff's Office, which made 45 of the arrests. Crist and McCollum lauded Polk Sheriff Grady Judd in particular for marshaling the resources to make the crack down on child pornography a high priority.

The high-profile press event took an overtly political turn when Walsh took the opportunity to endorse Gov. Charlie Crist in the race for U.S. Senate. He likewise endorsed McCollum for governor, "to pick up the mantle and take up where Charlie has left off."

Florida ranks 4th in the nation in volume of child pornography, according to the Federal Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force. Crist established the state's Child Predator/CyberCrime Unit in 2005 when he was Attorney General; the unit now has 30 members and five offices statewide, including in Tampa."

I am not sure that being the Governor of a state -fourth in the nation in child pornographers- and "Operation Orange Tree" showing that 95% of those captured were NEW sex offenders, and Florida's legislature spent its time on legislation targeting FORMER registered sex offenders, is a feather in one's cap towards being chosen as a state Senator, but who am I to say? Shouldn't legislators being looking to stop new crime rather than micro-manage former offenders, many of which were living under a bridge and likely lacked Internet access?

And, worse yet, Walsh hopes the new Governor keeps up the good work? What am I hearing? Oh its job security. Have to pay for the new software somehow.

Let's turn to the new software, the one with no catchy name and no vendor. Boy when something like this is being hidden doesn't that scare you? Maybe the ACLU needs to get involved here. Right now we have no idea if the software breaks any laws in catching these offenders, two of which were teenagers, one curious kid searching for "jailbait" pictures.

We do know this because John Walsh said:

Software designed to catch the exchange of child pornography between peer-to-peer computer users will be tried in Onondaga County in what the television host said will be a trial project for the state of New York.

Now, there is a scary thought, peer-to-peer networks, which means those computer hard drives were available to other Internet users, while searching was going on. Yes, I'm aware that peer-to-peer programs generally only allow access to certain folders, but I am also aware that today's hackers (clandestine as they are) break into computers and can do all sorts of things. And here we have a clandestine law enforcement operation, don't you just love that!

I wonder, yes I'm speculating, if law enforcement was watching the search terms being used, could they have setup files containing child porn so searchers would find and download them? And, if so, is that a form of entrapment? Time for lawyers to chime in here. ACLU -Internet and Forensic experts- where are you?

We know its true that courts have simply ignored when law enforcement actually lied to capture folks, and here they have technology as a method, all sorts of possibilities exist. Since these methods are new, they may not have been tested in court, but how will they ever be if the program has no name and no vendor? ACLU are you listening?

NOW THE GOOD STUFF: During "Operation Orange Tree" 77 offender were caught -over a eight-week operation in 2009- and 4 (four) of them were registered sex offenders.

Why is that good? The statistics, 4 / 77 = 5.4% of that group of offenders were recidivists. And that is a number that keeps coming up as the recidivism rate of former sex offenders. But, we do not know how long those offenders were in the community after their earlier conviction.

Important because the Department of Justice study everyone quotes "Recidivism of Sex Offenders Released from Prison in 1994" (the largest study of sex offender recidivism ever done) showed that 5.3% of the released sex offenders were re-arrested within 3 years of release.

Finally, I am left with my nose twitching again, this time about, the software being used and the fact there are no court cases testing it. ACLU where are you?

For now, have a great day and a better tomorrow.
eAdvocate

PS: Mark Foley was also an upstanding person in Congress who authored the SORNA portion of the Adam Walsh Act, and while he was doing that was also conversing online -sexually explicitly- with 16 year old Congressional Pages. Ultimately he stepped down and never was convicted of anything with respect to those minors according to the Adam Walsh Act. Foley was chairman of the House Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children, which introduced legislation targeting sexual predators and created stricter guidelines for tracking them.